Module 5

Question 1

What are some of the basic tenet stuff of critical theory?

Answer 1

• race is a social construction
• Racism can be perpetuated by individuals, but is a societal problem related to social structures
• racism is commonplace in law

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Question 2

What are the failures of capitalism and globalization?

Answer 2

The oppression of the working class

Overproduction leading to debt

Question 3

how are postcolonial theory and critical theories of race and racism also anti-globalization theories?

Answer 3

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Question 4

Superstructure

Answer 4

To marx, secondary social phenomena, like the state and culture, that are erected on an economic base that serves to define them. Most extremely, the economy determines the superstructure

Question 5

Base

Answer 5

To marx, the economy, which conditions, if not determines, the nature of everything else in society

Question 6

Culture industry

Answer 6

To critical theorists, industries such as movies and radio that were serving to make culture a more important factor in society than the economy

Question 7

Mass culture

Answer 7

The culture made available to, and popular among, the masses

Question 8

Herbert Marcuse

Answer 8

ideas resonated with those protesting the vietnam war

critic of repression and advanced capitalist society

critiqued modern technology

Question 9

One-dimensional society

Answer 9

To Marcuse, the result of the breakdown in the dialiectical relationship between people and the larger structures they created, so that people are largely controlled by such structures. They lose the ability to create and to be actively involved in those structures, and individual freedom and creativiy dwindle away, leaving people without the capiacity to think critically and negatively about the structures that control and oppress them.

Question 10

technocratic thinking

Answer 10

Concern with benig efficient, with simply finding the best means to an end without reflecting on either the means or the end

Question 11

knowledge industry

Answer 11

to the critital theorists, those entities in society concerned with knowledge production and dissemination, especially research institutes and universities. Like the culture industry, these settings have achieved a large measure of autonomy within society, which has allowed them to redefine themselves. Instead of serving the interests of society as a whole, they have come to focus on their own interests; this means that they are intent on expanding their influence over society

Question 12

reason

Answer 12

the assessment of means to ends in terms of ultimate human values such as justice, freedom, and happiness

Question 13

irrationality of rationality

Answer 13

The idea that rational systems inevidably sspwan a series of irrationalities

Question 14

Henri Lefebvre

Answer 14

neo-marxist spatial analysist

Question 15

absolute spaces

Answer 15

spaces built in natural locations that embody religious and political principles. Ultimately these spaces serve the interests of political and religious elites

Question 16

historical space

Answer 16

the kind of space produced when seperate nations vie with one another or power and the accumlation of wealth

Question 17

abstract space

Answer 17

the kind of space produced witin modern capitalist society, where space is treated as a problem to be solved and calculated. Such space dominates nature and all unique human forms

Question 18

differential space

Answer 18

a hoped-for space that would accentuate difference and freedom from control and would restore the natural unity that is broken by abstract space

Question 19

David Harvey

Answer 19

neo marxian spatial analysist

-capitalism seeking new geographic areas to exploit

Question 20

world-system

Answer 20

a broad economic entity with a division of labour that is not cirumscribed by political or cultural boundaries. it is a social system, composed internally of a variety of social structures and member groups, that is largely self-contained, has a set of boundaries, and has a definable life span

Question 21

core

Answer 21

the geographic area that dominates the capitalist world-economy and exploits the rest of the system

Question 22

periphery

Answer 22

those areas of the capitalist world-economy that provide raw materials to the core and are heavily exploited by it

Question 23

semiperiphery

Answer 23

a residual category in the capitalist world-economy that encompasses a set of regions somewhere between the exploiting and the exploited

Question 24

Norbert Elias

Answer 24

Civilizing process

Question 25

civilizing process

Answer 25

the long-term change in the west in manners as they relate to daily behaviou. Everyday behaviours once acceptable have, over time, become increasingly unacceptable. Compared with our forebears, we are ore likely to observe the everyday behaviours of others, to be sensitive to them, to understand them better, and, perhaps most imiportant, to find an increasing number of them embarrassing. What we once found acceptable now embarrasses us enormously. As a result, many things that were once quite public are not hidden from view

Question 26

race

Answer 26

a social construction that classifies people according to phenotypic differences such as skin colour, hair type, and eye shape

Question 27

colonialsm

Answer 27

the process by which natons occupy and politically dominate other nations. Most oten this refers to the expansion of european nations between the 16th and 19th centuries

Question 28

settler colonialism

Answer 28

a form of colonialism in which the colonizers establish permanent settlements in the colonies. Examples include the french colonies in what are now the united states and canada and the british colonies in the US, CA, and AU

