Is Social Inequality Inevitable?

THIS POST WILL BE USED FOR CLASS FROM FEBRUARY 24-MARCH 3. 

Please make sure that you complete the two assignments that are posted below. 

CLICK HERE to see where you can watch "Song From The Forest"

Assignment: How do the experiences shown in Song From The Forest differ from the video (HERE) you watched about Kenneth Goode and the Yanomami ? Think about the ethical considerations of each of the American men who have married a tribal women. (Due March 1)...To be discussed on Flipgrid in a 2 minute video. Make sure to craft your answer before making the video, so you can maximize your analysis. These will be graded.

(Due March 3) short essay: 5 paragraphs-- consider what you have learned from watching the films above. What particular ethical considerations do you think you will have at your fieldsite? Make sure to state the dilemas, describe them as they are relevant to your site, and what ethical decisions you have made (eliminate things, don't ask things, anaonymity, etc.) to manage these considerations.

February 24-March 3: Read all the articles and links BELOW. Be prepared to discuss the articles in relation to your fieldsite for class on (March 8). You should also be starting the interview process. Make sure that you get signed "informed consent" and that you have verbally (or in text) also asked for questions and explained the form before you engage in participant observation or interviews.

Social Inequality & Naturalizing Discourses  Read   Read  Read

 All inequalities are socially created. But in most cases, they are also naturalized. Naturalizing is “the deliberate representation of particular identities as if they were a result of biology or nature, rather than history or culture, making them appear eternal and unchanging” (Lavenda and Schultz 2015, 439).

All of these labels are categories of difference and identity. They do not all exist in every society. And they have changed over time. In practice, such ideas about difference do not necessarily need to imply social inequality. But whenever people talk about identity and difference, we need to be aware of possible inequalities.

• race
• gender
• age
• class
• sexuality
• religion
• "stigma"

Interconnection or Intersectionality

Where social Inequality does exist there are almost always interconnected categories of ranked status. We call this INTERSECTIONALITY. For example, “race is always gendered.” That is, our ideas about racial identity always include ideas about gender identities. 

For an (2017) example see “I Don’t Always March, but When I Do, I March My Ass to Work” by Lauren A. Hayes in Anthropology News.

While social inequalities are present in any human society, we need to be aware of how contemporary inequalities are related to colonialism and capitalism. “The spread of capitalism and colonialism reshaped forms of stratification that predated their arrival, as well as introducing new forms of stratification into formerly independent, egalitarian societies” (Lavenda and Schultz 2015, 416).

Is Social Inequality Inevitable?

Nicholas Kristof’s article June 2017 New York Times has a helpful summary of the arguments. 

• While some form of social inequality is inevitable, it is not the same in every society. Nor must it be as inevitably unequal as in the United States. 
• “Presented with unlabeled pie charts depicting income distributions of two countries, 92 percent of Americans said they would prefer to live with the modest inequality that exists in Sweden. 
• Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor alike–all chose Sweden by similar margins.” 
• Kristof is drawing on the work of The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die. (Note that Kristof’s example of monkeys getting upset about cucumbers has been challenged. Apparently “what looks like moral outrage is actually social disappointment.”)

While the ideal of perfect utopian equality may be unrealistic, we can at least strive to be “moving away from dystopia” as Paul Farmer put it in reference to how healthcare is a human right.

• structural violence
• infectious inequality

Other resources we will look at but you may want to also READ

• Class: see Inequality isn’t inevitable. Here’s what we can do differently on the World Economic Forum.
• Race & Ethnicity: See the April 2017 Misconceptions about Health Disparities in the US by Lessye Joy DeMoss in Anthropology News.