1 Stigma & Dirt April 10 th

2 Today… I. Stigma & the Individual Stigma Power Stigma Management Discreditable - information control Discredited - tension management II. Society & the “Other” Douglas Concept of Dirt 5 Ways Cultures deal with “dirt”

3 What is Stigma?

4 What is Stigma In discrimination: Badge of shame, a mark of infamy or disgrace Social stigma, a severe social disapproval of personal characteristics or beliefs that are against cultural norms, including:

5 What is the Purpose of Stigma?

6 Allows us to deal with: “Anticipated others with out special attention or thought.” (Who’s “IN”/Who’s “OUT”) Helps Categorize & Manage Multiple Stimuli

7 Questions?? Does Human Society always requires an “Other”? How Is the “Other” Determined? How Can “Othering” be Challenged? How is being a DP Different from Other Minority Groups?

8 Where/how does Stigma gets it’s power? Acceptance of the Devalued State = SHAME

9 Goffman: Stigma Management Discreditable: information control ("to tell or not to tell, ….to lie or not to lie, …. to whom, when and where." ) Discredited: tension management – (attempts to control awkward, difficult or hostile interactions with "the normals.")

10 Discreditable - Management of Information Objective: minimize detection or disclosure (FDR) also think of as passing…  1. Conceal stigma symbols  2. Play down the defect  3. Distancing (social, physical, emotional)

11 Discredited - Management of Tension Covering 1. Use of devices to cover the stigma Surgery ( Only results in Record of Correcting) 2. Engage in activities from which normally be disqualified Being President; One handed baseball player Aggressiveness / Deviance 1. “The dramatically presented preposterous explanation” 2. “The attack.”

12 The International Center for Limb Lengthening, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore

13 Other Responses to Stigma Attempt to Directly Correct 1. Overcoming: Celebrated in Modern Culture 2. Victimization: Learned Helplessness 3. Avoidence: Isolation / Passing Hypervigilance; “The Stare” 4. Re-assessment: Limitations of “normals” Disability Pride; Deaf Culture

14 Gill: Differences from Other Minority Groups 1. Public perceptions of Disabled People- a confusing mix of conflicting emotions Fear, Pity, Charity, Disgust 2. Stigma can be superficially linked to impairments 3. Lack of “Safe Havens“ 4. Socialized as “normal” Gill, “Divided Understandings,” Handbook of Disability Studies, Albretch, et al 2000

15 =Reflection of Society What is Stigmatized…

16 Examples What is stigmatized now that was not 60 years ago? What was stigmatized 60 years ago that is not now?

17 Stigma Can be a very rapid process: Japanese Americans Destigmatizing: Usually a gradual process taking years / decades Our Culture Reinforces Stigma through it’s Obsession with Rank Orderings

18 II. Society & the “Other” Douglas Concept of Dirt 5 Ways Cultures deal with “dirt”

19 Douglas 1966 Concept of Dirt / “Matter out of Place.” How Societies Groups or Deals with Ambiguous Margins. Dirt is an Anomaly - A Discordant

20 Douglas (cont.) Argues that ambiguity proves difficult: Culture involves classification Dirt is disorder which then creates breakdown of classification and boundaries are ambiguous or confused.

21 Douglas: 5 Ways Cultures deal with “Dirt” 1. Reduce ambiguity (Fuzziness of Otherness) by creating dichotomies. 2. Elimination. 3. Avoidance 4. Label as dangerous. 5. Incorporating into ritual.

22 1. Reduce Ambiguity Create dichotomies: Disabled / Non-Disabled Gay / Straight Child / Adult Male / Female That which defies classification is especially troublesome to society: Transvestites, Mulattos, Part Timers, Intersex, Passers, Multiple Impairments

23 2. Elimination Eugenics Holocaust War Prenatal Testing Human Genome Project Death Penalty

24 3. Avoidance OR Strengthen dirty status: Prisons Asylums Ugly Laws Not-In-My-Neighborhood Special Education

25 4. Label as Dangerous Bodies / Minds Out of Control Epilepsy Hallucinations

26 5. Incorporate Into Ritual Special Olympics Charity / Telethons

27

28 Clare The mountain as metaphor looms large in the lives of marginalized people, people whose bones get crushed in the grind of capitalism,patriarchy, white supremacy. How many of us have struggled up the mountain, measured ourselves against it, failed up there, lived in its shadow? We've hit our heads on glass ceilings, tried to climb the class ladder, lost fights against assimilation, scrambled toward that phantom called normality. We hear from the summit that the world is grand from up there, that we live down here at the bottom because we are lazy, stupid, weali, and ugly. We decide to climb that mountain, or male a pact that our children will climb it. The climbing turns out to be unimaginably difficult. We are afraid; evely time we look ahead we can find nothing remotely familiar or comfortable. We lose the trail. Our wheelchairs get stuck. We speak the wrong languages with the wrong accents, wear the wrong clothes, carry our bodies the wrong ways, ask the wrong questions, love the wrong people. And it's goddamn lonely up there on the mountain. We decide to stop climbing and build a new house right where we are.Or we decide to climb back down to the people we love, where the food, the clothes, the dirt, the sidewalk, the steaming asphalt under our feet, our crutches, all feel right. Or we find the path again,decide to continue climbing only to have the very people who told us how wonderful life is at the summit booby-trap the trail. They bum the bridge over the impassable canyon. They redraw our topomaps so that we end up walling in circles. They send their goons-those working-class and poor people they employ as their official brutes-to push us over the edge. Maybe we get to the summit, but probably not. And the price we pay is huge.