Question 29

phob ogenic objec

Answer 29

Fanon’s description of the black man as viewed by french colonial society. for wchite europeans, black persons, and in particular black men, embodied unconscious fears

Question 30

phenomenology

Answer 30

the philosophical study of subjective experience

Question 31

dialectic of recognition

Answer 31

the intersubjective process through which people mutually recognize one another’s identities, thereby creating self-consciousness

Question 32

existentialism

Answer 32

a school of philosophy that emphasizes the importance of freedom and personal responsibility of human beings

Question 33

racial-epidermal schema

Answer 33

a way of looking at and acting on people that prioratizzes skin colour and other so-called racial features

Question 34

Frantz Fanon

Answer 34

-raised in french colony
-earned rep in algeria in north africa
-psychiatrist
political involvement with revolutionary National liberation front

Question 35

primitive accumulation

Answer 35

a process described by marx in which the precious metals and raw materials taken from colonial possessions were used to fuel the early stages of capitalism

Question 36

ideology

Answer 36

to marxists, and neo-marxists, ideas that distract dpeople from understanding the true causes of social inequality and human suffering

Question 37

neocolonialism

Answer 37

the idea that even though most colonizing nations abandoned their colonies by the mid-20th century, the basic power structures of colonialism continue to operate under the form of neoliberal globalization

Question 38

postcolonial theory

Answer 38

a theoretical perspective that describes the cultural forces that enable postcolonial power and describes sources of potential resistance to that power

Question 39

orientalism

Answer 39

a way of thinking, writing, and talking that distinguishes, in broad, stereotyprical ways, between the occident (western societies_ and the orient (easter societies). this distinction implies that occidental societies are superior to oriental societies and that occidental societies have a duty to dominate and control oriental societies

Question 40

discourse

Answer 40

a symbolic system that organizes and classifies the world

Question 41

critical race theory

Answer 41

a perspective centered in the study of the law and it’s relationship to the perpetuation of racism and racial domination

Question 42

differential racialization

Answer 42

the idea that different minority groups are racialized in different ways at different times

Question 43

Kimberle crenshaw

Answer 43

coined the term intersectionality

Question 44

critical theories of race and racism (CTRR)

Answer 44

a set of theories that have much in common with critical race theory but are centered in the social sciences rather than in the study of the law. these theories focus on the way that racism and racial domination are perpetuated through multiple social institutions

Question 45

postracial society

Answer 45

the idea that race no longer plays a significant role in the social life of a society; specifically, some claim that race has played little role in American social life since the civil rights era

Question 46

racial formation

Answer 46

the idea that the concept of race is not natural but rather a social construction that has been formed over long periods of time

Question 47

split labour market theory

Answer 47

the theory that racial and ethnic tensions develop when owning classes (the bourgeoise) pit workers (the proletariat) from different racial categories against each other

Question 48

racialization

Answer 48

the process by which phenothypic differences are made to matter in a socially significant way

Question 49

racial projects

Answer 49

the concrete social processes through which racialization occurs

Question 50

frames of colour-blind racism

Answer 50

common ways of interpreting information about race. Bonilla-Silva describes four such frames: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racisms, and minimization of racism

Question 51

systemic theory of race

Answer 51

theory of race that brings together multiple theoritical perspectives, operates at multiple levels of analysis, and provides a more or less exhastuive set of analytic categories

Question 52

racial field

Answer 52

he totality or racial identities that exist within a given society as well as their relationships to one another

Question 53

racial capital

Answer 53

the kind of capital, and therefore pwer, that comes from being a member of a particular racialized group

Question 54

racial cultural structures

Answer 54

the symbolic organizzation or racial life

Question 55

racial collective-emotional structures

Answer 55

the group organization of feelings about race

Question 56

practical evaluative agency

Answer 56

a concept that emphasizes that action is not a machinelike application of rules, but is based on embodied, dynamic engagement with the field

Question 57

itrative agency

Answer 57

a kind of action that is focused on the past and aims to reproduce habit, custom, and tarditions

Question 58

racial illusio

Answer 58

the shared set of ideas that people have about the racial field and how it works

Question 59

projective agency

Answer 59

a kind of agency that is focused on the future and, through projects, tries to maintain or change the existing order

Question 60

conservative strategy

Answer 60

in emirbayer and desmond’s theory about race, the kind of projective agency in which actors try to maintain the existing racial order

