Mary Romero – The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities

Автор: Mary Romero
Название книги: The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Социология
Страницы: 622
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities is a first-rate collection of social science scholarship on inequalities, emphasizing race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, age, and nationality.

Highlights themes that represent the scope and range of theoretical orientations, contemporary emphases, and emerging topics in the field of social inequalities.
Gives special attention to debates in the field, developing trends and directions, and interdisciplinary influences in the study of social inequalities.
Includes an editorial introduction and suggestions for further reading.

The discipline of sociology that arose in nineteenth-century Europe was in very large
part developed as an inquiry into the persistent inequalities the founders perceived
as the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism decimated the medieval world.
Marx saw the increasing emiseration of the proletariat and the monopolization of
wealth and power in a few hands as the inevitable contradiction of capitalism.
Weber’s dialogue with Marx’s ghost separated class from social status, and power.
He also investigated the economic inequalities of Catholic and Protestant societies
in his most famous work (Weber 1958 [1906]). Durkeim, though less interested in
inequality than in the basis for social solidarity, was also concerned that increasing
conflict between capital and labor threatened the social order: “the working classes
are not really satisfied with the conditions under which they live, but very often
accept them only as constrained and forced, since they have not the means to change
them” (1964 [1893]). It is curious, then, that a recent “Dictionary of Sociology,”
promising definitions for everything from “Anomie to Zeitgeist,” has no entry for
“inequality” and the only entry for equality defines it as “Equality of Opportunity”
(Jary and Jary 1991). This is very much in keeping with the American sociological
view that was developed in the (in)famous “debate on equality” that took place in
the American Sociological Review, beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the
1960s (Davis 1942, 1953; Davis and Moore 1945; Tumin 1953, 1963; Wrong
1959). In the continuing attempt to refute Marx and demonstrate, as George
Homans sanctimoniously quipped, that the proletariat had no intellectual or moral
right to demand his money or his life, American sociologists vigorously attempted
to reduce the issues of inequality to social stratification; and then they sought to
demonstrate the inevitability – in fact, the benefits – of stratification in any advanced
technological social system. Every human quality came to be ranked on a scale:
income, wealth, intelligence, education level, status, and so on. The individuals’ relative
position on these different dimensions – and mobility in the great social race
– then boiled down to “equality of opportunity,” as competitive individuals lined
up at the starting blocks. All of this intended to create a science demonstrating that Western democratic capitalist societies had developed into meritocracies, and
that the few examples of illegitimate inequality were on their way to being
eliminated.
However, the alternative sociological view, inherited from Marx – that capitalist
society was riven with persistent and illegitimate inequalities – refused to die a
natural death. Sociologists and political economists continued to deeply examine
structural inequalities in social class (Mills 1959; Kolko 1962; Baran and Sweezy
1966; Lundberg 1968). Books like Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962)
brought the issue of generations of poverty-stricken Americans to the fore. W. E. B
DuBois – who defined the problem of the twentieth century as the problem of the
color line – explored the inequalities of caste-like racial hierarchy (1986). While his
prolific work was all but ignored by the mainstream Structural Functionalists, in
the 1960s it was amplified by many critical sociological studies. Sociological investigations
of racism and the effects on African American inequality spurred similar
sociologies of Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, American Indians, and other racial/ethnic
groups caught in the webs of racial caste and class (Johnson 1934, 1941, 1943;
Galarza 1964; Deloria 1969; Brown 1970; Galarza et al. 1970; Blauner 1972;
Maldonado-Denis 1972; Piore 1979). Similarly, second-wave feminist sociologists
investigated the inequalities experienced by women in the home and in the workforce
(Mitchell 1971; Oakley 1972, 1974; Rowbotham 1974; Millman and Kanter
1975; Eisenstein 1979). International scholars like Frantz Fanon (1963), Noam
Chomsky (1969), and Paulo Freire (1973) described the deep gulfs of imperialism
and international inequalities. All this research sought to name racism, sexism, and
neocolonialism and expose the systematic and structural sources of persistent
inequality over which the notions of “equality of opportunity” glossed. This book
follows in the footsteps of those pioneers.
The following chapters, written at the beginning of a new century, revisit inequalities
within the extensive normative and technological changes the world is experiencing.
