Social Theory Assignment on Political Economy

Ridhi D'Cruz

Professor Crowfoot

Social Theory/ Anth 304

Take home test # 3

8^th December 2010

Question 1: How do the basic ideas of Marxist class struggle correspond to dependency theory's ideas of development and underdevelopment?

There are many ways in which Marx's basic ideas of class struggle correspond to dependency theory's ideas of development and underdevelopment. I would like to highlight five such corresponding ideas on the relationship between the two groups – the bourgeoisie and proletariat in Marxist theory and between the underdeveloped and developed in dependency theory. I will focus on five similarities between the descriptions of the relationships that both theories offer in terms of their nature; historical continuity from past into present and the process of formation and continuation into the future. I will then look at both theories' descriptions of the disadvantaged group – the proletariat in Marxist theory, and the underdeveloped in dependency theory, as a group forced into a position of disadvantage by inclusion into an exploitative system, rather than exclusion from the system. Lastly, I will look at the commonality in the suggested solutions proposed in both the theories, to the problematized relationship between the bourgeoisie and proletariat in Marxist theory and between the underdeveloped and developed in dependency theory.

Marx (1971) describes the relationship between bourgeoisie and proletariat or “oppressor and oppressed” (81) in terms of the bourgeoisie's “naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation” (82) of the oppressed proletariat. Marx points out that this exploitation occurs because the bourgeoisie has “centralized means of production, and concentrated property in a few hands” (84). Marx says that this has resulted in “political centralization” (84). Similarly, Frank (1970) emphasizes the “evident inequalities” when he describes the relationship between the developed “metropol” (6) and underdeveloped “satellite” (6). Frank goes on to say that the inequality is based on the fact that metropols “suck capital or economic surplus out of its own satellites... and maintain the monopolistic structure and exploitative relationship” (7). We see similar ideas of exploitation and inequality expressed in Marx's (1971) description of the relationship between bourgeoisie and proletariat; and in Frank's (1970) description of the relationship between “underdeveloped” and “developed” (4) in dependency theory.

Marx (1971) calls for a historical understanding of exploitation when he says “one fact is common to all ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by another” (Marx 1971:97). He emphasizes the continuity in time of class struggle when he says, “The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of old ones” (Marx 1971:81). On very similar lines, Frank (1970) calls for a historical understanding of underdevelopment (4) and says “underdevelopment was and still is generated by the very same historical process which also generated economic development: the development of capitalism itself” (9). Frank also says “historical research demonstrates that contemporary underdevelopment is in large part the historical product of past and continuing economic and other relations between the satellite underdeveloped and the now-developed metropolitan countries (5). Thus, both theories express that unequal relations between two groups in society travel forward on a time continuum.

Concerning the process through which the two contesting classes of bourgeoisie and proletariat are formed, Marx says that the bourgeoisie “has called into existence .. the modern working class – the proletarians” (86). In other words, Marx says that as the bourgeoise class develops by amassing wealth, it forces into being an impoverished proletariat class. Similarly, in dependency theory, Frank (1970) says that “The structure and development of the capitalist system ...causes a simultaneous generation of underdevelopment in some of its parts and of economic development in others” (4-5). In this way, both Marx and Frank say that as the bourgeoise or developed group are remodeled forms of an oppressive group of people that impoverishes a section of the population and in doing so, creates the proletariat or underdeveloped group.

The next point that I will focus on is the all-encompassing nature of capitalism and the ubiquitous inequality and exploitation associated with it, that both Marx (1971) and Frank (1971) describe. Marx (1971) says that “the need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere” (83). He says that the bourgeoise “draws all” (84) nations into its capitalist system. The fact that Marx says that “the entire proletariat” will unite as a class beyond notions of “nationality” (91) hints at the scale at which Marx is talking about his notion of class struggle. Similarly, Franks (1970) states that “the expansion of the capitalist system over the past centuries effectively and entirely penetrated even the apparently most isolated sectors of the underdeveloped world” (6). So it becomes evident that both Marx and Frank believe that capitalism have penetrated all corners of the globe and that no entity is isolated enough to withstand the onslaught of capitalism.

