Week 7 (Social groups & Social stratification) Flashcards
4 Parts of a Social Group
- Non-kin groups
- Social groups
- Primary group
- Secondary group
Social groups
- Everyone has a responsibility
- Modes of livelihood influence group
Ex. Forages and pastoralist have smaller groups. - Variety of groups.
Non-kin group
- Shapes group identity
- Relationships, Power & Hierarchy
Primary group
- People that know each other
Secondary group
- People that has no personal relations
- Identify through common ground
Friendship
- Relationship between two people (Voluntary, non-kin, informal)
- There’s a difference between culture and genders
- Supports each other
Ex. Balanced exchange, story telling, Economic survival
Rituals
The body
- Experiencing reality going through our body
- How the world is meaningful
Your own body
- Culture and tradition
- Hierarchy and inequalities made visible
Rituals II
Rites of passage
- How people learn about their own culture/group
Rituals transform individual’s status
- Go from one state to the next.
Pedagogical use of rituals (Pierre Clastres).
- Teach something about culture/group.
- Creates Solidarity between members.
- Shared experience
- Connection to older generation/members.
Clubs and Frats
Share identities and objectives
- Sociability and psychological support
- Economic and political purposes.
Entertainment and social service
Greek system in the USA (Peggy
Sanday)
Countercultural groups
Groups outside “mainstream” who resist common cultural pattern.
* Shared initiation and other rituals
Youth gangs
* Considered social problem by adults and enforcement
* Rituals for new members
* Symbolic markers
Why people join gangs?
* Home issues
* Missing feeling of a family?
Countercultural groups II
Defiant individualist
* Intense competitiveness
* Mistrust of others
* Self-reliance
* Social Isolation
* Strong survival instinct.
Structurist view
* Poverty shape individual
* Economic changes in urban employment opportunities
* Want to “succeed”
* Illegal activities.
Body Modification groups
Identity shaped by body alteration.
* Rituals
* Public display
* Binds expert, the Volunteer, and the group
Identified with specific group
Cooperatives
Economic group that shares economic benefits among members.
* One member – One vote
* Agricultural co-ops
* Credit co-ops
* Consumer co-op
Guna (Panama)
* Molas (Cloth)
* Greater economic security
* Greater leadership skills
* More politically engaged
Social stratifications
Hierarchal relationship among different groups.
Inequality based on:
* Material resources
* Power
* Human welfare
* Education, etc.
People in higher position have access to various privileges
* Interest in maintaining their position.
Ascribed vs Achieved Status
Ascribed status
* Based on qualities of a person gained
through birth
* Race, gender, age etc.
Achieved status
* Based on qualities of a person gained
through action
Every status/position
* Expected behavior
Ascribed vs Achieved Status II
Class as an achieved status
* Individual’s position within society, defined by
economic terms
Idea of upward mobility
* Meritocratic individualism (Durrenberger, 2001)
Central to Marx’s analysis of capitalism.
* Struggle between classes move history
Ascribed vs Achieved Status III
Race, ethnicity, gender and caste
* Determined by birth.
* Tied with particular occupation.
Common features
* 1. relegated large number of people to particular level of entitlement, power, livelihood and economic freedom.
* 2. The higher rank groups dominate the lesser ones.
* 3. Higher rank attempt to maintain their position.
* Ideology.
* 4. Always room for agency.
Race
Head size, head shape, brain shape was often thought of indicators of behavior.
* Franz Boas
* Culture constructivist (Culture not biology explains
behavior)
Purely ideological.
* Affects status, entitlements, and treatment
* Skin tone
* Category depend on various variables.
- Apartheid in South Africa
- Legal and economic structures
- Exclusion certain people.
Ethnicity
People share a sense of identity based on history, territory, language, religion or a combination of all.
* Basis for claiming resources.
Roma
* Diaspora population
Gender and Sexism
Difference between the genders
* Patriarchy
* Male dominance
Economic, political, social and ideological
* Matriarchy
* Female dominance
* Rare
* Always topic of debate
* Minangkabau in Malaysia
Caste System
- India, and Hinduism are the most prevalent one
Varnas
* Brahmans
* Kshatriyas
* Vaishyas
* Shudras
Maintain one’s position
* Exchange
* Codes of substances
* Marriage rule
Civil Society
Civil society
* Combination of different
groups
* Institutions
Antonio Gramsci
* Institutions supporting the
state
* Oppose state institutions.
Civil Society for the State
- The case of Chinese women’s movement.
- Ellen Judd (2002)
- Studying women’s movement
- The state always present.
- Government oversee all operations.
- Encourage rural women to take part in literacy training and market activities.
Activist groups: Co-Madres
Change certain conditions
* Economical
* Political repression
* Human rights etc.
Co-Madres
* El Salvador
* Political violence
* 80.000 died
* 7.000 disappear.
Social - Capital, Movements, Media
Social capital
* Intangible resources that exist through
social ties, trust and cooperation.
* Cannot measure it.
Social movements
* Social activist groups.
* Formed by oppressed minorities,
indigenous people, poor, etc.
The role of social media
* Changing form of communication
