lecture 3 (sept 18)

Subjectivist Theories

• Doesn’t focus on deviant act itself

• Focuses on why people find actions deviant

• Theories:

  • Critical Theories: Marxist, Conflict

  • Interpretive/Symbolic Theories

Conflict Theory

• Focused on who holds the power and determine what is deviant; ensures people won’t rebel against elites

  • Meritocracy: belief that working hard will help u make it and therefore not rebel against the system

  • Individualism: belief that you are your own your responsibility — can lead to not wanting to pay for taxes for others

  • Competition: belief that it regulates the capitalist economy

• False consciousness: supporting an ideology that oppresses us

Marxist Theory

• Capitalism inequality, exploitation, and superfluous population

• Problematic populations (PP) need to be controlled:

  • when they steal

  • when they refuse to work

  • when they use drugs/alc for non-productive reasons

  • when they refuse to increase skill

  • when they challenge the functioning of capitalist society

Foucault and Panopticon

• People will adhere to norms to avoid being labelled deviant

• Panopticon: observes and gains knowledge about the observed by always keeping them visible — disables people from being deviant due to fear of always being watched

Power-Reflexive Theories Poststructuralism

• Focuses on the intertwining of power and knowledge

• Power determines which knowledge is legit

  • power of church: i.e. masturbation is a sin

  • power of science: masturbation is normal part of sexual experience

Feminist Theories

• Deviance is gendered

• Men commit more serious crimes

• Women commit petty deviance like gossip

Interpretive/Symbolic Interactionism Theories

• Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural Capital

• Elijah Anderson: The Code on the Street

• Howard Becker: The Deviant Career

• Edwin Lemert, Howard Becker: Labelling Theory

Pierre Bourdieu

• Claimed there were other forms of capitals and not just economy (where Marx claimed only wealthy have power)

• To gain status: must belong

• To be accepted: must have cultural capital (how we dress, speak, etc.)

Elijah Anderson Code on the Streets

• Asks why inner-city young people (a subculture) are inclined to be aggressive and violent to each other

  • Because of “code” of the streets (code: willingness to use violence)

  • Code governs choices young people make

  • prominent against racialized and poor areas

• Code caused by:

  • weak bond to institutions and families (neglect, abuse), anger, little hope for future and self-respect (have to work for respect on the streets through “nerve”), worsened by lack of trust in institutions

• Trying to maintain self-respect by trying to prove yourself every time, which causes fights, is unstable (you can win a fight today but lose one tomorrow and lose your self-respect)

Deviant Career

• Becoming a deviant and building a career are both step-by-step journeys shaped by how people interpret their experiences and unexpected events they encounter

• i.e. stealing at a young age can deepen deviance due to out of control influences like bad foster family and crimes get bigger

Labelling Theory

• Process of people getting labelled as deviant which reflected how others treat them and how they view their own identities

• Primary: minimal deviance; no effect on self-identity

• Secondary: labelling someone deviant may cause them to adopt that identity which increases deviance i.e. self-fulfilling prophecy