Finally, both theories propose solutions to the structural inequalities propagated by the capitalist system through structural reconstitution. Marx (191) says that just as “the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to” (96) when the proletariat overthrow the bourgeoisie. Apart from a historical approach, Frank (1970) also asks for a structural approach to understanding development and underdevelopment and says that this can lead to “better development theory and policy” (9). He says that the development of underdeveloped satellites can only occur independent of “diffusing capital, institutions, values, etc.” (5) from the developed metropols. We see that Marx's (1971) solution to ending class struggle is to abolish class itself, and Frank's (1970) solution to rectifying the exploitative relationship between developed metropol and underdeveloped satellites can only occur outside the current structural set up between the two.

I have traced the similarities between the basic ideas of Marx's (1971) description of class struggle and that of dependency theory's ideas on development and underdevelopment by looking at five aspects of the relationship between two polarized groups put forth in both theories – Marx's two classes – the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and Frank's (1970) two groups – the developed “metropol” (6) and the underdeveloped “satellite” (6). I first looked at the exploitative and unequal nature of the relationship described in both Marxist theory and dependency theory. I then looked at this unequal and exploitative relationship on a historical continuum as described in both theories. I then moved on to the formation of the two groups involved in this relationship, as being mutually constituted, as described in both Marxist and dependency theory. Moving beyond the relationship itself, I then looked at the spread of the struggle between Marx's (1971) classes or between developed metropol and underdeveloped satellite through the ubiquitous spread of capitalism described by both theorists. And lastly, I looked at the solutions that Marx and Frank proffer. I highlight the fact that both theorists suggest solutions for the “oppressed” that require drastic structural reconstitutions – a Communist Revolution by the proletariat overthrowing the bourgeoisie and then eliminating class in the case of Marx (1971), and a severing of ideological and monetary influence of the developed metropol to enable the development of the underdeveloped satellite as described in dependency theory.

Bibliography

Frank, Andre Gundar

1970 [1966] The Development of Underdevelopment. In Imperialism and Underdevelopment: A Reader. Robert I. Rhodes, ed. Pp. 4-17. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Marx, Karl

1971 [1848] Manifesto of the Communist Party. In On Revolution. Saul K. Padover, ed. Pp. 79-107. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Question 2: In the global economy, why are the wages of many workers (particularly women) so low? Discuss with reference to at least three of the following authors: Barnett (1975), Fernandez-Kelly (1983), Harrison (1997), Nicholson (2006), and Sassen (2002).

The global economy structurally defines low wages for workers from the global south on two geographical scales – within the global south; and also in the north, when the workers migrate. The structural definition of low wages maps onto traditionally low exchange values of labor and occurs as the workers are articulated into the global economy. When these structurally defined low wages interact with ideological constructions of femininity, they work in tandem to further decrease the exchange value of women's work. I will highlight three main areas where the combined effect of ideological and structural construction devalue women's work in the global economy. The first ideological construction of femininity naturalizes women's labor as requiring no additional skill. The second construction naturalizes the submissiveness of women and it's role in preventing women from unionizing. And the third construction naturalizes the responsibilities of women towards the household and its occupants. I will give examples of instances where each ideological construction works in tandem to lower the wages of women working in the global economy.

