POL SCI 32A Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Precariat, Immigration, Proletariat
7 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
10/10/17
-Alain Locke focus on race; stresses the problem of classification
-wants readers to understand race as a social construct attempted to be rooted in science
-explains that race is a social construct that is created in order to justify economic expansion
-Romans not concerned with conquering culture
-British did want to change the culture of the people they conquered and change their way of
thinking because they had the ultimate goal of integrating them into the economy, labor force, as
consumers, and wanted their raw resources; British really thinking about capitalism
Capitalism:
-free market
-profit
-cheap labor
-private property
-British first steps=change their religion
-stressed that their culture was better because they had more things
-after changing their way of thinking, they integrated them into the labor force, turned them into
consumers, and took their raw resources
-in order to justify paying people less, race theory is created; it impacts culture and economy
-after culture and economy, you need institutions (social control; political and educational)
-universalism:
1. Free flow of capital
2. Free trade
3. Labor
-All are somewhat limited though
-gender/race decrease as
10/17/17
1. Immanuel Wallerstein talks about gender roles and structure of the household and
economic need
a. If economy is expanding, the household gets larger(sum of all households equals
labor force)
b. If economy is contracting, the structure of the household gets smaller
c. When the economy is on the rise, we talk about equality and emphasize
universalism, but the opposite occurs
2. As a capitalist, you want
a. Cheap labor
b. Flexible in time
c. Variable in space
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3. If you are starting a new business or factory
a. Households are responsible for reproduction of the labor force
b. You want a nuclear family (4 people; mom, dad, two babies or kids)
i. Cheap because they live together so it is easy to impose economic
dominance over them
Our attitudes toward gender roles and equality are affected by where we are in the economic
cycle. Meritocracy did not solve the issues of gender and equality.
Kimberly Crenshaw
-Intersectionality and identity
-by denying to believe that everyone experiences multiple levels of identity, we are creating
more problems for people that are minorities in many groups
-focus on race and gender, but women of color experience racism and sexism differently
Immigration
1. Woman experiences political domination
2. Knowledge; women rely on their husbands as the sole source of knowledge of
immigration process
3. Don't have money
4. Culture or ethnic preferences
-Crenshaw says that when we experience different levels of identity domination, identity politics
pushes us down
-race theory created to justify economic dominance
-Crenshaw's data shows injustices that cement the idea that race is not just superficial
11/14/17
-Money = freedom of taste
-habitus: social identity and how you practice it
-Why 70% of lottery winners go broke within first 5 years of winning the lottery
-habitus does not match social class
-Social space: correlation bw social and economic capital a person has
-Sources of distinction
1) to increase our social space, we need to increase education (formal education bc it
provides you with distinction)
2) You need to change your habitus; it is also about behaving and adopting the science of
the part you wish to play
11/21/17
Social space: the correlation between economic capital and cultural capital (quadrant)
-Bourdieu says level of cultural and economic capital correlate
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