Some developments have resulted in reducing inequalities – in parts of the
developed world, at least, inequalities of gender, ability, sexual orientation, and even
race have been mitigated but not eliminated. Others have exacerbated and extended
inequalities that have plagued humankind for centuries – again, gender, ability, and
race but also social class, and increasingly deep divisions between the center and
the periphery in global systems. Yet other social and technological developments
have created new forms of inequality – digital divides, advances in genetics and
biotechnology, environmental racism, and cultural imperialism, for example. The
chapters in this volume represent the conversation on social inequalities taking place
in the discipline, which is also reflected in national and international political
debates. Debates within the field of sociology concerning the influence of technology,
identity politics, and globalization enter into the analysis of parenting, childhood,
racism, migration, welfare, media, tourism, and health care.1
This volume in the Blackwell Companions to Sociology series provides a stateof-
the-art collection of sociological scholarship on inequalities, emphasizing those
incorporating race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and nationality. We
approached the project by identifying emerging topics and trends that represent the
scope and range of theoretical orientations and contemporary emphases in the field
of social inequalities. As we began to map out our project, it became obvious that issues of social inequalities between individuals, families, communities, societies,
nation-states, and global regions have become central to research in every field in
sociology. Consequently, drawing the boundaries for the specific study of social
inequalities remains an ongoing enterprise in sociology. However, from the beginning,
we decided against the conventional approach of categorizing social inequalities
in terms of specific axes of domination – race, sex, gender, and so forth – an
approach that too frequently works against understanding structures and processes
that cut across these social constructions. Instead, we encouraged our contributors
to focus on the conceptual underpinnings of inequality.
Leading scholars responded to the invitation to write chapters in their area of
expertise that represent the scope and range of theoretical orientations, contemporary
emphases, and emerging topics in the field of social inequalities. We urged contributors
to attend to debates in the field, highlighting developing trends, directions,
and interdisciplinary influences in the study of social inequalities. They were similarly
encouraged to address the construction, maintenance, and deconstruction of
inequalities, as expressed in processes of production, reproduction, and normalization,
but also to address the dismantling of inequalities through individual, community,
and institutional resistance. We also made two other requests: first, we asked
the authors to highlight their own substantial contributions to sociological theory,
research, and methodologies on social inequalities; second, we asked them to incorporate
detailed literature reviews to help orient readers new to the area. The
scholarship on social inequalities presented in this volume accomplishes these many
tasks well. In ensemble, it reveals multiple and competing values that surround
issues of equity, fairness, and justice, as well as individual rights and obligations.
With these goals shaping the volume, the chapters are organized around five
themes that reflect emerging perspectives and approaches that suggest changing
as well as consistent ways of thinking about social inequality. Chapters selected
for Part I, starting with Charles Tilly’s masterful and succinct historical perspective,
provide essential theoretical foundations and conceptual frameworks that influenced
and continue to influence the ways that subfields in sociology discuss and
debate social inequalities. Part II contains chapters addressing epistemological and
methodological concerns in researching social inequality, which range from the
development of critical race theory to methodological concerns with measuring
homelessness. Part III turns to the crucial mechanisms studied by sociologists at sites
where social inequalities are reproduced. The four chapters focus on families in the
context of childhood and parenting; communities in terms of migrant networks used
in international migration; and the debates surrounding education, which long ago
Horace Mann saw as the “great balance wheel” of society and which modern
sociologists, from Structural Functionalists like James Coleman (1988 [1966])
to Marxists like Bowles and Gintis (1976), saw as essential to meritocracy. The
chapters organized in Part IV deal with the debates over policy responses to inequalities,
including government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and
social movements: what rights and claims to equity and citizenship can be made
by the poor, criminals, disabled persons, sick people, and so on. The final section
brings together analyses that are essential in understanding media and technology
as sites of both oppression and resistance. The final chapter, an important work by
Stephen Pfohl, reexamines theoretical inquiries discussed in Part I. In Part I the authors provide comprehensive overviews of how inequalities have
been conceptualized. Major themes that are addressed in the rest of the volume are
given a sound grounding, including: social inclusion and exclusion, citizenship, politics
of recognition, agency vs. structural explanations, subordination, domination,
and resistance. Charles Tilly (Chapter 1) sets forth the basic premise that contemporary
debates on inequalities are evaluated through a historical lens that distinguishes
long-term changes as either distinctive or universal. He argues for an analysis
that focuses on changes in the control of resources and examines the structures of
exploitation and opportunity hoarding in the production, distribution, and consumption
of resources. Tilly’s goal is to provide a theoretical foundation for the
study of social inequality that is not nation- or region-bound. In Chapter 2, Ronaldo
Munck investigates debates on social inclusion and exclusion in the globalization
discourse. He examines the complexity of global economic and social integration
as articulated by the separate circumstances confronting North and South. He poses
questions concerning the opportunities for diverse struggles to eliminate global
inequality, and concludes his essay with an assessment of arguments identifying possible
paths toward global justice. Sallie Westwood’s chapter amplifies several questions
raised in the previous two chapters. Her analysis of the rhetoric of process
and rights, the discourse of the nation and modernity, and the spaces of opportunity
for democratic struggles, poses a politics of recognition for racialized subjects.