Barnett (1975) says that workers from the global south are paid low wages when their labor is articulated into the global economy. He says that the low exchange value of labor is “influenced by the traditional prices...directly related to the original value which was assigned to labour” (Barnett 1975:186). This devaluation of labor can be mapped onto Frank's (1970) description of the global economy when it causes “a simultaneous generation of underdevelopment in some of its parts and of economic development in others” (5) through “the structure and development of the capital system (4). Frank uses the metaphor of the developed “metropolis” (6) and underdeveloped “satellite”(6) to explain that “these metropolis-satellite relations are not limited to the imperial or international level but penetrate and structure the very economic, political, and social life of the Latin America colonies and countries” (7). I want to mention straight away that I extend Frank's metaphor to include contexts other than the Latin American context based on a few significant similarities. The metaphor of metropolis-satellite relations can be seen operating at two geographical scales. At the international or macro scale, Frank (1970) describes a developed metropolis and its underdeveloped satellite country. Harrison (1997) emphasizes that international scale underdevelopment is a form of “structural violence” (462) deployed through a “recolonization” (451) of Jamaica. Sassen (2002) carries this forward to say that underdevelopment makes “Third World economies on the periphery of the global system struggle against debt and poverty” (255). At the microlevel within the underdeveloped country, Frank (1970) describes a developed metropolis city and its underdeveloped satellite hinterlands. Fernandez-Kelly's (1983) description of the migration of workers from their hometowns to border areas in Mexico, is an example of microlevel metropolis-satellite relation within an underdeveloped country. I would now like extend Frank's (1970) metaphor to include a third kind of metropolis-satellite relation, as described in Sassen's (2002) “global cities” (255) in the global north, where the metropolis and satellite are superimposed. Sassen explains that the structures of global economy “generate a demand for low-paid service workers. In this way, global cities have become places where large numbers of low-paid women and immigrants get incorporated into strategic economic sectors” (2002:255) that are characterized by a lack of “advancement opportunities” (2002:257). So we see that traditionally low exchange values map onto structurally restrained job positions, to determine the overall lowering of wage for labor from the global south.

Barnett's (1975) explanation of the process in which, traditionally low exchange value for labor lowers the wages of workers from the global south, can now be applied to the specific case of women in the global south. So, I shift focus to three ideological constructions of femininity that are part of the traditional ideology of women's work that map onto the structural qualities of the global economy, to further lower the wages of women. The traditionally influenced and structurally maintained constructions of feminitity work in tandem to “legitimate the superexploitation of the productive and reproductive labor of women” (Harrison 1997:457) while discounting women as “valueless economic actors” (Sassen 2002:256).
The first ideological construction of femininity involves the naturalization of women's labor as unskilled labor. Harrison (1997) provides an example for this when she quotes Safa (1994):

transnational garment production has taken advantage of and reinforced patriarchal
assumptions that activities such as sewing are “natural” women's tasks requiring no
special skill, training, or compensation; that jobs defined as skilled belong to men,
who deserve to be remunerated for their special physical strength and training. (Harrison 1997:457)

The second ideological construction of femininity naturalizes the submissive behavior that women are expected to exhibit. Fernandez-Kelly (1983) explains that women constitute “85 percent of those working in the export manufacturing plants along the Mexican border” (209), explaining that the women are hired “because of their willingness to comply with monotonous, repetitive and highly exhausting work assignments; and because of their docility which discourages organizing efforts by union leaders” (219). The third ideological construction of femininity naturalizes the role of women in taking care of the household unit. Harrison (1997) explains that women “have the responsibility – whether formally employed or not – to support households and family networks” (456). As a result, women are even less likely to unionize because of the multiple forces acting on them concurrently. Fernandez-Kelly (1983) explains that international capitalism milks exploitative profits from the economic needs of Mexican women working on the border in maquilodoras because these women “enter the labor market as members of households for whose subsistence their wages are fundamental” (217) and thus represent the “most vulnerable sector of the population” (219).

When workers from the global south are being articulated into the global economy, traditionally low exchange values of labor decrease wages as the workers are being articulated into the global economy. The structure of the global economy maintains these positions of low wage workers, offering little vertical mobility. These are manifested in underdevelopment that occurs at three geographical levels and demonstrate permutations and combinations of underdevelopement that are mediated by a number of factors especially that of gender. Taking the case of women, who are described to constitute a vast proportion of the migrant labor force, the traditionally low exchange value of women's labor is mediated by gender. The gendered mediation occurs through ideological constructions of femininity, three of which I have highlighted. The constructions of femininity act in tandem with the structurally restrictive global economy to further lower the position of women within the international capitalist system and the wages these women are able to earn.

