RHETOR 109 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Protected Group, Identity Politics, Social Constructionism
Document Summary
Telethons: get people to donate by showing poverty, disability and other images to provoke pity. One person who hosted telethons is now leading the charge to discard the paternalistic model of charity. Davis: critical of identity politics, seems to have an exhaustion of identity politics (versus disability movement"s emphasis on a collective identity) Care about instead of care of or for. Genetics as a continuation of eugenics improving human race. Essentialism vs. social constructionism: e: identity is tied to body (inherent) People tried to disidentify with essentialism: sc: identities are socially constructed (ex. Davis tries to dismantle sc, claiming it doesn"t make sense to continue an identity if it doesn"t exist biologically. Why d we need to prove a biologically basis for an identity (like race) Assumption that everything must be proved scientifically. Acknowledges that identities have been created to harm/ exploit/ cause suffer but does not seem to understand that consequences do not disappear just because the category disappears.
