Marginalized Groups (marginalized + groups)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Surmounting City Silences: Knowledge Creation and the Design of Urban Democracy in the Everyday Economy

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2009
NANCY ETTLINGER
This essay presents segregation as a fundamental, longstanding and widespread problem that impedes democratic urban life and is intelligible from a critical geographic perspective. Ignorance is spatially produced by segregation at multiple scales so as to legitimize and perpetuate silence about problems among marginalized groups. This spatialized understanding explains inequality, problematizes and difference prompts an agenda that forefronts the creation of new social knowledges. The focus here is on the everyday economy as a crucial but commonly overlooked context for developing such knowledges. I re-present a theory of knowledge creation developed for the pursuit of commercial competitiveness and reconfigure it to mesh socio-political and economic goals. A central challenge is to change prevailing discourses by cultivating new practices that entail meaningful interaction among people otherwise segregated. Efficiency becomes a means to social as well as economic ends, as respect and trust grow from collaborative experience among people who might otherwise not interact. Résumé Ce travail présente la ségrégation comme un problème fondamental, persistant et généralisé qui handicape la vie urbaine démocratique et qui peut être appréhendé d'un point de vue critique géographique. L'ignorance est le résultat, sur le plan spatial, d'une ségrégation à plusieurs échelons aux fins de justifier et de perpétuer le silence sur les problèmes qui existent dans les groupes marginalisés. Cette appréhension spatiale explique l'inégalité, tandis que la problématisation de la différence conduit à mettre en évidence la création de nouveaux savoirs sociaux. L'intérêt porte ici sur l'économie du quotidien, considérée comme un contexte essentiel, quoique très souvent négligé, pour le développement de ces savoirs. L'auteur revisite une théorie de la création du savoir élaborée dans le but d'accroître la compétitivité commerciale, et la reconfigure pour qu'elle concorde avec des objectifs sociopolitiques et économiques. L'un des principaux défis consiste à changer la rhétorique dominante en cultivant de nouvelles pratiques qui supposent une interaction porteuse de sens entre des gens par ailleurs ségrégués. L'efficience devient un moyen à des fins sociales et économiques, le respect et la confiance se nourrissant de la collaboration vécue entre des personnes qui, autrement, n'auraient peut-être pas été en relation. [source]


Attitudes toward Out-groups and the perception of consensus: All feet do not wear one shoe

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 6 2008
Anne Pedersen
Abstract Although social perception research has been carried out across a number of diverse domains, to the best of our knowledge, studies have not directly assessed the relationship between attitudes toward the out-group and perceptions of community support for those attitudes. In the present research, we report the findings of a study conducted in Western Australia using data collected from 653 participants from three different locations. The main thrust of our study was the accuracy of beliefs about consensus as it related to attitudes toward two marginalized groups: Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers. With respect to their attitudes toward these two groups, our respondents were placed in seven categories corresponding to their responses to our seven point attitude scales. Three main findings emerged. First, respondents at all seven levels overestimated community support for their views with respect to both Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers. Second, as respondents in both groups became more rejecting, their estimates of community support progressively increased in a linear fashion. Third, respondents in the more negative categories were significantly less accurate in their estimates than those in the more positive categories. How these findings might contribute to programmes designed to reduce prejudice is discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Prisons and the tuberculosis epidemic in Russia

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2003
A. J. Mercer
A resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) occurred in Russia in the 1990s, in a period of general health crisis following the break-up of the Soviet Union. Inter-related increases in poverty, unemployment and unhealthy lifestyle probably contributed to increased incidence and mortality from TB among the civilian population. The number of prisoners increased dramatically in the 1990s and many come from socially marginalized groups at high risk of TB. There is a high prevalence of TB in prisons in Russia, with inadequate TB control measures, overcrowding and poor nutrition contributing to the problem. Many prisoners are released before completion of treatment, often into a social milieu that fosters transmission of TB. Prisoners and ex-prisoners account for a very high proportion of TB cases in Russia and without adequate treatment for them the epidemic is unlikely to be brought under control. © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The Perils of Rights Discourse: A Response to Kitzinger and Wilkinson

ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2004
Susan B. Boyd
This commentary responds to Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson's argument for the use of human rights discourse rather than a discourse of mental health when arguing for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Without disagreeing with their basic argument, I "problematize" it, showing that legal and human rights discourses also have a history of reinforcing power dynamics and operating to the disadvantage of marginalized groups such as lesbians and gay men. First, equality rights discourse can force lesbians and gay men into a conservative mode of argument, for instance, having to show how similar they are to traditionalist opposite-sex couples, rather than emphasizing potentially significant differences. Second, the increasing use of rights discourse has arguably narrowed the scope of the lesbian/gay social movement and rendered its political strategies more conservative, rather than aiming for the elimination of heterosexism and patriarchy. Third, the focus on marriage as a human right tends to render invisible, and to reinscribe, the extent to which marriage as a socio-legal institution has operated in oppressive ways. Modern marriage is not innocent of oppression, tied as it is to the increasing privatization of social and economic responsibilities. While human rights discourse offers an important avenue for lesbians and gay men, the perils of its use should not be overlooked. [source]


Structural Adjustment, Spatial Imaginaries, and "Piracy" in Guatemala's Apparel Industry

ANTHROPOLOGY OF WORK REVIEW, Issue 1 2009
Kedron Thomas
Abstract This article examines how urban violence influences the everyday lives of Guatemalan Maya entrepreneurs who make nontraditional clothing to sell in highland markets and Guatemala City. How urban space is imagined and experienced among apparel producers reflects a process of class differentiation linked to Guatemala's entrance into international trade and legal agreements. Realities of uneven access and unequal resource distribution allow some producers to take advantage of formal markets and official networks in the capital city, while others avoid the city streets out of fear. Such inequalities are obscured when entrepreneurs who benefit from urban connections talk about relative success in terms of a moral division between those who engage in brand piracy and those who do not. In line with an official discourse that blames "pirates," gangs, and other marginalized groups for the country's social and economic ills, apparel producers who do not copy popular brands often view those who do as immoral and illegal. The case study presented here is fruitful ground for theorizing how cultural representations of urban space influence market strategies and moral logics amidst processes of economic and legal restructuring. [source]


Friends, Judaism, and the Holiday Armadillo: Mapping a Rhetoric of Postidentity Politics

COMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 4 2006
Naomi R. Rockler
Critical communication literature that problematizes postfeminism, therapeutic rhetoric, Whiteness, and representations of marginalized groups all point to a comprehensive rhetoric of postidentity politics, a rhetoric characterized by the assumption that identity politics are no longer relevant. In this essay, I analyze an episode of the popular television program, Friends, in which Jewish identity politics are represented. I situate my critique of this episode first within the history of Jewish representation on television but primarily as a starting point to map out the characteristics of a rhetoric of postidentity politics. [source]