Bibliography

Barnett, Tony

1975 The Gezira Scheme: Production of Cotton and the Reproduction of Underdevelopment. In Beyond the Sociology of Development: Economy and Society in Latin America and Africa. Oxaal, Barnett and Booth, eds. Pp. 183-207. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Fernandez-Kelly, Maria Patricia

1983 Mexican Border Industrialization, Female Labor Force Participation and Migration. In Women, Men and the International Division of Labor. June Nash and Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, eds. Pp. 205-223. Albany: SUNY Press.

Frank, Andre Gundar

1970 [1966] The Development of Underdevelopment. In Imperialism and Underdevelopment: A Reader. Robert I. Rhodes, ed. Pp. 4-17. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Harrison, Faye V.

1997 The Gendered Politics and Violence of Structural Adjustment. In Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life. Lamphere, Ragone and Zavella, eds. Pp. 451-468. New York: Routledge.

Sassen, Saskia

2002 Global Cities and Survival Circuits. In Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, eds. Pp. 254-274. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Social Theory Assignment on Power, Politics & Identity

Ridhi D'Cruz

Professor Crowfoot

Social Theory/ Anth 304

Take home test # 2

Corrections December 8th, 2010

Question 1 : What techniques did colonists use to craft racial and national identities? Refer to Rose (1999), Biolsi (2007), and Anderson (1991) in your answer. Give examples of a) the techniques and b) how they created identities.

In this essay I will look at how different techniques of governance elucidated in the essays of Biolsi (2007) and Anderson (1991) have been used to guide an individual's collective and personal identity in terms of race and nationality using Rose's (1999) essay to demonstrate the role of governance in identity formation. But I first look at the process of an individual's identity formation as it occurs over multiple levels. At the personal level, identity formation is informed by the individual's need to define one's “self” in order to be distinguishable as unique and separate from the “other”. At the collective level, identity is informed by an individual's need to form affiliations with larger groups as a sign of identifying with the group and other attributes the group is associated with. An individual's identity is significantly influenced by local power relations.
Faced with the challenges of governing areas that had different sociocultural and political contexts from what they had experienced in their home countries, and the vast array of identities that these “foreign” contexts generated, colonists created new racial and national identities to render the populations they were going to rule over visible in easily manageable unidimensional categories. These crafted identities were imposed upon the people through the colonial administration through an array of tools that I will begin to explore in the following paragraphs.

