Social Inequality

Question 1

Social Inequality

Answer 1

Unequal access to the culturally valued resources of wealth, power, and prestige.

Question 2

Defining Stratification

Answer 2

• Social stratification – systematic patterns of inequality that characterize most human societies
  
  • Strata (layers or levels) contain categories of persons who have unequal access to culturally valued resources because they belong to particular social categories
  • Members of stratified categories are relatively advantaged or disadvantaged

Question 3

Values and Stratification

Answer 3

• Max Weber argued (The Theory of Social and Economic Organization) that “stratification” fundamentally concerns differential access to three key social values: wealth (class), power (parties), and status (prestige)
• The three values (wealth, power, status) are often correlated but not always
• University professors often have status but lack wealth and power
• The Kshatriya caste in India has more wealth than the Brahmin caste but less public esteem
• The nouveau riche have wealth but lack “good manners”

Question 4

Types of Society

Answer 4

• Morton Fried identified three types of society based on levels of inequality *
  
  • Egalitarian (social status based on achievement) - !Kung
  • Rank (social status based on ascription) - Tikopia
  • Stratified (formation of social classes) - US

Question 5

Egalitarian - !Kung

Answer 5

• A society that recognizes few differences in status, wealth, or power.
• They are usually found among food collectors, such as the Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari region, the Hadza of Tanzania, and the Mbuti of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• These cultures have economies based on reciprocity, and have little or no political role specialization. Even though certain individuals in an egalitarian society may be highly esteemed for their skills or knowledge or character, they are not able to transform their special skills into wealth or power.
• No matter how much or how little respect an individual in an egalitarian society may have, he or she is neither denied the right to practise a certain profession nor subject to the control of others.
• Control of water holes, but none denied access
• Leadership tied to charisma, experience and wisdom
• Sharing characterizes social relationships
• Levelling mechanisms
• Generosity in such societies is expected, and attempts to accumulate possessions, power, or prestige are ridiculed.

Question 6

Rank - Tikoa

Answer 6

• A society in which people have unequal access to prestige and status but not unequal access to wealth and power.
• Many found in Oceania
• they are usually found among chiefdoms, have economies based on redistribution, and exhibit limited political role specialization.
• High-prestige positions such as chief or “big man”—which are largely hereditary—establish a ranking system that distinguishes among various levels of prestige and esteem.
• Even though the chiefs in a rank society possess great prestige and privilege, they generally do not accumulate great wealth; their basic standard of living is not noticeably different from that of an ordinary person.
• Chiefs usually receive gifts of tribute from members of other kin groups, but they rarely keep them for their personal use. Instead, they give them all away through the process of redistribution
• In many rank societies, chiefs are considered to own the land but not in the Western sense of the term. The chief certainly has little power to keep anyone from using the land. The chief may control land to the extent that he encourages people not to neglect either the land or their obligation to contribute to the chief’s tribute. But the chief has little real power or control over the land.
• Institutionalized access to prestige
• BUT those with prestige must earn power and wealth
  
  • Tikopia chief must still farm

Question 7

Stratified - US

Answer 7

• A society with a large population that is divided into several levels based on the degree of social inequality.
• Institutionalized access to prestige, power and wealth
• They are found in societies with large populations, have market economies, and are associated with state systems of government.
• The political, economic, and social inequality in stratified societies is both permanent and formally recognized by the members of the society. Some people—and entire groups of people—have little or no access to the basic resources of the society.
• Ability?
• Mobility?

Question 8

Explanations for Stratification

Answer 8

• Two major perspectives
• Consensus Theory: inequality benefits society (it’s necessary) (Talcott Parsons, Kingsley Davis, Wilbert Moore)
• Conflict Theory: stratification is detrimental to society (Karl Marx, Pierre Bourdieu)

Question 9

Consensus Theory

Answer 9

• Davis-Moore Hypothesis, three assumptions:
  
  • Societies need leaders who have the self-discipline, intelligence, and vision required to resolve complex problems
  • Leadership involves risk and cost - society’s problem is how to encourage people with the appropriate qualities to serve as leaders
  • Society’s answer to the problem is to obtain good leaders by rewarding them differentially

Question 9

Problems with Consensus Theory

Answer 9

• It is naïve to believe that those who attain leadership positions are the most qualified to lead (look at the father-son pairs on this slide!)
• Attaining leadership can happen through processes that are weakly related to personal ability
• Social position is generally inherited and social stratification may prevent capable leaders from holding formal office
• In terms of elevating leaders of high quality to office, systems of social stratification are counter-productive

