SOC test #2
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry: free market:
no controls, prices are not regulated by the government
Strain theory Robert k. Merton 1938: Deviance
"deviance is a way of adjusting to society that promotes attainable goals ex. American dream" 4 responses to inability to meet social expectations: -innovation: individual who does not use conventional means to attain success, meaning they cheat, they accept social goals but they'll attain them through different ways ex. Accepting that degrees are important but cheating to get them -ritualism: conform to standards but reject to goal ex. Students who attend university and put in minimal effort needed -retreatism: rejecting way to get to the goal and the goals ex. Timothy leary album advocating LSD and dropping out of American dream -rebellion: rejects proper behaviour and goals BUT make new ones ex. Countercultures
Fashion as Code: Fred Davis
Codes - Are unstable - change over time - context dependent and dependent on relationships between individuals
Active consumption: gratifications theory Blumer & Katz
people go out and seek out sources that meet their needs: PIES personal identity information entertainment social integration
Institutional/structural racism: Minority status
people that are not part of the dominant social group fewer in privilege NOT fewer in number
Critiques of consumption: Marxism
Commodity fetishism: Marx's coat exposed to him the workings of life and capitalism it had use-value to him to be accepted into society and maintain status, when he pawned it he lost that • shows dichotomy of things are commodities and people are individuals vs. people are commodities and things can have lives
Institutional/structural racism: Prejudice
pre-judgement of another group and is negative defined as what you feel about the other people
Commodity self: Stewart Ewen
-we are the products of the commodities that we purchase -our selves are not influenced by media we purchase but is constituted by it -products do not express us, they create us
conflict theory: Deviance
-what counts as breaking the rules -involves power: deviants are people that are powerless, and who is a criminal is attributed to those who interfere with the operation of capitalism •ex. Property crimes are punished harder than other crimes: stealing a television is more punishable than rape •unemployed individuals, drugs users and people who don't contribute to the economy are deviant, ironically white collared crime kills more lives than actual murder ex. Dying of asbestos cancer
Ethnicity and race in fashion
-Dress/fashion are one of the main ways that inscribe meaning to racial and ethnic groups -Some brands like UO have made it part of their identity to offend groups
Everett Rogers 1995: Fashion Process & Fashion Roles
-Fashion Process: Discovery Promotion Labelling Dissemination Loss of exclusiveness Displacement -Fashion Roles: Innovators (ex. Anna Wintour) opinion leaders early adopters (influencers and promoters of styles) late adopters
Fashion crimes: Revolting style
-Using dress as a form of refusal ex. materials of low value, dirty clothes, bad posture
Functionalism: Deviance:
-deviance is universal, social function that is beneficial b/c societies have criminals so they must perform some function deviancy performs these functions: -affirms norms/values -accentuates the rights -draw moral boundaries -creates unity
Fashion crimes: The fashion victim
-evils of corsetry -thinness -harmful cosmetics -heels -Does "too much," is unaware of their excess, social consensus they have gone too far
Active consumption theory:
-goods empower people and create meaning -groups use goods to communicate their own meanings and purpose, and consumption enhances individuality
Fashion crimes: Style in revolt
-trying to expand what is socially acceptable ex. Gender-bending
Institutional/structural racism: Stereotype
preconceived idea about who someone is and is applied to anyone in the category
Capitalist World-System: Immanuel Wallerstein 1970s
4 Categories of Dependency: Core countries: Are the most economically diversified, wealthy, and powerful (economically and militarily) strong governments. the ones in-charge, their head quarters drive economies around the world (upper north America, Australia, japan, western Europe) Semi-peripheral: used to be Canada of how much we're involved with the U.S. (now south Africa, mexico, Indonesia, most of east asia, india, eastern south America) Peripheral countries: Are the least economically diversified, weak governments (southern central America, western south america, carribean, Africa, northern asia, middle east) Others: those that maintain socially necessary divisions of labor independent of the capitalist world economy (western sahara, Guyana, cayenne, belize, Iceland, south pacific, lower Mediterranean).
