Caste, Class, and the Changing Political Representation of Social Inequalities in India, 1962–2019

2021 ◽  
pp. 311-331
Author(s):  
ABHIJIT BANERJEE ◽  
AMORY GETHIN ◽  
THOMAS PIKETTY
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Political Representation

scholarly journals Social Categories are Natural Kinds, not Objective Types (and Why it Matters Politically)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Bach
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Natural Kinds ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Essential Property ◽  
Ontological Category ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Similarity Class ◽  
Historical Essences ◽  
Objective Type

AbstractThere is growing support for the view that social categories like men and women refer to “objective types.” An objective type is a similarity class for which the axis of similarity is an objective rather than nominal or fictional property. Such types are independently real and causally relevant, yet their unity does not derive from an essential property. Given this tandem of features, it is not surprising why empirically-minded researchers interested in fighting oppression and marginalization have found this ontological category so attractive: objective types have the ontological credentials to secure the reality (and thus political representation) of social categories, and yet they do not impose exclusionary essences that also naturalize and legitimize social inequalities. This essay argues that, from the perspective of these political goals of fighting oppression and marginalization, the category of objective types is in fact a Trojan horse; it looks like a gift, but it ends up creating trouble. I argue that objective type classifications often lack empirical adequacy, and as a result they lack political adequacy. I also provide, and in reference to the normative goals described above, several arguments for preferring a social ontology of natural kinds with historical essences.

Silence of the Land: On the Historical Irrelevance of Territory to Congressional Districting and Political Representation in the United States

2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 53-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Rehfeld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
Congressional District ◽  
Congressional Districts ◽  
Communities Of Interest

Every ten years, the United States “constructs” itself politically. On a decennial basis, U.S. Congressional districts are quite literally drawn, physically constructing political representation in the House of Representatives on the basis of where one lives. Why does the United States do it this way? What justifies domicile as the sole criteria of constituency construction? These are the questions raised in this article. Contrary to many contemporary understandings of representation at the founding, I argue that there were no principled reasons for using domicile as the method of organizing for political representation. Even in 1787, the Congressional district was expected to be far too large to map onto existing communities of interest. Instead, territory should be understood as forming a habit of mind for the founders, even while it was necessary to achieve other democratic aims of representative government.

Vampires of Color: A Critique of Multicultural Whiteness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Hudson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
White Trash ◽  
National Values ◽  
Lost Boys ◽  
Classical Hollywood

This chapter explores whiteness’s purported expansion through multiculturalism after Civil Rights and the Immigration Act of 1965. By yoking the inclusivity of multiculturalism and exclusivity of whiteness, multicultural whiteness sustains white privilege without acknowledging it, granting conditional or provisional inclusion to select nonwhite groups. It becomes a performative category (“white-identified-ness”) questioned in films like Blacula (1972), Ganja and Hess (1973), Martin (1976), Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), Near Dark (1987), Interview with the Vampire (1994), and The Addiction (1995). Classical Hollywood whiteness is transformed by greater emphasis on so-called national values—individualism, consumerism, patriotism, secularism, and willful amnesia—that sustain foundational myths of a nation of immigrants, land of opportunity, and beacon of democracy. Within the proliferation of representations of a multicultural United States, films question limitations on political representation for anyone not identifying—or being identified—with whiteness, including so-called white trash.

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