Grounding the Global: Anthropological Perspectives Professor: Ieva Jusionyte jusionyte@fas.harvard.edu Office Hrs: Weds 10:30-11:30 & Thurs 2-3pm in Tozzer 216 TF: Shuang Lu shuanglu@fas.harvard.edu Office Hrs: Tues 2-4 in Tozzer 315

Module II: Medical & Urban Anthropology 10/5 Lecture outline Module II: Medical & Urban Anthropology Case study: Injury and Survival in Inner-City Chicago Q&A with Laurence Ralph Anthropology of Violence: Social inequality Violence as a continuum (direct/indirect) Structural violence Symbolic violence Representation of violence Ethnographic activity #1 INTERVIEW due Friday, October 14

http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004642370/jay-z-the-war-on-drugs-is-an-epic-fail.html

Social stratification: Social inequality: The quality of having unequal or differential access to goods (e.g., property, money) and goals and values (e.g., status, respect, liberty, health, wellbeing) defined as valuable by a people Social stratification: System of shared social inequality; a set of hierarchical relationships among different social groups; division of persons into a series of ranked statuses or strata (layers) (e.g., classes or castes). Systems of social stratification vary widely in terms of the criteria used to differentiate strata, as well as in the rigidity of the separation between different levels.

Are all societies socially stratified? Is social inequality a human universal? All societies have some forms of social inequality, But not all societies have social stratification.

“ascribed” vs. “achieved” status ascribed: by birth, unchangeable, lifelong, unearned; assigned to persons or groups based on traits beyond their control achieved: a social position that a person (or group) acquires on the basis of merit or effort/action; changeable

Times are changing…? Class system in the U.S.

Both ascription-based and class/achievement-based systems share important features: Relegate large numbers of people to particular levels of entitlement to livelihood, power, security, esteem, and freedom; Those with greater entitlements dominate those with lesser entitlements; Members of dominant groups tend to seek to maintain their position, consciously or unconsciously Instances of subversion / rebellion do occur, indicating potential for agency among the oppressed

Anthropology of violence Continuum from direct physical assault to routinized practices of oppression: “Visible”, physical, “hard”, “exceptional”, “barbaric” “Invisible”, ”ordinary”, “gentle”, routinized

Symbolic violence (Pierre Bourdieu) “Symbolic violence – censored, euphemized, i.e. unrecognizable, socially recognized violence”; appears natural - normative everyday forms of violence are hidden in the minutiae of accepted social practices; the dominating and the dominated agree on the same model of the world

Structural violence (Johan Galtung) Form of violence where some social structure or social institution purportedly harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.

Structural violence (Paul Farmer) Political, social and economic forces structure risk for AIDS, tuberculosis, other infectious and parasitic diseases, as well as other forms of extreme suffering - hunger, torture, rape; it is unintentional, but follows predictable patterns; tied to social inequality and poverty

Structural violence (Philippe Bourgois)

Violence of everyday life (Nancy Scheper-Hughes) “Small wars and invisible genocides"; institutionalized brutalities that are rendered invisible because of their routine pervasiveness; tendency to blame the victim; directed against the socially vulnerable

HIV deaths (2002) Source: http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/

Violent deaths (2002) http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/

Hurricane Katrina 3 Hurricane Katrina Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store […]. A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store […].

Next class  MODULE II Medical & Urban Anthropology: Injury and Survival in Inner-City Chicago 10/12 Living with disability: From injury to resilience Required readings: Laurence Ralph, 2014. Renegade Dreams: Living Through Injury in Gangland Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Part II) Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2014. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic Monthly.