Neo-colonialism:
no more colonies countries that were colonizers now practice new form of economic colonization -not only nations but also transnational corporations → they have control over economic resources and labour of other countries
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry: post-industrial economy:
Canada has this • primary sector: natural resource based (Canada) • secondary sector: manufacturing • tertiary sector: service industries → USA is first world, Brazil is second world, Nepal is third world (this refers to economic status)
Anthony Giddens late modernity:
Disembeddedness: people are disembedded from time and space and our experience of modernity is a series of dislocations that have swept us away from traditional social life and disconnected us from a particular place or "hypermodernity" ex. We have homogonized culture where mcds is the same everywhere
Consuming Fashion: Fashion/ Media / Ethics
Fashion can't exist outside a consumer society 4 Features of a Consumer Society: 1. capitalism 2. urbanism 3. mobility 4. shift in values
Deviance (All Theories)
Functionalism: benefits social function, affirms norms/values Symbolic Interactionism: not the action that matters, society's REACTION Conflict Theory: interprets society as a struggle for power between groups engaging in conflict for limited resources Strain Theory (Merton 1938): innovation/ritualism/retreatism/rebellion Learning Theory: learned behaviour from a social group Differential Association: extent of deviance = level of exposure to that behaviour Labelling Theory: deviance = label (primary=temporary, secondary=long lasting) Control Theory: we're all deviant / how society controls it Subcultural Theory (Cohen): deviance is rooted in subcultures Social Bond (Hirschi): attachment/commitment/involvement/beliefs
Labelling theory: Deviance
Howard Becker: the dominant approach to deviance today, deviance is not behaviour—but a stigmatizing label, points to differences in deviance between cultures -Primary deviance: temporary label with no long-term impact on your identity ex. Getting drunk at a party -Secondary deviance: long-lasting label ex. rapist -Moral panic: when society latches on to a label to control their irrational fear of something ex. Columbine shooting trench coat mafia
Globalization and the Textile and Garment Industries: women
In some places garment factories are the only place where women can get financial independence and have a socially accepted job
Ethnicity (All theories)
Lived: total identity, must be conformed to Situational: (not applied 2 coloured) hidden/revealed based on usefulness Hybrid: ancestral/national --> tension in belonging Insurgent: politicized for purpose/gain Postcultural: transition from multicultural to ethnicity playing no role Exnomination: bourgeoisie hiding name/iteself to normalize & rep itself as the nation Exoticism: from 18th cent. art world/ breaks away from conventions/ luxury Syncretism: rework/fusion of original --> innovation Othering: non-western, sexualized/symbols of the past Cultural Appropriation: taking from an oppressed culture Colourblindess: ignoring race/ making like it doesn't exist/ ignoring racial struggles
Ethnicity & Race: Syncretism
Rework or fusion of the original source that allows for an innovative fashion to be made ex. YSL russian collection, this collection revived haute couture by portraying how fashion can be an artistic practice and not just a product
Control theory: Deviance
Says we're all deviant and asks how society manages it -Travis Hirschi's Social Bond Theory: •Attachment: degree of connectedness between individual and society •Commitment: how many opportunities given to an individual that makes them invested •Involvement: a person who is busy won't be deviant •Beliefs: we learn values and they become part of our worldview
Consumption: Post-modernism: Jean Baudrillard 1981
Simulacrum and simulation: copy for which there is no original ex ralph Lauren fake catalogue with vintage clothes that actually doesn't exist "symptom of the crisis of the real"
Thomas Theorem: Prejudice Cycle
Stage 1: prejudice/discrimination stage 2: social disadvantage stage 3: belief in minority's innate inferiority
David Harvey postmodernity:
Time-space compression: social life consists of interactions of face-to-face or remote, and this theory says remote interaction has become the primary interaction of contemporary life ex. We spend more time on our phone than with real people
Fashion diffusion models:
Topdown/trickle-down: -new york, london and paris are the hubs of fashion -wealthy urban women display exclusive fashion -change is driven my status seeking •fashion diffuses because it indicates social class, model still exists in the luxury fashion world •RTW is sold and haute couture maintains image Bubble-up: -there is not city, it comes from the margins of society a.k.a non-western, streetstyle and subcultures -is youth driven -called poverty chic •focuses on lifestyle, importance of media Mass market/Trickle-across: -fashion moves simultaneously/horizontally •product is introduced at the same time in different types of stores, mass production allows for trickle-across, can only be practiced by huge international brands
