KINSHIP
Define Kinship.
cross cultural study of family composition marriage and descent patterns.
Define ascribed status.
- The status you are ascribed at birth. In a caste system one is born into a social group and theoretically can’t get out of it, even if and when it was made illegal. When a system is based on this view, then the boundaries are clear and self-evident.
- identity that is perceived as fixed and unchanging – ‘born with it – silver spoon in her mouth…royalty’
Define eurocentrism.
A cultural phenomenon that views the histories and cultures of non-Western societies from a European or Western perspective.
Define "ghetto."
- How the neighbourhood of Eastwood was regarded by outsiders.
- The neighbourhood coalition is one of the most important responses to the stereotypes – ghetto.
- The local government in Eastwood believes that, “the area was “doomed for failure” because residents lacked the basic skills and qualifications to secure livable wages.” Dilapidated was another term used.
Define filter bubbles.
algorithms applied to online content selectively gauge what information a user wants to see based on information about the user, their connections, browsing history, purchases, and what they post and search
Is there a typical form of “family”?
-There are many examples of family types all over the world, though we tend to see and portray the nuclear family as universal.
- Anthropologists have studied family relations since the beginning because when you are comparing cultural traditions you want to see how people organize their lives.
- Family is the most basic and elementary form of sociality.
Explain meritocracy.
Meritocracy - a social system based (at least in theory) on merit - achievement, effort and ability
(might be helpful to know how this idea differs from Achieved status)
Define ethnicity.
a sense of historical, cultural and sometimes ancestral connection to a group of people who are imagined to be distinct from those outside the group
What does Ralph mean by social injury?
-Injury takes many different forms. Injury in Eastwood is gun shot wounds, dilapidated houses, uncontrollable young gang members, heroin addicts on the street, victims living with infectious diseases like HIV.
-A lens for showing the connections between local lives, people’s lived experiences and broader social processes (e.g. systemic inequality, cultural change)
-Injury is not only physical, but emotional, social, historical…
Define precarity.
“the politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks . . . becoming differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death” (Butler 2009, 25)
- Intensifying precarity does not diminish agency or people’s ability to act.
What is the meaning of descent and why does it matter?
- the origin of your parents (usually biological, but descent can be determined legal or nonlegal means, for example, rules of inheritance, adoption)
-belief of the value and importance of blood relations
Define class and social class.
- Class (in the classic Marxist sense) is defined as a form of social hierarchy based on ownership and control of the means of production (Karl Marx)
- Social class: A form of identity based on people’s perceptions of an individual’s economic wealth and status (not Karl Marx)
Who is Samuel George Morton?
- A scientist and physician in 1800s who collected skulls – believing intelligence could be related to size of the brain (thus ranking races objectively based on skull size)
-upon further questioning of Morton’s progress could see this was not true but rather looking for information that confirmed his own beliefs
Discuss the role “Air Jordans” sneakers play in Eastwood.
- There is a very strong relationship between what sneakers mean to gang members today and the stories that gang members tell about the gang itself. They are a “symbol of speculative capital” – which means social mobility.
- A way to show authenticity and hierarchy in the gang. The cost, brand, and access to the shoe marks one's position in the gang.
-A symbol of life chances and renegade will for those in the gang. Despite aspects of social injury in Eastwood, shoes and gang involvement mark the possibility for making money.
-Some gang members view sneakers as reflecting individualism.
Explain the difference between disease and illness.
- Disease: a discrete natural entity that can be clinically identified and treated by a health professional.
- Illness: The individual patient’s experience of sickness.
-Can think about this through the limits of the western biomedical model. The biomedical model combines biology with diagnosis and treatment of illness. Here, the body is viewed as a machine, independent of social context. But illness isn’t simply a matter of physical health and biology but is also socially constructed.
-These differences can be seen in aspects like interpretations of illness and approaches to treatment.
What is the connection between anthropological understandings of family and what you have learned in Renegade Dreams? Provide one example.
-See an example of "fictive kinship" in the gang's role in Eastwood.
- family is about caring and being cared for, and see gangs as providing this:
- Gangs are a corporate structure that members join for protection, acceptance and security
- Gangs provide the kind of backup kids may need if the family or a supportive community can’t give it to them, BUT
- Gangs don’t nurture and protect, they address fear and anxiety
Provide one example of a ‘market externality’ and discuss.
-the costs that are not included in the price of a product (environmental, health, poverty)
-One example of this is the production of almond milk. 80% of almonds grown for commercial use come from California which is ravaged by drought, the cause of wildfires and the damage caused by flooding. 10 percent of California’s dwindling agricultural water supply goes to growing almonds.