Question 10

Conflict Theory

Answer 10

• Rejects the view that society is a smoothly functioning machine - societies consist of loose arrangements of groups with different interests and goals (classes, ethnic groups, etc.)
• Groups compete with each other to control the distribution of scarce social values - especially the distribution of wealth
• Groups successful in the competition look for ways to institutionalize their dominance - the outcome is what we see as a “system” of stratification

Question 11

Class versus Caste

Answer 11

• social mobility: The ability of people to change their social position within the society.
• Social mobility or…
• Ascribed at birth
• class: A ranked group within a stratified society characterized by achieved status and considerable social mobility. (open society)
• caste: A ranked group within a rigidly stratified society in which membership is ascribed at birth and social mobility is almost non-existent. (closed society)
• Both are stratified societies
  
  • The big distinction is whether status is achieved or ascribed combined with the possibility of social mobility – how does this really play out?
• For a variety of reasons (some more obvious than others), many are born into statuses even in class societies
  
  • Wealth, educational opportunities, connections – majority of med students have MDs in their family
• And as Bourdieu points out, no amount of economic capital can overcome a lack or cultural capital
• Even the Hindu caste system (the exemplar) sees instances of moving up (Sanskritization, hypergamy)
• The differences in our definitions are a matter of ideology (and, sure, practices too) but exceptions to the ideal exist in both types of societies

Question 12

Class Societies

Answer 12

• For Karl Marx, classes were groups of people who share common economic interests and perform the same function in relation to the organization of production
  
  • the proletariat (working class)
  • the bourgeoisie (capitalists)
  • different access to resources and power
• Canada is a good example of a class society. Although where the line between classes is drawn is relatively arbitrary, social scientists tend to identify social classes based on education, power, and especially income and net worth.
• In September 2011, several hundred demonstrators occupied Zuccotti Park in New York City’s financial district to protest global social and economic inequality in what came to be called Occupy Wall Street.
• This led to “occupy Movement”, which spread to major cities in Canada
  ”We are the 99%”
• absolute poverty: The condition in a given society in which people lack the income required to access the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter, to achieve a minimum level of physical well-being.
• relative poverty: The condition in a given society in which people lack the minimum income required to obtain the society’s normal standard of living.

Question 13

Ideology and Stratification

Answer 13

• Systems of social stratification are accompanied by justifying conventions
• Boxer said – “I will work harder” Any child can become president
• In the US – The top 1% of households holds more wealth than the bottom 80%

Question 14

Bourdieu and Symbolic Violence

Answer 14

• Bourdieu is (maybe?) a post-Marxist or Weberian
• Introduces different forms of capital
  
  • Outline of a Theory of Practice (1977)
  • Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979)
• Economic, social and cultural capital more or less correlate with wealth, power and prestige
• Uses the concept symbolic violence (=ideology)
  
  • Non-physical violence manifested in the power differential between social groups
  • Legitimizes economic and political relations
  • Taken-for-granted as proper, natural, inescapable

Question 15

Bourdieu and Types of Capital

Answer 15

• 3 types: economic, social, and cultural
• A fourth type, symbolic capital, designates the effects of any form of capital when people do not perceive them as such

Question 16

Symbolic Violence

Answer 16

• symbolic violence (=ideology)
  
  • Non-physical violence manifested in the power differential between social groups
  • Legitimizes economic and political relations
  • Taken-for-granted as proper, natural, inescapable

Question 17

Status Symbols

Answer 17

• status symbol: Cultural item that conveys a person’s status.
• We often think of as consumer goods (fancy car, nice watch), but don’t have to be expensive items
• Sugar used to be a symbol of high status, only the aristocracy can afford it, only bring out sugar in tea when you have guests over.
• status symbols are culturally relative.
• Can be other culturally significant indicators of status change
  
  • Wedding bands
  • Ritual scarification
  • Police uniform

Question 17

European Roma

Answer 17

• Numbering between seven and nine million people, the Roma (derogatorily called gypsies) of present-day Europe are a migratory version of Indian Dalits. Linguistic and genetic evidence indicates that the Roma originated on the Indian subcontinent about a thousand years ago as low-caste Hindus and subsequently migrated westward, through Persia, into the Balkans, and eventually throughout all of Europe.
• They were enslaved for nearly 500 years.
• Nazis murdered several thousands Romas in WWI