The “territorialization of governmental thought” and “spatialization of the governors gaze” are two technologies that the government uses to create “governable spaces” according to Rose (1999:31-37). Both these technologies render the space to be governed, visible through inscription devices like maps and thus, extend the arm of authority onto the physical space (1999:36). “Governable spaces” are populated by “governable subjects” who are the multiple objectifications of “the governed” (Rose 1999:40-48). The third technique that Rose talks about is “translation”. Translation allows the diffusion of governance from a political center into the nooks and crannies of society. Rose defines technologies or techniques of governance as being “imbued with the aspirations for the shaping of conduct in the hope of certain desired effects and averting certain undesired events” (1999:52). Techniques of governance ensure that governance is enacted in more localized settings like workplaces, schools, hospitals and malls and the process that makes this possible is “translation” of governance through people's practices.
Benedict Anderson (1991) notes that the colonial administration reified the nation state through the three techniques of map-making, census-taking and museum building. Through map-making, regions under colonial rule were made visible in neat, cordoned off grids of “governable space” and claimed to belong to a particular nation state. People were forced to re-imagine their state as a territorially bounded “nationalized” “wedge between” (Anderson 1991:172) other nation states , and develop new vocabulary to assimilate the imposed concept of the nation state and their place within it into their consciousness as he elucidates in the case of Thailand (1991:171-72). Anderson also talks about the colonial imposition of the census on colonized peoples. The census functioned as a means for colonists to fill in the grids of the map with easily manageable ethno-racial categories of “governable subjects”, to populate the nation state they had created through the map (1991:164). Often the categories in the census oversimplified the complex multi-dimensional identities and often neglected and/ or were in conflict with emic identities prior to colonization that took into account factors like religious affiliation, status and rank. The third technique of governance that Anderson reveals, is the museum. Colonists translated their own role of being “guardians” of the colonized people, by stewarding the preservation of the' “traditional culture” of the colonized peoples. Colonists consciously and unconsciously cherry-picked artifacts that did not interfere with the colonial agenda, fossilized these artifacts as representing the collective culture and national identity of the colonized peoples they had created with the map and populated with the census. The level of assimilation of colonially created national identities is evident when this identity is legitimized and sustained by nationalists (Anderson 1991:178-82).
Biolsi (2007) draws our attention to the racial technologies of “stating”, “mixing”, “classifying”, and “spacing” (701) employed by the Euro-Americans to craft two very different racial identities for African Americans and Native Americans. Euro-Americans considered Native Americans to be white skinned and therefore possessing the potential to be civilized (Biolsi 2007:404). The racial technique of “mixing” (Biolsi 2007:404) was employed as a legitimate and even favored method to bring the uncivilized Indian into the fold of a modern, rational, enlightened and civilized society. Mixing refers to inter-marriage between Euro-Americans and Native Americans as a way to reduce the “blood quantum” (proportion of blood) of the Native Americans and simultaneously, the extent of their distinctly Indian identity so that the “wild” man could be tamed and saved (2007:407). On the other hand, the racial techniques used by Euro-Americans on African Americans was spacing. It was taboo for inter-marriages between white and black populations because the entire black population had been stated and classified as inferior to white populations and uncivilized, and unlike Native Americans, African Americans had no potential for becoming civilized (2007:407). Having been employed in schools, railway carriages, workplaces, residential localities, segregation is a form of spacing spanning multiple scales of region.

The above examples demonstrate how racial and national identities were guided by techniques employed by those in power.

Bibliography

Anderson, Benedict
1991 Introduction and Census, Map, Museum. In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Pp. 1-7, 163-185. London: Verso.

Biolsi, Thomas
2007 Race Technologies. In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics. David Nugent and Joan Vincent, eds. Pp. 400-417. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Rose, Nikolas
1999 Governing. In Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Pp. 15- 60 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999.

Question 2:

Rose (1999: 47-51) argues that governmental policies get translated to local levels. Discuss particular policies and their translation, referring to examples from Adams and Gorton (2006) and Pelican (2009).

In order to explain the local interpretations of governmental policies that Adams and Gorton (2006) and Pelican (2009) talk about in their essays, I will first need to elucidate Rose's definition of “translation” (1999). I then apply Rose's “translation” to the US government's policy on segregation in Adams and Gorton's essay, as an example of a realized or successfully translated form of governance (2006). I then use Pelican's essay to highlight two examples of local translations of the African government's policy on defining and classifying “indigenous people” in a way that was not intended by the policy and policy makers and how this “mistranslation” of sorts, makes the realization of the policy problematic (2009).

Rose highlights the active role of the “governed”, as agents of governance or “political actors of which the state is only one” (1999:17). Those subjectified by governance, in the form of a policy for example, are not passive receptors of the governmental policy, but actively interpret the ethical, rational and practical implications, as well as the intended effects of the policy, through a complex and dynamic process he refers to as “translation”. And “it is through translation processes of various sorts that linkages are assembled between political agencies, public bodies, economic, legal, medical, social and technical authorities, and the aspirations, judgements and ambitions of formally autonomous entities, be these firms, factories, pressure groups, families or individuals”(1999:48). Thus, a subject's interpretations of governance informs and guides the conduct of the subject (1999:49). And it is through subject's conduct, practices, or Foucauldian “techniques of self”, that governance is enacted at the local level (1999:39-41).

