Panel Title: Overcoming Boundaries, Constructing Differences: Cultural and Symbolic Dimensions of Inequality
Format: Mixed (online + in-person participation in Moscow)
Convenor: Maria Kucheryavaya (Moscow Centre for Cultural Sociology)
Annotation
In recent years, the idea of boundaries has played a key role in new directions of research in the social sciences. Boundaries and distinctions are also an important and established part of the conceptual toolkit of sociological research, both classical (E. Durkheim, P. Bourdieu, C. Geertz, M. Douglas) and modern (M. Lamont, A. Sayer, A. Binder, W. Lehmann). The ability and skill to delineate the meaning space of life, to distinguish "friends" from "strangers" underlies the processes of social recognition and exclusion, and the boundary work itself has a universal character, penetrating all spheres of human life and setting the meaning contours of the social world. The conceptual importance of boundary work lies not only in its ability to accentuate social boundaries concerning status and class positions. A significant part of boundary work lies within the drawing of symbolic boundaries related to group classifications and cultural membership. Boundaries and distinctions create barriers between groups, making them one of the key mechanisms of inequality. For a comprehensive understanding of inequality, however, it is important to pay attention not only to social boundaries, but also to the ways in which symbolic resources support or challenge social differences. The foundation for such cultural mechanisms of inequality is, first, the moral judgments by which people describe themselves and others as worthy or unworthy. The moral dispositions have a universalizing character, they help to explain the significance of differences. Second, boundary work is emotionally "charged": emotions are a way of judging, they guide the categorization system. Class experience evokes a diverse range of emotions, from shame to pride, and actualizes one or another of life's strategies of coping/reproducing it.
The panel will focus on the cultural forces associated with the reproduction of inequality, with particular attention to the moral and emotional dimensions of group categorization. A wide range of topics is offered for discussion, including studies of educational, class, ethnic, and gender inequalities. Both theoretical papers highlighting different approaches to these topics and empirical papers describing the results of applied research are welcome.
During the panel we propose to discuss the following topics:
- What qualities do boundaries possess (permeability, visibility, vagueness, etc.)?
- What are the mechanisms for changing boundaries? Do they facilitate social mobility?
- How is the boundary work related to ideas of recognition, respect and success?
- What role do emotions play in drawing distinctions?
- What emotions turn out to be the key in maintaining/overcoming inequalities?
- How are class advantages interpreted?
Keynote speakers
- Michèle Lamont, Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies at Harvard University
- Jessi Streib, Associate Professor of Sociology at Duke University
- Dmitry Kurakin, Director of the Moscow Centre for Cultural Sociology, Visiting Professor at the University of Trento
- Ekaterina Pavlenko, Ph.D. Candidate (Institute of Education, HSE University), Junior Research Fellow at the Moscow Centre for Cultural Sociology
- Olga Pinchuk, Research Assistant of the Laboratory for Environmental and Technological History at the HSE University
- Mikhail Sokolov, Professor of Sociology at the European University at St. Petersburg
- Elena R. Iarskaia-Smirnova, Professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the HSE University
How to apply?
Applications are accepted at mkucheryavaya@hse.ru by March 29 2023. Email subject: "Vectors-23". Please indicate in your application form:
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Full name
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Paper title
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Affiliation and status
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E-mail address
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Abstract (up to 500 words)
References
Alexander, J. C. (2007). The meaningful construction of inequality and the struggles against it: A “strong program” approach to how social boundaries change. Cultural Sociology, 1(1), 23–30.
Binder, A. J., & Abel, A. R. (2019). Symbolically Maintained Inequality: How Harvard and Stanford Students Construct Boundaries among Elite Universities. Sociology of Education, 92(1), 41–58.
Lamont, M. (2000). The Dignity of Working Men. Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Harvard University Press.
Lamont, M. (2018). Addressing Recognition Gaps: Destigmatization and the Reduction of Inequality. American Sociological Review, 83(3), 419–444.
Lamont, M. (2019). From ‘having’ to ‘being’: self-worth and the current crisis of American society. British Journal of Sociology, 70(3), 660–707.
Lamont, M., & Molnár, V. (2002). The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28(1965), 167–195.
Lamont, M., Silva, G. M., Welburn, J. S., Guetzkow, J., Mizrachi, N., Herzog, H., & Reis, E. (2016). Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil, and Israel. Princeton University Press.
Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. University of California Press
Lareau, A. (2015). Cultural Knowledge and Social Inequality. American Sociological Review, 80(1), 1–27.
Lehmann, W. (2009). Becoming middle class: How working-class university students draw and transgress moral class boundaries. Sociology, 43(4), 631–647.
Ridgeway, C. L. (2014). Why Status Matters for Inequality. American Sociological Review, 79(1), 1–16.
Sayer, A. (2005). Class, moral worth and recognition. Sociology, 39(5), 947–963.
Sayer, A. (2011). Why Things Matter to People. Cambridge University Press.
Streib, J. (2017). The unbalanced theoretical toolkit: Problems and partial solutions to studying culture and reproduction but not culture and mobility. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 5, 127–153