Question 17

Caste Societies

Answer 17

• Membership in castes is unchangeable; people in different castes are segregated from one another; social mobility is virtually non-existent; and marriage between members of different castes is strictly prohibited.
• First, caste membership is directly related to economic issues such as occupation, workloads, and control of valuable resources. The higher castes have a monopoly on high-status occupations, control the allocation of resources to favour themselves, and avoid engaging in difficult or low-status work.
• Second, members of the same caste share the same social status, residential and social segregation from other castes, and uniformity of lifestyles.
• Third, caste exclusiveness is further enhanced because each caste has its own set of rituals, which tend to intensify group awareness and identity.
• Fourth, the higher castes are generally most interested in maintaining the caste system for the obvious reason that they benefit from it the most.
• Caste societies can be found in a number of regions of the world, such as among the Rwandans in Central Africa, which consist of the Tutsi, who consider themselves the most superior, the Hutu, who outnumbered the Tutsi, and the Twa the smallest of the three groups
• Traditional Japanese society was also a caste society with the emperor and nobles at the top, below which were four groups, or castes: samurai (who served the nobles), peasants, craftsmen, and merchants (Howell 2005).
• South Africa under Apartheid can also be consider a caste society.
• Social Mobility is very limited

Question 17

Slavery

Answer 17

• Before the 1400s slavery was widespread in state societies 
• But its victims were either recruited internally or from neighbouring groups and were largely physically indistinguishable from slave-holders. i. e. slavery was not based on race Roman slaves pouring wine 
• Slavery was a status that might be held by anyone. 
• Slave descendants could acculturate into the dominant population and did not become permanently demarcated by race

Question 17

Exploration

Answer 17

• Exploration brought Europeans increasingly into contact with other human societies
• Europeans did not encounter them on equal terms
• Exploration quickly turned to conquest

Question 17

A Brief History of Race or Racism

Answer 17

• Racism, as we understand it, did not exist until the European expansion and exploration beginning around 1500
• The ancient Greeks, for example, saw themselves as first among civilized nations around the Mediterranean
• But the Greeks did not link physical appearance and cultural attainment
• They granted civilized status to the Nile Valley Nubians who were among the darkest skinned people they knew 
• They did not grant it to European barbarians to the north who were lighter skinned than they were 
• People were divided on the basis of religion, class or language

Question 17

Hindu Caste System

Answer 17

• Hinduism’s sacred Sanskrit texts rank all people into four categories, or castes, called varnas, which are also associated with certain occupations.
• The highest caste, the Brahmins (priests and scholars), came from his mouth; the Kshatriyas (warriors, kings, and governors) emanated from his arms; the Vaishyas (tradesmen, farmers, artisans) came from his thighs; and the Shudras (labourers and servants) sprang from his feet. Each of these four castes is hierarchically ranked according to its ritual purity
• Below these four castes—and technically outside the caste system—is still another category, called Dalit, which means literally the crushed or oppressed people.
  
  • used to be referred to as untouchables and were confined to the lowest and most menial types of work, such as cleaning latrines, sweeping streets, or disposing of animal carcasses
  • avoid touching or one will be polluted.
  • rituals to purify after accidental contact
  • segregation (untouchability practices)
• These local subgroups, known as jati, are local family groups that are strictly endogamous. All members of a jati who share a common social status are expected to behave in ways appropriate for that jati.
• Although the prohibitions against social intercourse among castes are rigidly defined, the amount of interdependence among local castes should not be overlooked.
  
  • largely economic rather than social
• Sanskritization: A form of upward social mobility found in contemporary India whereby people born into lower castes can achieve higher status by taking on some of the behaviours and practices of the highest (Brahmin) caste.
• hypergamy: The practice of marrying someone from a higher social strata.

Question 18

The “Scientific” basis of race

Answer 18

• The concept of race emerged in modern form between the end of the 1700s century and the middle of the 1800s
• Culminated in 1795 when Johann Friedrich Blumenbach first used the word “race” to classify humans into five categories
• 1830s and 1840s Samuel Morton set out to prove that whites were naturally superior
• In the 1890s, Boas breaks the link of anthropology with race by showing that language, race and culture are distinctive
• Lives on in books like The Bell Curve and anthro journal, Mankind Quarterly

Question 19

Race and Racism

Answer 19

• “Why Genes Don’t Count (for Racial Differences in Health)” Alan Goodman (2000)
  