Institutional/structural racism: Discrimination
actions that perpetuate negative stereotypes and prejudices
Consuming Fashion: Douglas Kellner 2013:
advertising exists for rational and irrational persuasion • consumption is a symbol of social status and you to use dress and your possessions to say something about who you are and what social group you belong to • consumption allows social and physical mobility • therapeutic ethos is achieved through consumption changes in production of goods: needed industrialization, mass production • shopping is no longer a chore, but a social and leisure activity • department stores are democratizers, they allow anyone to come in vs. the Chanel store who is only welcoming to a certain type of consumer market economy: choice stimulates consumption command economy: where you only have one choice, regulated by the government rise of advertising: form of social control, reproduces a consumer society, shape expectation
Fashion crimes: Stigma allure
being attracted to outsider status
Ethnicity & Race: Exoticism
comes from middle of the 18th century art world, gives designer ability to break away from conventional details, association with luxury •Valentino tribal collection: shot in Kenya with Maasai extras used as props/unpaid •Stuart Hall media sociologist says this is making a spectacle out of the others •Perfumes as non-westernized through suggestive colour, texture and composition •Marc Jacobs and Teri Greeves sneakers (large scale pictorial beading and converse beading)
Ethnicity & Race: Othering
comes from post-colonial theory and is the mirror opposite of the white European •Says the Europeans are modest/conservative and belong to merit societies and the others are sexualized and past on old systems of the past •Remains attractive to designers through exoticism •Offer a within reach fantasy •Non-western designers are viewed through otherness ex. Every Japanese designers designs are compared to the structure of a kimono Gucci tribal collection: presented in media on blacks models (Beyonce, Naomi Campbell), but seen on a white model on the runway - Example of racializing the wearer
Critical race theory: 70s/80s
contemporary movement in academia, beginning in 1970s/80s body of theory that critiques the structure of power in American society and how it perpetuates racism •6 tenants: everyday racism is a reality for people of colour, •micro aggressions: should be made visible: unintentional slight insult that puts people of colour in their subordinate place •white privilege Peggy Mason: opportunities given to white people that are unearned
Ethnicity
cultural heritage composed of objective and subjective criteria •Objective: language, food, music, clothing, religion •Subjective: how the individual identifies with the objective, internalized identity ex. Identifying as native but being told you aren't •Students who are white often feel they have no ethnicity
Subcultural theory: Phil Cohen: Deviance
deviance comes from people in subcultures within mainstream society ex. Delinquent/youth subcultures -Develop their own slang -are spectacular (visibly different) -develop motives that have a narrative that justifies their differences -their beliefs and norms are different and develop an alternative value system
Learning theory: Deviance
deviance is a learned behaviour from your social group -Edwin Sutherland: "differential association theory" -the extent to which you are deviant correlates to the level of your exposure to that behaviour ex. Lance Armstrong doping setting behaviour of teammates
symbolic interactionism: Deviance
deviancy is contingent -depends on who, when and where you are -it's not the action but society's reaction that important = it emerges out of social interaction. Ex. Unwed mother's home and legalization of marijuana "the devil's harvest"
Ethnicity & Race: Colourblindness
does not seeing race, mean race does not exist? •United Colour of Benneton markets themselves as all inclusive except their ad campaigns still racialize people (puts black models in "Africian" inspired dress and Pocahontas aesthetic to native model) •Colourblindness would work if we weren't a racist society, because we are—colourblindess actually perpetuates racism •Jeremy Scott slave shoes: he's unaware of the implications of his designs
Race
no scientific basis for concept of race -race is skin deep -exists only as a social construct -inheriting physical characteristics which often come from adaption -focus on skin colours comes from the slave trade intensifying during the 19th century •People in the same race category can be genetically MORE different than two people of DIFFERENT categories