I now apply Rose's definition of “translation” to examine the local interpretations of the US governmental policy of segregation in public areas in the Mississippi Delta area. Segregation is a “spacing technique” that the government used to clearly delineate black space from white space (Biolsi 2007:413). Segregation gained legitimacy through the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v Ferguson in 1892. The ruling made clear that all public accommodations had to be “separate but equal” and a strict code of etiquette between whites and blacks emerged as a result. “An all-white school could be maintained as long as a “separate” but “equal” black school existed. A bus or train station had to provide both white and colored waiting rooms. Once on board a bus or train, people were seated in areas that were restricted to each race. Privately owned businesses such as restaurants or theaters could be racially exclusive” (Adams and Gorton 2006:291). Segregation translated so deep into people's practices that it took the remobilization of the legal system through passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to guide people to discontinue their practice of segregation. I should briefly mention here, that not everyone in the US believed in segregation. The 50's and 60's epitomizes nation-wide protests against segregation and other governmental policies. But the point I'm trying to highlight here is that the United States government had to remobilize the legal structure of the state to steer people towards a retranslation of their relationship to the black population.

Adams and Gorton (2006) present a number of examples in their essay that demonstrate how a government policy had the intended effects and was thus, in a sense, realized. I now proceed to Pelican's (2009) essay which presents an interesting mismatch between local translations and the intended effects of a governmental policy in Cameroon, Africa. In his essay, he looks at the difference in the local translations of “indigeneity” of two communities – the Mbororo and the Baka. He also attributes this difference in the “translation” of “indigeneity” between the Grassfielders and the Mbororo, as well as between the Baka and their neighbors, to the inherent problem of trying to label 350 million people from vastly differing historical, social, cultural and political backgrounds with a single definition of “indigeneity” (2009:56).

In 2007 the United Nations outlined “indigenous peoples' rights to self-determination; to land, territories, and natural resources; and to free, prior, and informed consent” in its Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) (Pelican 2009:52). The Cameroonian government was one of the few governments in Africa to support this Declaration by incorporating the notion of “indigenous peoples” entailed in UNDRIP into its constitution. But it remained ambiguous as to how Cameroon would implement any of the UN's recommendations to benefit “indigenous people” in the country (2009: 53).
The Mbororo of nothwest Cameroon have been included within the internationally described and nationally accepted category of “indigenous peoples”, which implies that they have an internationally and nationally recognized claim to the land they occupy. But at the local level, their farming neighbors – the Grassfielders, deny the Mbororo the right to “indigeneity”. The main reason for this denial is the fact that the Grassfielders consider their own connection to the land much stronger than the Mbororo's. The Grassfielders qualify their own connection to the land in terms of time. Having occupied the land for a much longer period than the 19^th century immigrant Mbororo, Grassfielders consider the Mbororo to be “wanderers” (Pelican 2009:61) and “strangers” (Pelican 2009:57). This is in conflict with the Mbororo's own perception of themselves as “indigenous people” which is in line with the UN's recommendation that has been nationally recognized (Pelican 2009:57).

Pelican (2009) also cites the example of the Baka of southeast Cameroon. Like the Mbororo, internationally and nationally, the Baka are considered as an “indigenous peoples”. But locally, they are perceived as “wanderers” by the locals . And the fact that the Baka are more connected to the forest than to the soil or land, is probably the most significant reason for their local identity as wanderers (2009:61). The economic and political structures of Baka society kick up another interesting facet to the “translation” of their own “indigeneity”. Being an acephalous community, the Baka have difficulty accessing the benefits associated with being an “indigenous” group because of their inherently egalitarian structure that prevents them from being able to legitimately create representatives without compromising an important aspect of their identity and culture in the process (2009:61).