  • The concept of race is based on the idea of fixed, ideal, and unchanging types
  • Human variation is nonconcordant
  • Within-group genetic variation is much greater than variation among “races”
  • There is no way to consistently classify by race
  • There is no clarity as to what race is and what it is not
• Race is real. Rather than being based in biology, it reflects social and political processes. Racialization and racism come about because, in a racialized culture, we read meaning into skin color
• In 1779 German naturalist and anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach expanded on the work of Linnaeus using skull measurements, and divided the human species into five races: Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, and American. His scheme acted as the standard of racial classification for nearly 200 years
• polygenesis: The theory that human races have multiple origins.
• monogenesis: The theory that human races have a single origin.
• One of the main polygenesists was Samuel Morton. By the 1840s Morton had collected nearly 700 skulls of known racial origin (Brace 2005). He went about measuring the cranial capacity of each of the skulls by plugging up all the holes, filling the skulls with lead shotgun pellets, and then pouring the pellets into a beaker to obtain the cranial capacity in cubic centimetres. His results indicated that the Africans and Australian Aborigines had the lowest cranial capacity and Europeans the highest, with the other races in between (Gould 1981). The obvious implication was that the larger the cranial capacity, the larger the brain, and thus the more intelligent. Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould later reanalyzed Morton’s skulls. When he measured the skulls without knowing their racial identity he found that the measurements overlapped.
• Morton’s work provided what was thought of as scientific proof of the biological inferiority of certain races. It was this sort of evidence that fuelled the eugenics movement. Eugenics is a set of ideas and practices aimed at improving the genetic quality of a population.
• reverse discrimination: Treating members of the dominant group differently in an effort to remedy previous discrimination against members of subordinate groups.\
• racialism: The idea that race determines specific characteristics and capacities such as intelligence, and that some races are superior to others.
• racism: A type of discrimination whereby people are treated differently based on the race they belong to.
• structural racism: Where the institutions and systems of society are structured such that the subordinate group is disadvantaged or discriminated against.
• racial profiling: The discriminatory practice of targeting a person for reasons of safety, security, or public protection based on a stereotype of their race, ethnicity, religion, or place of origin.
• ethnic cleansing: The systematic and forced removal of an ethnic or religious group from a given geographic area in order to make it religiously and/or ethnically homogenous.
• genocide: The systematic murder of an entire group of people.

Question 20

Evolution of skin colour

Answer 20

• Textbook mentions skin cancer and rickets
• Jablonski emphasizes evolutionary fitness
  
  • Folate
  • Females have relatively lighter skin vitamin D3
  • D3 is also essential for spermatogenesis

Question 21

Race and Ethnicity

Answer 21

• Racial categories are based on physical traits (yet not biological categories)
  
  • phenotype: Observable physical characteristics.
  • arbitrary classifications
• Ethnicity refers to language, culture, traditions, and sometimes nationality
• Both can be important to individual and group identities and sources of discrimination
• one-drop rule: A rule, and in many U.S. States a law, that if a person had one ancestor who was black, typically one great-great-great-great-grandparent, then they too were considered black.
• hypodescent: The assignment of a child from a mixed race, ethnic group, or other social group to the inferior or lower status group.
• miscegenation: The marriage or interbreeding of people considered to be of different races.
• ethnicity: The linguistic and cultural characteristics and heritage a person identifies with.
• visible minorities: People in Canada, other than Aboriginal (Indigenous) peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.
• reverse discrimination: Treating members of the dominant group differently in an effort to remedy previous discrimination against members of subordinate groups.\
• racialism: The idea that race determines specific characteristics and capacities such as intelligence, and that some races are superior to others.
• racism: A type of discrimination whereby people are treated differently based on the race they belong to.

Question 22

The Indian Act in Canada (1876)

Answer 22

• This clearly paternalistic statement rests on the stereotype that Canada’s Indigenous peoples were like children. It is also aimed at assimilating them into mainstream society by eliminating their culture.
• In 1876 most people did not see the Indian Act as racist, after all it was considered the “white man’s burden” to help them reach and enjoy the benefits of a civilized state.
• Casts First Nations as dependents of the government of
  
  • Guarantees a status that recognizes their unique identity, history, and ethnicity, but, at what cost?
    
    • Individuals must register as Indians to ensure they receive government entitlements, but, they are deprived of rights that non-Indians enjoy
    • Serves as a foundation for residential schools and assimilation policies
    • Extra discrimination against women – if marry non-status man, their children were non-status
• Attempts to discard the Indian Act (White paper 1969) are resisted by some First Nation leaders as a threat to identity
• Blood quantum as proof of Indian identity (not a blood test, you need to prove you have indigenous ancestors; mostly US, some Canadian too)
• https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/josiah-wilson-indian-act-hereditary-governance-1.3668636

Question 23

How do these ideas relate to research in anthropology ?

Answer 23

• In examining inequalities anthropologists are not concerned with inequalities of ability, aptitude or talent among individuals, but concerned with inequalities that are an inherent part of collective existence 
• Studies aim at investigating not only the existing patterns of inequality but also the mechanisms of their reproduction over time 
• A major change between the past and present has been the shift of attention from the origin to the reproduction of inequality