Synthesis essay 2

• Due today at 11:59pm

A note on references/styles

• Essays do not need to comply with any formal style guides (e.g. cover pages are not necessary)
• Essays should use parenthetcial in-text citations and have a reference list at the end
• For a short essay, this usually means making sure the author and year are listed the first time a text is mentioned
  E.g. "Mahtani (2002) studies the experience of …"
  (Subsequent metions of Mahtani would not typically need a year)
• When completing peer assessment, focus on the existence and relevance of references rather than their format.

Violations of social norms

• Sociology of deviance is concerned with behavior that violates norms, or what is considered “acceptable”
• Rather than focus on stability of social expectations, sociology of deviance examines places where those expectations are transgressed

Types of deviance

• Deviant behavior is a very broad category
• Small violations that cause little more than mild discomfort
  e.g. standing “too close” to someone while talking with them
• Subcultural behavior that may be accepted within but not outside of a community
  e.g. Goth or Furry subcultures
• Taboo behavior that is socially ‘forbidden’
  e.g. homicide, cannibalism, incest, arson, …
  (though consider, e.g., death penalty, police/military
  violence, or deliberate property destruction by state)

“Spoiled identity”

• Erving Goffman theorized stigma as a social process of labelling based on perceived difference
• Based in interaction (negotiation) rather than any specific behavior/trait
• Inability to make a credible claim to an ‘acceptable’ identity

Identity management

• “Strategies” for managing stigmatized identities
• Covering: hiding or downplaying stigmatized traits
• Flaunting: highlighting a trait to challenge its stigmatization

Power dynamics

• Stigma management is tied to social power structures
• Those with more power are more easily able to manage stigma
• Economic capital can help with covering a stigmatized trait (e.g. healthcare, prosthetics, lawyers)
• Cultural and social capital can mitigate the negative effects of stigma, and may facilitate flaunting

Stigma is intersectional

• Stigma is mediated by social status
• E.g. alcohol consumption by a wealthy person versus an unhoused person
• E.g. multiple sexual partners for a man versus a woman
• Intersecting identities of race, gender, class, disability, age, language, etc. determine the labelling and consequences of stigma