social science question

Readings:

Erica Fudge, “Introduction,” Animal. London: Reaktion Books, Ltd. 7-24.

Val Plumwood, “Dualism: the logic of colonisation,” in Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. New York: Routledge. 1993. 41-68. 

Modernity, and

humans vs. the natural world

(dualisms)

Links
Sap on T: https
://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpdNEd8fWcwhttps
://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUDKEI4QKI
Hyenas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBCNWmU5apE
Crows: tools insight 2:30 https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiAoqwsc9g&t=667s
Fairness study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysC
Cultural transmission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZcTvFqzxA0&t=71s
2

Normalization
Through mundane conventions, discourses legitimise certain ways of being as natural and inevitable, while marginalising alternatives.

Naturalization
Attributable to “human nature”: assumed to be natural and inevitable.
Normalization and naturalization serve to organize meaning and social practices shaping our lives.

Discourses
Come to operate as a set of accepted premises that can normalize and naturalize some arguments and render others unpersuasive or unimportant
They enable, but also limit discussions of a given subject
They coexist, compete, and can become obsolete.

Dualisms
Rob Macinnis,

the dualistic system of western thought
Reason/Nature
Rationality/Passion
White / Black
Male / Female
Reason / Emotion
Culture / Nature
Mind / Body
Subject / Object
Human/Animal
Human/Nature
“civilized”/“primitive”
Science/superstition

7

Which side is marginalized as “other”? Who is othered?

Dualism in western thought
Mindful human sphere vs. mindless, clockwork natural one
The way to escape dualism is to replace it with a non- hierarchical concept of difference.

“Our differences are our strength”
“We don’t want a world without race; we want a world in which race doesn’t matter.” We want a world with difference but we don’t want a world in which difference implies hierarchy.

11

Radical separation?
Most of us regard humans as completely separate from the rest of nature, viewed as little more than a resource to be exploited – with little consideration of the implications to these other beings, and the ecosystem.

Charles Darwin, 1809-1882
13

Darwin & evolutionary theory
19th c evolutionary theory presented the world as dynamic, in constant motion – unlike earlier, static model of the Great Chain
Evolution: the transmutation of species by changes to, or modifications in ancestral forms (Anderson, 84).
14

Evolution & natural selection
Evolution for Darwin was “what happened to all species as the result of the action of natural causes: Natural selection.”
He challenged the idea of divine will (God) as the causal force in the evolution of species.
15

Non-human animal subjectivity has always been, and continues to be a conundrum for mainstream European thought.

A long tradition in Western philosophy has declared the capacity for rational thought and its manifestation in language (consciousness, language, agency) as that which distinguishes human and nonhuman animals. But research since the 1960s has proven this wrong, as this is shared by some animals, and not possessed by some humans.

The search for animal intelligence
The search for intelligence is the same as an assertion of human power and domination. How do we use categories to define ourselves and exercise power over animal others?
Language is regarded as the domain of the human and signifies rationality –in Ancient Greek thought, logos could be used equally to for speech or reason.

Descartes: language evidence of reason. Animals have no reason, he argued. If a chimp can speak using hands, where does the difference between the species lie? Where is our power then?

anthropocentrism
Basis of western moral thought.
describes the tendency for human beings to see themselves as most significant. Reality is considered only through human perspectives.

Human exceptionalism / ANTHROPOCENTRISM
Old Testament roots of anthropocentrism shaped our view of non-human animals:
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” ~ Genesis: 1:26

Human exceptionalism
The belief that humans are essentially different and superior to nature and nonhuman animals
The view of the human as sole proprietor of consciousness and agency.

Erica Fudge – Animal
Our perceptions are based on our limitations and the fact that animals’ abilities and experiences exceed our capacity to conceive of them.
“It is easier to assume human difference than to have to reassess the possibility of animal capacity” (Fudge 2002: 113–166).
Nonhuman animal subjectivity “has always been, and continues to be, a blind spot, a conundrum for mainstream European thought” (Corbey 2013: 69).

Nature-Human Dualisms
Nature vs. Culture, Genetics vs environment

23

M. C. Escher

24
Nature – nurture
Exclusion based on biological, natural inferiority – justifying differential treatment and hierarchy

Nature-nurture debate
Naturalizes domination

“Seeing”:
Research Methods in Social Science

CONTENT WARNING FOR EVERY LINK.
Rob Hustle, Call the Cops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlY9C6pzxKc
Rodney King http://youtube.com/watch?v=7ikXImAk9Oc
I can’t breathe (Eric Garner)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/dec/04/i-cant-breathe-eric-garner-chokehold-death-video
 
Tamir Rice
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/nov/26/cleveland-video-tamir-rice-shooting-police

Sammi Yetin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG6OTyjzAgg

Social science as natural science?
We do use systematic methods of investigation and analysis of data.
We do assess theories in light of evidence.

Objectivity
Positivist social scientists believe that scientific methods of inquiry can be applied to the study of society.
But arguably, even the scientific method is never value free, except perhaps in pure physics. Why do you suppose it’s impossible to exclude the influence of social values in our inquiries?

Recap: The quantitative, positivist approach
Theory: deductive approach. Starts with a theory and tries to prove or explain with research findings.
Epistemology: positivist orientation. We can best know things through experiments and statistics.
Ontological orientation: Objectivism. Phenomena have an objective existence
The role of values: value-neutral or objective stance. Researcher must be unbiased.

Scientists are biased in the very kinds of questions they ask, in the sampling methods they choose, and in the way they interpret the results.