Globalization and the Textile and Garment Industries: Buyer-driven value chain
each step in the manufacturing process ads value, buyer sets value (NOT consumer, the buyer for stores) Naomi Klein: corporations/manufacturers don't know who is making their product because they focus on the brand (perception of the product) Philippines Nike protest: women wanted annual salary doubled and the government mass arrested people and killed 5 protesters & wounded over 70 others • Nike did not take responsibility for this because they were all subcontracted and had no legal or ethical obligations to the workers or their environment
Roland Barthes Fashion as a discourse:
fashion cannot exist without discourse discourse: the following 3 components make the "sign of fashion" • actual clothing: clothing-clothing • image clothing: picture of the garment • written-clothing: text that exists in the image of the garment (most important part) consists of physical description, circumstantial features and evaluative statements critique of Barthes model: too text focused, there is more to dress than communicating a discourse because dress is also a sensory experience
Raymond Loewy Evolution Chart Design: 1934
fashion is a revolutionary process that cannot be defined by transfusion models, rather there is deep change Fashion as evolutionary: looks at the wider design field of architecture and design, fashion is simply at the forefront
Racism
form of stratification (dividing groups into strata/different levels) -way to rank people -uneven distribution of power and privilege
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry: global economic theories:
global economy: crosses over national borders • Effects: creates global division of labour, supply chains are multinational, compromises rights and opportunities of individuals
Passive consumption:
goods are emptied of meaning and consumption results in loss of individuality: consumer is controlled and maintained uniform through consuming -A.K.A cultivation theory by gerbner and gross → long term effects create a build-up of ideological representations of beliefs and values we hold -We come to media with existing set of values and they're merely reinforced by media
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry: planned economy (command economy):
government controls resources, production and consumption of goods and services equated with socialism and communism ex. Weed, healthcare
Active consumption: Reception theory Stuart Hall
individual holds the power not media
Hypodermic syringe model media theory:
media is like a shot in the arm, about media, effects created in the 1930s b/c of cinema • media has short term effect but audiences react the same way • audience is manipulated through affected thoughts and behaviour, used to explain copycat crimes ex. When you play a violent video game you'll be more violent Criticism: draws attention away from real problem and causes moral panic, does not hold ppl accountable for their actions
Active consumption: two-step flow theory Lazarsfel / Berelson & Gaudet: 1944
media moves in two stages opinion leaders (a.k.a modern term influencers) who filter mass media messages pass on their interpretations of media content
McKay's Historical analysis of European fads:
men's facial hair, tulip mania, porcelain fever, Indian cottons •Rational, historical or economic circumstances that led to a fad •Humans have a herd mentality which economists call the band wagon effect •(reference to Veblen's conspicuous consumption) Veblen's idea of novelty is similar to McKay's idea of a fad •Simmel thought of fashion as reinstating social groups
Institutional/structural racism
racism is part of every aspect of society, occurs through all forms of daily life ex. Black designers aren't prevalent simply because they do not feel they belong and don't take up the career
Fashion as collective selection: Blumer 1969
rebuttals all previous theories through ... Blumer's Critiques of older theories: •Says that fashion is not a fad because that's too narrow •Says old theories say fashion is trivial and irrational but he says its not—and in fact it operates logically •Early theories misunderstand nature of fashion •Says earlier models overemphasizes the role of the elites and he claims that they actually ignore fashions trends—they respond to fashion rather than set it •Blumer misses that earlier theorists did not study the fashion industry because they were armchair scientists (meaning they didn't go out and observe, they wrote essays from their own perspectives) Blumer's Methods: •Blumer spent a season in Paris interviewing designers and observing runways thus he conducted field observation and interview unlike previous theorists •Basic claims: fashion is NOT arbitrary, designers working in isolation nonetheless create similar designs and buyer independently choose similar designs—this is because fashion that reaches the public are pre-selected by buyers 3 roles of fashion according to Blumer: 1. unifies representation in the face of social fragmentation o Zeitgeist: spirit of the times 2. Prompts us to let go of the past i.e. fashion is change and forces us to move on, helps progression of societies 3. Fashion prepares us for the future Blumer says changes in fashion are due to: 1. new participants 2. new social and cultural phenomena, relates to 3. internal changes within the industry ex. Sustainability and technology