Pelican's (2009) essay highlights the plasticity in the interpretations of who is considered “indigenous” at a local level, and how the local “translation” of this identity can make it difficult for a group to access benefits that policies have tried to lay out for them as in seen in the case of both the Mbororo and Baka communities (2009). And Adams and Gorton's (2006) essay gives examples of the successful “translation” of the US government's policy of segregation. Together demonstrate the plasticity of local translations of national policies.

Bibliography

Adams, Jane and D. Gorton

2006 Confederate Lane: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the Mississippi Delta. American Ethnologist 33(2): 288-309.

Biolsi, Thomas
2007 Race Technologies. In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics. David Nugent and Joan Vincent, eds. Pp. 400-417. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Pelican, Michaela

2009 Complexities of Indigeneity and Autochthony: An African Example. American Ethnologist 36(1): 52-65.

Rose, Nikolas
1999 Governing. In Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Pp. 15- 60 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999

Social Theory Assignment on Kinship (My worst assignment by FAR!)

Social Theory/ Anth 304,

Take home assignment 1

25^th October, 2010 with corrections submitted on 24^th November, 2010

Question 3: How do different kinship structures affect gender status? Discuss with reference to at least four class authors.

As the discourse surrounding women's emancipation movements began to emerge, anthropologists picked up some of the questions posed, to critically review the discipline's own biases especially within the realm of kinship studies – a central component of anthropological studies ever since the discipline began to focus on cultural phenomena (Stone 2010:2-5).

Among these anthropologists is Linda Stone who notes that “The sexual and reproductive roles of men and women are socially and culturally managed through kinship thus affecting gender” (2010:2) Jane F. Collier and Sylvia J. Yanagisako, in their controversial essay 'Towards a Unified Theory of Gender and Kinship', also acknowledge the interconnectedness between gender and kinship when they write - “Schneider's insight that kinship is by definition about sexual procreation leads us to realize that assumptions about gender lie at the core of kinship studies” (Collier and Yanagisako 1987:29). Both essays reveal the critical role that sexual reproduction plays in defining both gender and kinship.

While Stone does not completely discard 'biological fact' of differences between the sexes and it's role in defining gender roles (2010:4), Collier and Yanagisako question whether these differences are universal and “argue against the notion that cross- cultural variations in gender categories and inequalities are merely diverse elaborations and extensions of the same natural fact” (1987:15). This, they reason, would imply that the subordination of women is universal.

Among others, Franklin and McKinnon explain how this these biological assumptions embedded in gender tie in to those within kinship studies which use of the genealogical grid to map relations based on blood ties thus limiting its scope (2001:6).

Karin Kapadia clearly demonstrates the link between kinship structures and the status of women, when she observes how the change in kinship structures in the non-Brahmin Tamils of a village in South India cause the status of women to fall as they adopt a more patriarchal form of kinship which concentrates the property and wealth distribution with the families with more male members through the vehicle of marriage (1993).

Evelyn Blackwood explores how prescriptive ideal family unit presumed to lie at the core of kinship, contains a heterosexual married couple with a dominant patriarchal man and how this caused women-centered households were found in the Flats area of Chicago that she was researching, to be considered pathological by those that had done work in the area before her (2005:4-5).

The assumption that men would dominate underlies false claim of 'missing men' she notes. When the men do not fall within the 'normal' dominant and idealized role, as is seen in the area that Blackwood is studying, the women are denied a legitimate dominant position within the family because the entire context is viewed as being less than ideal and these circumstances are attributed to poverty (2005:8-10).

The men are thought to be missing, even though they participate in the family unit. Matrifocality is thus seen as an indicator of a less than ideal context and the poverty seen in these families is misconstrued instead of taking into account other factors, especially the welfare norms, that propagate and sustain poverty (2005:12).

Jane Edwards unravels how the Christian Right's argument against same-sex marriage is an extension of heteronormative ideals for the family unit and marriage and how this excludes same-sex coupling from being a legitimate form of kinship (2007:249). Edwards thus explains that the effects of biological assumptions within kinship are thus, far reaching.

