SOCY1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Fat Acceptance Movement, Middle Eastern Americans, Unapologetic
Week 11: The Politics of Difference
Structures are efficacious, they determine social life but we as individuals can converge as
collectives to push back on the imposed cultural values, impositions which cannot be
ignored.
Stigmatisation: Structures shape social life in negative ways for groups and people, but
sometimes these groups and people push back
Social Distancing and Devaluation of Stigma
Stigma is negative evaluation or stereotyping of a specific trait
Goffman: The movement of a person from a whole and usual member of society to
a tainted and discounted one through shared discomfort
The experience of stigma is one of social distancing and devaluation
The traits themselves are not inherently stigmatising, stigma is not an essential
construct but rather a social construct
Stigmatising can evolve over context and time, e.g. being openly racist is now
more stigmatising than ever before
Goffman’s 3 Kinds of Stigma
Body Abnormalities (Abominations of the Body)
Bodily marks that are distainting or devalued. e.g. body hair on women, face
tattoos, obesity.
Blemishes of Character
Perceived mora failings. e.g. in some instances the atheist might be
stigmatised, the criminal, the dropout.
Because these entail a perceived moral failing, they re also associated with
increased social distancing, mental health outcomes and worse life chance
outcomes such as less likely to get a job, more likely to face social rejection.
Static Stigma (Tribal Stigma)
Group membership e.g. race stigma, gender, religious affiliation.
There’s quite a bit of overlap between these categories. E.g. body weight spans in
particular abominations of the body and blemishes of character. As you try to
categorise where stigmatisation exist, they become analytic tools instead of solid
empirical indicators. The meanings tied to stigmatisation bleed through the
categories.
Stigma and Power
Bruce Link and Joe Fell have been concentrated of the act of stigmatisation as
being an imposition of power over another.
It requires power to stigmatise another
The act of stigmatisation imbues one with increased power and
Document Summary
Structures are e cacious, they determine social life but we as individuals can converge as collectives to push back on the imposed cultural values, impositions which cannot be ignored. Stigmatisation: structures shape social life in negative ways for groups and people, but sometimes these groups and people push back. Stigma is negative evaluation or stereotyping of a speci c trait. Go man: the movement of a person from a whole and usual member of society to a tainted and discounted one through shared discomfort. The experience of stigma is one of social distancing and devaluation. The traits themselves are not inherently stigmatising, stigma is not an essential construct but rather a social construct. Stigmatising can evolve over context and time, e. g. being openly racist is now more stigmatising than ever before. Bodily marks that are distainting or devalued. e. g. body hair on women, face tattoos, obesity.