Opposing theories that explain global stratification (inequity between power/ wealth/ privilege) 1/2: Modernization theory of economic development:
rich countries produce wealth through capital investment and technological development • sees progress as beneficial to individuals and society, but occurs in phases and in a gradual progress • when a society modernizes they become more alike Walt W. Rostow's 5 stages of modernization/economic development: 1. traditional society: resourced based, agricultural, limited global trade, face-to-face transaction, family-based, little scientific perspective or access to technology 2. preconditions to take-off: begins to develop manufacturing and regional networks 3. take-off: before rapid industrialization 4. drive to maturity: over long period of time (second mechanical age), manufacturing reaches peak capacity 5. high mass consumption: post-industrial economy, only possible in capitalist or free-market based system, most consumer choice, products are results of mass production Role of Rich/ first world nations: have responsibility to help second/third world nations 1. control population growth ex. China 2. increase food production 3. introduce high technology 4. provide financial assistance
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry: mixed economy:
segments are both market and planned based, nations are dominating more by one of the types even when being both
Thomas Theorem: William Isaac Thomas & Dorothy Swaine Thomas 1928
situations that are defined as real become real in their consequences ex. Thought of monsters keeping tara up at night even though there are no monsters
Crimes of fashion
stigma is social condemnation
Consumption: Environmentalism:
sustainable consumption theories and strategies • Comes from UN report called common future on filling needs rather than lives, and recognition of limits that prevent societies from meetings future needs • Environmental sociology: anthropocentric, sustainability and eco-centric
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry: market economy:
system is organized around supply and demand, regulated by consumer demand, equated with capitalism
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry: economy:
system that regulates production, distribution and consumption of goods and services
Opposing theories that explain global stratification (inequity between power/ wealth/ privilege) 2/2: Dependency nation:
views economic development as an unequal relationship between first and third world nations, emerged from central south America in the 60s/70s and was a resistance to modernization theories • Why do countries receiving foreign aid still not develop? → This is because their traditional societies resist modernization and government is corrupt • Poverty is a structural issue, global economy has created a system that keeps some countries poor while benefitting rich nations to stay in power • Capitalist economy has forced countries to be dependent on nations in power and face a lack of agency
Ethnic identity & patterns of social interaction:
world dress vs ethnic dress World dress: European and North American fashion that has become the norm/universally accepted fashion worldwide, results from patriarchy, part of urban life and modernity •Explains why white people feel they have no ethnicity Ethnic dress: negative mirror of European dress, bound by tradition, unchanging, associated with femininity (women wear traditional clothing but men leave to work in a business suit), suggest ceremonial or ritualistic function, part of the past •Fashion has worked to create cultural dominance
China Blue Film
• Factories must violate international labour laws in order to compete with other manufacturers
Postcultural vs Exnomination
• Postcultural (Don Klauzin): Modern societies are moving to a state that is post-cultural—we are going form multicultural to post cultural (ethnicity plays no role) ex. White people that abandon their ethnicity • Exnomination (Roland Barthes): when a culture becomes invisible and unable to be named outside of naming, when something is assumed to be natural or the norm, thus people who are not white are abnormal (which is negative) phenomenon where the bourgeoisie hides its name (and identity) by not referring to itself as such in order to naturalize bourgeois ideology and maintain its hegemony, representing itself, for instance, as the nation
Clothing Production: a Race to the bottom?