The assumption that kinship is centered around the heterosexual couple pervades the anthropological study of kinship and took a long time to be exposed (2007:259). Thanks to the discourse on the status of women that the feminist movement created, kinship studies was able to incorporate some of the findings from these to highlight how various kinship structures act as a major thrust for legitimatizing and illegitimizing the role of women in the household and in the society (2007:259). The status of women is hinged not just on how the kinship structure operates but also on how the larger society perceives the role of women and accordingly works with or against the lot of women.

A better understanding of how the two – kinship and gender, are linked led to a better understanding of how this relationship and it's biological assumptions have sometimes caused those that fall outside the normative forms of kin to be excluded. At other times these assumptions have led to prevailing forms of kinship to be ignored or trivialized which has had far-reaching implications for women and the status that has been allowed to be ascribed to them.

Question 4: What's at stake when government and religious authorities make policies and proclamations regarding the sorts of families that people live in? Who would be affected by such policies, and what do they stand to gain or lose? Discuss with respect to Stacey (1997), Edwards (2007), and at least two more class authors.

When government and religious authorities make policies and proclamations regarding the sorts of families that people live in, they risk marginalizing and demonizing other forms of families prevalent in society as is delved into by Jane Edwards in her essay on the Religious Right's argument against same-sex marriage (2007). This spells dire consequences for all those that do not follow the dominant paradigm especially same-sex couples.

Interestingly, Edwards points out that unease concerning women’s economic independence and ‘fatherless families’ cannot be dissociated from disquiet over masculinity (2007:249). The problem with boxing up the family unit within “heteronormativity” is that anything that falls outside this, will run into problems including for example, women who want to pursue careers as well as men who want to be single parents (2007:253). Even though this is not addressed in the essay, the likelihood of a single father being allowed to adopt a child would be difficult simply because the dominant understanding of kin is that the mother-child bond is stronger than the father-child bond and therefore you need the institution of marriage to cement the bond not just between the father and mother but mainly between the father and child.

Michael Peletz essay denaturalizes the “heteronormative couple” by drawing on the studies of homosexuality in the natural world to debunk the anti-gay view that homosexual alliances go 'against nature'. In doing so he redefines masculinity allowing more scope for homosexuals to inhabit a legitimate space within society (2004).

Edwards describes how underlies the homophobia that these groups display. Any form of union other than “heteronormative” is perceived to be a threat to the ideal family especially the gay lobby's move to legitimatize same-sex coupling.

Judith Stacey explains how some social scientists have managed to sway public opinion and policies in favour of maintaining the ideal family unit by stigmatizing any other form of family (1997:456) She says that a range of social crises including poverty, substance abuse, homicidal rates have been misattributed by the “realists” to a breakdown in family unit and a decrease in the value of the family unit itself (1997:458). She explains that this causes the actual catalysts and causes for these social problems to be ignored which is detrimental to the effectively instituting policy-level change for a better society (1997:458).

Apart from those who want to give legitimacy to same-sex marriage and the wealth of benefits that could lead to in terms of shared property rights and modes of inheritance, avenues for these couples to adopt and raise children easily, single mothers too stand to be marginalized because they do not fall within the prescriptive norm.

As is evident from Evelyn Blackwood's essay, the women in women-centered households also fail to meet the criteria for a healthy family and thus get marginalized in not just their status and the roles they play in keeping their families together, but in how the state addresses “political, social, and global processes that leave women undereducated, underskilled, and undervalued for the work they do” (2005:15).

From the above mentioned essays, we can see that when a society bases its laws and policies on the rhetoric of a few groups, it effects all those who challenge the 'norm' and exist outside this space. The more a society becomes one that forces people to follow an ideal, the less likely it is to be able to include a larger number of its people within it's protection.

When the the groups that sway the way the state functions base their notions on religious concepts, it becomes even harder to debunk these as they are not left open for questioning as they occupy the 'sacred' space the Durkheim describes. This leads to even more problems because the discourse is unable to move forward and people existing outside the prescribed norm are demonized.

Bibliography

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