Three ways we conduct research
Positivists believe in objectivity (but can we ever really be value free?) Positivists want to be able to predict human behavior.
Interpretivists: This is all about intersubjectivity; empathy. How does it feel to be _______? Can I “get inside” the other person’s head, to better understand. Like positivists, they believe objectivity is possible.
Relativists: Look for the exercise of POWER. They question objectivity.

Judith Butler on the
Rodney King case
Reproducing the video within a racially saturated field of visibility
Defense attorneys for police in the RK case argued that he was a danger to the police officers.
8

March 3, 1991, Rodney King – 12 km police chase.
KING INTERVIEW:
(CONTENT WARNING)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYAC-KgV0vM&t=2s
9

Should (objective) video evidence have guaranteed a conviction?

June 26, 1992 – Amnesty Amnesty International accuses the Los Angles Police Department (LAPD) of excessive force, sometimes amounting to torture.

The number of police on the scene when Rodney King was beaten included 21 officers from the LAPD and 4 officers from the California Highway Patrol.
11

Testimony (CONTENT WARNING)
Singer described in vivid terms how the baton blows “split open King’s face” and “blood poured out,” while King “screamed.” She said the other officers used the baton with “power strokes” (motions similar the swinging of a baseball bat)
25 police surrounded King who sustained 56 baton blows and six kicks, producing 11 skull fractures, brain damage, and kidney damage.

12

13
Officers charged: Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, Laurence M. Powell, Theodore Briseno, & Timothy Wind.
Filed inaccurate reports, omitting King’s head wounds.
March 15, 1991: arraigned on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive force.
March 26 ~ pleaded not guilty

14
Despite the videotape, a jury in Simi Valley concluded a year later that the evidence was not sufficient to convict the officers.

The acquittal of four officers involved in King’s beating sparked L.A. riots. 54 dead, 2000 injured.
15

15

Sentencing
July, 1993: Damian Williams, a man of African descent, was tried for beating Reginald Denny, a white man, during the L.A. riot April 29, 1992. The judge sentenced Damian Williams to the maximum allowed by law: 10 years in prison.
August 4, 1993 — The sentencing date of Koon and Powell. The maximum allowed penalty was 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. They were sentenced to 30 months in prison.
16

Reuters news: “April 19, 1993
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found the majority of Black Americans surveyed (55%) thought two convictions were not enough, while only 21% of white Americans felt the same.
17

18
White officers Koon and Powell: Federal Prison Camp at Dublin, California. Nicknamed “Club Fed” – “a prison without walls, fences, bars, gun towers or guns. Escapees called “walkaways.”
Prisoners eat in a dining room with a salad bar, and are provided recreational facilities, including video rentals, gardening, a asphalt jogging track, a sand volleyball court, and a weightlifting room. (From the Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1993)
Controversy was raised when this facility was compared to California’s other prisons, which have “death fences” designed to electrocute escapees. (Los Angeles Times,1993).

Can we really be objective, and unbiased?
Scientists’ personal views inform questions they ask and interpretations.
Knowledge is relative; depends on our value system.
Social constructions
19

Objectivity?
Seeing is arguably NOT an act of direct perception.
The visual field is not neutral to the question of race; it is itself a racialized formation
The King trial demonstrated that we have no simple recourse to the visible, and to visual evidence, which is always an interpretation.
20

Racist episteme
Racial schematization of the visible field. Racism pervades perception, structuring what we perceive
Whiteness as an episteme operated in the King case, despite the presence of 2 nonwhite jurors.
21

Episteme: world view which gives shape to the knowledge of that time
Discourse: interpretation. Power exercised through language, images and representations.
22

Racialized formations
 
Racialized formation: is a racial categorization as a result of human interaction rather than natural differentiation.
This challenges the problematic 1988 statute that defined a racial(ized) group as “a set of individuals whose identity is distinctive in terms of physical characteristics or biological descent (Quoted in Lopez, 53).”BUT “races” are not marked by significant genetic differences.
Thus, we can say that “race” is socially constructed. Racialized divisions do not reflect fundamental genetic differences.

“Race”
“Race” as a function of skin colour as a marker is problematic. Example in Lopez reading: Light skin – northern Japan.
Intragroup differences exceed intergroup differences. Differences between individuals of the same “race” are frequently more significant than differences amongst average individuals of different “races.” (Lopez 53). Example: More genetic differentiation occurs within populations labelled black and white than between these populations.
History of science, especially since the 19th c. “is the history of failed efforts to justify these social beliefs or constructions (Lopez).” Skin colour, hair texture, facial angles, cranial capacity, brain mass.
 

Ida B Wells (1862-1931)
“I have firmly believed all along that the law was on our side, and would, when we appealed to it, give us justice. I feel shorn of that belief, and utterly discouraged, and just now, if it were possible, would gather my race in my arms and fly away with them.” (1887)

George Stinney Jr. 1931-1944
26
Death Sentence on April 24, 1944 ordering Stinney’s execution on June 16, 1944

Sammy Yatim, 18, shot by Toronto police, July 2013
Eight of the nine shots fired hit Yatim. Surveillance video indicates that Yatim was lying on the ground when the last six shots were fired

Tamir Rice, 12. Shot for carrying a toy weapon in an “open carry” state
Under two Supreme Court rulings that dictate police use of force, officers must show that they had a reasonable belief that a suspect was a threat up to the moment the last bullet was fired. Grand juries have now backed up the officers, deciding to file no criminal charges against the cops involved in the police shooting.

#BlackLivesMatter
RESISTANCE
The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation.
Trayvon Martin, 17 (2012) Florida