• Revenue goes into promotion rather than improving the product • Money straight to advertising
Populist model of fashion: Ted Polhemus 1994
• says fashion is all personal expression and there is no real sense of fashion • there is a decline in traditional features of fashion in contemporary fashion • we do not see newness, singularity or a diffusion from the elite which use to be a part of traditional fashion • ex. The motorcycle jacket once belonged to subcultural style and has now transitioned to mainstream—but not in a new way (it's exactly a replica of an old style): it's not new, singular (unique) or belonging to the elite • fashion is consumer NOT designer driven • personal style is stronger than "fashion" • fashion can be seen in the formation of style tribes style tribes: individuals who share an aesthetic but do not share beliefs or social values
Global Stratification and the Apparel Industry
• women have historically been the employees in the apparel industry • first union and labour protests have involved women led political protest • sweatshop: unsafe working conditions and low pay • first labour strike in 1909 advocating for better pay and safe working conditions • textile industry is the number one employer for developing countries
Clothing Crime & Deviancy
•Clothing as form of identification and evidence of perpetrators and victims, as weapon and defence •Wearing criminalized clothing (the dress of another person's sex)/cosmetics or using a disguise to go undercover • angela demontigny • major social theories on deviance • society is orderly and stable, there is no reason for deviance • consensus in society about what is right and wrong Personal identity/state identification •DNA on clothing used to connect personal and state identity in mass graves •Duchess vs. laundress •French prison tattoos •The Sydney "specials" of the 1920s •Women concealing items in bustles
Ethnicity & Race: Cultural appropriation
•KTZ takes sacred Inuit design and retails its for $925 •Although what they did is NOT illegal, the question stands—is it ethical? •KTZ also "borrowed" from Cheyenne/Crow designer Bethany Yellowtail's Crow pop collection •Not just defined as borrowing from stuff that's not your own, but also has a relation to power (who takes and who is taken from?) •Marc Jacobs SS2016 white models walk down the runway with dreadlocks, meanwhile woman is fired from her job for having dreads
4 main ways to experience ethnicity:
•Lived ethnic identity: total community identity which you conform to or else you are shunned ex Hasidic community (range of self-expression is severely limited) Primordial explanation: ethnicity and fixed identity unchanging •Situational ethnic identity: part-time and involuntary, displayed or concealed depending on its usefulness in a given situation. people of colour can not have situational identity because their appearance makes them belong to ethnicity all the time •Hybrid ethnic identity: ancestral homeland and national identity, related to idea of diaspora (people separated from ancestral lens), tension in belonging •Insurgent ethnic identity: ethnic identity is politicized and helps achieve goals, often happens when a group feels threatened ex. Resurgence in Scottish ethnic identity so people can vote in the referendum and Quebec wanting to ban overt and conspicuous symbols like the turban or hijab
Critical atavism theory: plate from lombroso's book criminal man 1876
•criminal men are one's that look more ape like or have low intelligence 9 characteristics: long arms, hairy, low forehead, heavy brow, big ears or really small ears, big lips, protruding jaw •analysis of mugshots
Definitions of Deviant:
•when something causes harm •statistical rarity/unusual (implies obedience) •violation of norms •some sociologists say that deviance and crime doesn't exist, it is merely a reaction to what is "different" and is dependent on cultural and circumstance •romanticized and demonized •deeper impression and brand engagement with viewers for adds that portray sexuality or violence •is deviance biologically connected?
