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ABSTRACT
This article explains a cultural sociological approach to research on social inequality. “Cultural sociological” means that we do not regard social inequality as resulting only from a distributive order of goods, income and positions, but also from an evaluative order created and reproduced by the actions of social groups. Concerning the topic of this thematic issue, this means that, from a sociological perspective, we see “weakness” not only as the social vulnerability of actors and groups resulting from a lack of material resources, education and power, but also as an attribution and assessment which can have a variety of social consequences. “Weakness” can compel others to help the weak and defend their interests. But if the weak are to be protected and empowered, they must be identified as “weak” in the first place, and this act of identification can have paradoxical consequences. As we demonstrate with evidence from East Asia, the social designation as “weak” can have many adverse effects for the weak groups themselves, because it blames them for their own weaknesses and publicly condemns, disparages, or stigmatizes them. Based on an analysis of the situation of victims of the Fukushima disaster in Japan and of rural migrants and their offspring living in Chinese metropoles, we show how social designations of weakness can produce negative classifications that signal disrespect to weak actors and limit their opportunities for action.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Bourdieu Citation1984, Citation1990.
2 Durkheim Citation1976.
3 Durkheim and Mauss Citation1963; Douglas Citation1973.
4 Tajfel Citation1981; Douglas and Hull Citation1992; Bowker and Star Citation2002.
5 Elias and Scotson Citation1965.
6 Bourdieu Citation1984.
7 Bourdieu Citation1986.
8 Bourdieu Citation1990, 133.
9 See Neckel Citation2003; Neckel and Sutterluety Citation2005; Neckel and Soeffner Citation2008.
10 See Neckel and Soeffner Citation2008, 35 ff.
11 We should add that the social construction of symbolic orders does not always consist of evident acts of communication between involved actors, but may likewise be the result of sustained silences, as in the case of Japanese evacuees analyzed below.
12 Douglas Citation1986.
13 Neckel and Soeffner Citation2008.
14 Neckel and Sutterluety Citation2005, 422 ff.
15 Berger Citation1989; Neckel Citation2003; Neckel and Sutterluety Citation2005.
16 Mannheim Citation1980, 211 ff.
17 Berger Citation1989.
18 See Neckel Citation1996.
19 Simmel Citation1971.
20 Dubet and Lapeyronnie Citation1999; see also Simmel Citation1971, 70.
21 Bourdieu Citation1998.
22 Kingston Citation2012; McLaughlin Citation2013a.
23 Asahi Shimbun, 12.12.Citation2011; cf. Feldman Citation2013. Etymologically, the term is related to the Chinese character ban/pan, denoting “hobble, fetter, restrain, bind.” In Japanese, while one meaning of kizuna 絆 is "bond," it also conveys the less felicitous meanings of "encumbrance; hindrance"; see also Mair Citation2011.
24 In 2012, a new political party split from the Democratic Party under the name “Kizuna.”
25 Kyoto Shimbun, 4.4.2011; cf. McLaughlin Citation2013b, 315.
26 McLaughlin Citation2013a, 295.
27 See Gregory Clancey Citation2016.
28 McLaughlin 2013.
29 Sueki (Citation2011); for the English translation, see McLaughlin 2013, 296. Despite the public outrage that these statements triggered in the weeks and months afterwards, the author, a Professor of Buddhism, defended his interpretation of the disaster as a product of karmic causality.
30 Burakumin are members of outcast communities at the bottom of Japanese society. The category stems from Japan’s feudal era, when Burakumin filled occupations considered tainted (such as workers in slaughterhouses, butchers, tanners, and executioners). Burakumin have historically been victims of severe discrimination and ostracism.
32 See Gregory Clancey Citation2016.
34 Morioka Citation2013.
35 www.moj.go.jp/JINKEN/jinken04_00008.html. So-called “atomic bomb victims” (hibakusha) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had faced similar acts of discrimination after 1945 due to their exposure to toxic irradiation. Thanks to Kathrin Heidtmann for pointing out the historical background; see also Gregory Clancey.
36 “Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage” (Act No. 147 of 1961), English translation available online: www.oecd-nea.org/law/legislation/japan-docs/Japan-Nuclear-Damage-Compensation-Act.pdf.
37 For the shift of interpretations of the catastrophe as natural versus man-made disaster, see Hörhager and Weitzdörfer forthcoming.
38 Feldman Citation2013; Weitzdörfer Citation2014; Hörhager and Weitzdörfer forthcoming.
39 Morioka Citation2013; Saito and Slodkowski Citation2014.
40 Feldman Citation2013; Hörhager and Weitzdörfer forthcoming.
41 Kawazoe Citation2014a.
42 Ministry of Justice Citation2012.
43 Morioka Citation2013, 184.
44 Saito and Slodkowski Citation2014.
45 Matsuoka et al. Citation2013, 133, English translation quoted from Kawazoe Citation2014b, 10.
46 GTJ Citation2015.
47 Solinger Citation1999; Chan and Buckingham Citation2008.
48 Examples are too abundant to quote; for example, www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/chinese-migrants-are-second-class-citizens/article593138/; also see Whyte Citation2010; Wang Citation2010.