Question 61

subversion strategy

Answer 61

in emirbayer and desmond’s theory about race, the kind of projective agency in which actors try to change the existing racial order

Question 62

negritude movement

Answer 62

an intellectual movement during the early 20th century that opposed the values of white, capitalist, colonial culture and sought a pan-african identity in the values of african culture

Question 63

cyclical theory of state formation

Answer 63

IBN Khaldun’s theory, based on his experiences with North African societies, that state formation is driven by a cyclical reltaionship between pastoral and nomadic social forms. This is in contrast to modern western linear theories of state formation

Question 64

asabiyyah

Answer 64

a feeling of group solidarity or social cohesion

Question 65

northern theory

Answer 65

thoeries developed in europe and north america; also known as western theory or metropolitan theory

Question 66

southern theory

Answer 66

theories developed in the global southl also known as peripheral theory or indigenous theory

Question 67

westoxification

Answer 67

the collective negative effects of western imperialism on iran and colonized middle eastern nations, including the alienation of people from local culture and the domination of everyday life through imported machinery

Question 68

subaltern studies group

Answer 68

a group of indian and south asian scholars who base their social theory on local political movments in india and south aasia

Question 69

reconciliation

Answer 69

attempts to overcome the damage of the colonial past and to establish equitable and fair relations between colonizers and the colonizer

Question 70

politics of recognition

Answer 70

political practices shaped by the idea that the integrity and well-being of people depends on the recognition of their unique cultural practices and identities

Question 71

dispossession of land

Answer 71

the removal of indigenous persons from their traidtional lands as well as the division of definition of land on european terms

Question 72

resurgence

Answer 72

the reinvigoration and regeneration of indigenous life through indigenous culture and ideas

Question 73

Zigmundt Bouman

Answer 73

Space wars

Question 74

What are some of the major differences between Marx’s view of capitalism and that of critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School?

Answer 74

Marx - capitalism and inequality between the proletariat and the bourgeois

Frankfurt - focus on racial inequality and phenemology

Question 75

Three definitions of orientalist

Answer 75

1. ) academic one, and indeed the label still serves in a number of academic institutions. Anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient–and this applies whether the person is an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, or philologist–either in its specific or its general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she says or does is Orientalism. . . .
2. ) based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) the “occident.”
3. ) corporate institution for dealing with the Orient–dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.

Question 76

What are the failures of globalization?

Answer 76

Overall and wealth and productivity down, but elites doing well

Keeps wages down and increases interest rates

Job insecurity and underemployment

Undemocratic - based in what’s beat for businesses

Individualism and personal responsibility

Faith in the market and promotion of it as infallible

enlarging business profits and weakening labor it has shifted the balance of power further toward business, so that political parties have been even more decisively influenced by business money in elections.

Limits political options

Question 77

How has the downturn in Asian economics revealed the contradictions of capitalism?

Answer 77

Working-class poor

Asia’s increased integration into the world market makes it dependent on it

Battle with international capital

-food riots, student demonstrations for democracy, workers strikes against layoffs - are widespread

Question 78

the Asian miracle

Answer 78

“Asian miracle,” has seen enormous growth in the size of the employed working-class and major progress in working class self-organization and struggle across the region. Throughout the economic South, or the so-called “developing world,” the number of industrial workers alone increased from about 285 million in 1980 to over 400 million by 1994, much of this growth concentrated in Asia. Moreover, during this period women in East Asia entered the paid workforce in huge numbers. Today, women constitute 42 percent of all wage-laborers in the region and often an overwhelming majority in key industries like garments, electrical goods, and electronics. On top of this, the late 1980s saw widespread growth in union organization. During the years 1987 to 1989, for example, the number of organized workers increased by 27 percent in Bangladesh, 38 percent in the Philippines and fully 100 percent in South Korea. Over the years 1986 to 1989 the number increased more than 50 percent in Taiwan.6

Question 79

How do capitalists react to an economy in debt? Who are their allies? Who are the fatalities?

Answer 79

Adding capacity at a time of overcapacity
overproduction
objective, after all, is to insure that someone else fails in the scramble for market share
**Capitalists overproduce in an effort to come on top over others producing the same products

Question 80

Competing centres

Answer 80

Western and non-western

People who are both American and an other (African American)

Question 81

What does Featherstone suggest will be the effect on individuals when “culture fails to provide us with a single taken-for-granted recipe for action”?

Answer 81

Creates a stage for global differences

Makes us aware of new levels of diversity