Other examples: fast fashion, maquiladoras, chocolate production.
What are the differences between race, racism, and racialization?
- Race: not a scientific term, but socially constructed form of identity and social hierarchy. Race refers to the presumed hereditary, physical characteristics of a group of people. These physical, or phenotypic, differences are often erroneously correlated with behavioural attributes.
-Racism - discrimination and mistreatment of particular groups and the political and cultural impacts of this way of categorizing people arbitrarily
-Racialization – the processes by which arbitrarily defined groups of people are identified and treated
What does it mean to be “blighted” in Renegade Dreams?
-Disease or injury of plants marked by the formation of lesions, withering, and death of parts (such as leaves)
-In R.D., Ralph argues institutional racism and legal categories becoming weapons against poor black families
-The church/state claim the problems with Eastwood are moral problems
- To fix the problem, and to fix Eastwood, you have to fix the moral problems (the “blights”)
- You fix the moral problems by fixing poor black residents (remove the “blights”)
How do Twitter hashtags (#) mobilize people?
- Bonilla and Rosa reading on Hashtag Activism
-Digital activism becomes necessary when conventional methods of addressing injustice fail.
-After the Ferguson shooting the hashtag #Ferguson popped up, with lots of shares and followers. Protests then started.
-They create “Counterpublics,” or a group that stands in conscientious opposition to a dominant ideology and strategically undermine that ideology’s construction in public discourse
-There are also limits to online activism that should be recognized (i.e.lack of accountability).
In Fleischer's piece, what has been the impact of the real estate market and privatization on Chinese families?
-Fleischer's piece looks to the consumption of housing in Wangijang (in Beijing, China) as a social practice that is embedded in and reflecting the reform-period urban environment
- development of the “New middle class” or “newly affluent"
-rising modernism vs. Maoism
- Purchasing of homes in Wangjiang not just about consumption or identity but also an emotional aspect. - housing today in Wangjiang now offers personal, non-public space
Define the difference between globalization and neoliberalism.
-Globalization as a process, versus neoliberalism as an ideology.
- Neoliberalism is the most current form of the capitalist system we have today globally. Has structured the global economy and politics since the 1970s.
- David Harvey argues that the essence of neoliberalism is that state intervention should be kept to an absolute minimum.
-For Harvey, neoliberalism is both an ideology and economic formula. Positions features of the theory like the idea that human wellbeing is best secured by private property, free markets, and free trade, as “common sense” and “dominant.”
- An economic formula in that, as Harvey argues, neoliberalism was never about providing freedom to entire societies, but the restoration of class power. It is the strategic proliferation of wealth for the already elite, while little to no benefit or growth for the middle and lower class. (think 1% vs. 99%).
- Globalization as the “intensification of worldwide relations that link distant localities in such a way that what happens at the local level has repercussions far away”.
- International flow of money, culture, and ideas.
-Not a new idea- the silk road and transatlantic slave trade are all examples of globalization.
-neoliberalism favours globalization, specifically for resource extract.
As per Eric Lott, what does the history of slavery in the United States tell us about the social construction and representation of race?
-Minstrel shows, developed in the 19th c., were comedic shows or sketch shows which centred on performances by white people depicting people of African descent.
- Displayed, normalized, and institutionalized notions of cultural variation as determined by biological differences, where some races are seen to be inferior to others. In this way, was a means to justify slavery.
- Did this through aspects like stereotypes, caricatures, mockery, shock, vulgarity, and language.
Explain the two definitions of disability, the social model and the medical model, examined in Renegade Dreams. What character helps to make sense of these models?
- Social model: people with different abilities and physical capacities are equal.
- Medical model: physical differences are highlighted, not diminished. Physical differences become a person’s identifier.
- Justin Cone: power in his new perspective
- The power that injury provides Justin does not come from being guaranteed rights that allow him to thrive in society—this is impossible.
- He still lives in a world where power is tied to authority, and authority is tied to authenticity, and authenticity is tied to the gang.
How do we see social media use differ cross-culturally?
- Social media is for many, intensely woven into the texture of our relationships.
- Daniel Miller article gives examples between youth in Trinidad and England. What gestures, posing, items etc,. appeared based on location.
-UCL reading: found social media being used to reinforce traditional groups, such as family, caste and tribe and to repair the ruptures created by migration and mobility. Give examples from Chile, Italy, Turkey, China, England, etc.