49 The description here is based on personal visits to various Chinese regions over the years 1989 to 2015. Similar impressions are captured in the documentary “Last Train Home” produced in 2011 by Chinese filmmaker Fan Lixin, who documented the migration of millions of Chinese workers during the Chinese New Year through the prism of one family; see Fan Citation2011.
50 Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), March 3, 2002.
51 Lu Xueyi (Citation2002); Guangjiaojing, March 2002, 14–17.
52 Holbig Citation2002.
53 O’Brien and Li Citation2006.
54 The concept of a “harmonious society” was defined at the Fourth Plenary session of the CCP in September 2004 as a society built on “democracy and rule of law, justice and equality, trust and truthfulness, amity and vitality, order and stability, and a harmonious relation with nature.” With respect to social relations, the new vision was described as a society “in which all the people will do their best, each individual has his proper place, and everybody will get along in harmony with each other.” Reported by Xinhua English, September 25, 2005.
55 See, for example, an article about lawyer Zhou Litai in China Daily, Citation2004. Zhou Litai was also been dubbed in the official media as "the patron saint of migrant workers." See Global Times, November 9, Citation2012.
56 Goodburn Citation2009; Hsu Citation2012. One of the most well-known charities in this field is the Migrant Childrens Foundation founded in 2009 in Beijing. See: www.mcfchina.org/content/short-history-mcf.
57 Article 1 of the “Labor Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China”; www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Law/2009-02/20/content_1471106.htm.
58 Yip Citation2010; comment by Lü Xiaobo during the APSA Annual Meeting, September 6, 2015, in San Francisco.
59 Das and N’Diaye Citation2013. According to Nobel Prize winner Arthur Lewis, this point is reached when no more labor is forthcoming from the underdeveloped, or agricultural, sector and wages begin to rise.
60 Kipnis Citation2007, Citation2011. The widespread use of the term suzhi in contemporary China is often discussed as a manifestation of neoliberal thinking. In his seminal study on the suzhi discourse in the People’s Republic of China, Andrew Kipnis (Citation2007) has questioned this interpretation.
61 “Fazhan suqiu xia de xinshengdai nongmingong suzhi kaifa” (Promoting the quality of new generation rural migrants under the requirement of development), Renmin Luntan (People’s Tribune), November 2011. See: http://paper.people.com.cn/rmlt/html/2011-04/11/content_804579.htm?div=-1#; see also Heckel, Hüppe-Moon, and Zou forthcoming.
62 Lan Citation2014; Hannum, Wang, and Adams Citation2010.
63 United Nations Children's Fund et al. Citation2014; Schucher Citation2015.
64 Beijing Jiaoyu Weiyuanhui Citation2015; Hornby Citation2015; Schucher Citation2015.
65 Gongren Ribao, August 23, Citation2006; cf. Heckel, Hüppe-Moon, and Zou forthcoming.
66 Lan Pei-chia, a Taiwanese scholar who has done field research in Shanghai, speaks of an “apartheid” model and a “concession” model to describe the various practices of spatial separation between local and rural schoolchildren; Lan Citation2014.
67 Lan Citation2014, 252.
68 Lan Citation2014, 255.
69 Lian Citation2009.
70 Zhang Citation2013.
71 Schucher Citation2014.
72 Engebretsen Citation2013; Zhang Citation2013.
73 Engebretsen Citation2013; Schucher Citation2014.
74 Lian Citation2009; cited from Zhang Citation2013, 24.
75 Suda Citation2012.
76 Reuters Lifestyle February 17, Citation2010; Dongfang Zazhi, Citation2014.
77 Schedler Citation2015.
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Notes on contributors
Heike Holbig
Heike Holbig is a Professor of Political Science with a research focus on Chinese and East Asian Area Studies at Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, and Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, Germany. She has published widely on Chinese politics in the reform period as well as ideological change and political legitimacy of the communist party regime. Her current research interests focus on changing state–society relations in China and Japan. Since January 2014, she also has coordinated the Volkswagen Foundation-funded research project, “Protecting the Weak: Entangled Processes of Framing, Mobilization and Institutionalization” at Goethe University.
Sighard Neckel
Sighard Neckel is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Hamburg and Research Director at the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. Before taking his chair at Hamburg, he held professorships at several other European universities, including the University of Vienna and Goethe University. He has published widely in the fields of social inequality, economic sociology, cultural sociology, the sociology of emotions, and social theory. His current research examines the social consequences of financial market economies and the “refeudalization” of modern capitalism.