Highlighting the establishment of inequality from the point of nationhood, Westwood
turns to examining institutional practices that maintain inequality through
specific expressions of citizenship. She considers nationalism and resistance occurring
in politics of recognition, as demonstrated by Mothers of the Disappeared, gay
pride marches, Sydney Mardi Gras, and other collective activities. In the fourth
chapter, Ken Plummer further expands the discussion of politics of recognition in
exposing inequalities from the perspective of intimate rights. Similar to Charles
Tilly’s emphasis on identifying resources, Plummer problematizes the significantly
different choices and inequalities that groups within society and across nations experience
in the shaping of intimacy. Attending to the matrix of inequalities that
includes both processes of social exclusion and the personal experience of inequalities,
Plummer conceptualizes “citizenship of equalities” and “citizenship of
choices.” He highlights the limitation of choices versus the choices of luxury. In the
final chapter in Conceptualizing Inequalities, Barry Adam returns to the question
of the relation between subjectivity and social inequality. He provides a comprehensive
synthesis of social theory, identifying points of agreement and disputes in
theorizing domination, resistance, and subjectivity.
Chapters selected for Part II are diverse in subject matter but share a similar
approach in formulating their contribution to the volume. Each of the scholars
frames their argument around questions of epistemology and the methods used to
research social inequality. Advocating a critical race theory approach in sociology
of race relations, Tara J. Yosso and Daniel G. Solórzano’s chapter underscores the
failure of traditional US sociological approaches based on Eurocentric versions of
history. They argue that such an approach constructs a hierarchy of cultural values
that are based on the promise of social mobility through assimilation. In chronicling
their own intellectual journey to critical race theory, they provide a brief overview of the emergence of critical race theory among legal scholars of color, and
the later development of LatCrit (see http://personal.law.miami.edu/~fvaldes/
latcrit/). Suggesting compatibility with interdisciplinary social and racial justice
research, they center racialized and gendered experiences at the center of social
inequality analysis. In the next chapter, David Naguib Pellow traces the development
of scholarship on environmental racism, environmental inequality, and
environmental injustice. He simultaneously chronicles the emergence of the
environmental justice movement within communities of color and poor and
working-class White communities in the United States. Pellow’s approach to the
growing sociological field of environmental racism emphasizes the synergy of innovative
methodologies. For instance, he shows how participatory research collaborations
can link environmental inequalities to other social issues, including housing,
transportation, the workplace, natural resources, immigration, and gender. In
Chapter 8, Irene Browne and Joya Misra critique intersectionality as an undertheorized
but potentially useful construct. In studying labor markets, they identify
themes and questions posed by various conceptions of intersectionality, and the
empirical challenges for researchers who would seek to employ the concept; three
areas of study are synthesized to indicate methodological problems encountered in
the use of quantitative and qualitative methods. In the final chapter in Epistemology,
Method, and Inequality, Malcolm Williams uses the research on homelessness
to demonstrate the challenges in researching social inequality, particularly hidden
and hard-to-reach populations that are considered to be difficult to identify and
uncharacteristic of the general population. Starting with the problem of defining
homelessness – which has various meanings for particular societies and interest
groups – he analyzes the methodological issues confronted by both definitional and
enumeration strategies. Williams concludes the chapter with suggestions for alterative
ways to conceptualize the inequalities of homelessness and alternative methodological
approaches that apply to many other areas of social inequality