1

Stigma & Dirt April 10th

2

Today…

I. Stigma & the Individual Stigma Power Stigma Management

Discreditable - information control Discredited - tension management

II. Society & the “Other” Douglas

Concept of Dirt 5 Ways Cultures deal with “dirt”

3

What is Stigma?

4

What is Stigma

In discrimination: Badge of shame, a mark of infamy or

disgrace Social stigma, a severe social disapproval of

personal characteristics or beliefs that are against cultural norms, including: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigma

5

What is the Purpose of Stigma?

6

What is the Purpose of Stigma?

Allows us to deal with: “Anticipated others with out special attention or thought.” (Who’s “IN”/Who’s “OUT”)

Helps Categorize & Manage Multiple Stimuli

7

Questions?? Does Human Society always requires an “Other”?

How Is the “Other” Determined?

How Can “Othering” be Challenged?

How is being a DP Different from Other Minority Groups?

8

Where/how does Stigma gets it’s power?

Acceptance of the Devalued State

= SHAME

9

Goffman: Stigma Management

Discreditable: information control ("to tell or not to tell, ….to lie or not to lie,

…. to whom, when and where." )

Discredited: tension management – (attempts to control awkward, difficult or

hostile interactions with "the normals.")

10

Discreditable - Management of Information

Objective: minimize detection or disclosure (FDR) also think of as passing…

1. Conceal stigma symbols 2. Play down the defect 3. Distancing (social, physical, emotional)

11

Discredited - Management of Tension

Covering 1. Use of devices to cover the stigma

Surgery (Only results in Record of Correcting) 2. Engage in activities from which normally be

disqualified Being President; One handed baseball player

Aggressiveness / Deviance 1. “The dramatically presented

preposterous explanation” 2. “The attack.”

12The International Center for Limb Lengthening, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore

13

Other Responses to Stigma

Attempt to Directly Correct 1. Overcoming:

Celebrated in Modern Culture 2. Victimization:

Learned Helplessness 3. Avoidence: Isolation / Passing

Hypervigilance; “The Stare” 4. Re-assessment: Limitations of “normals”

Disability Pride; Deaf Culture

14

Gill: Differences from Other Minority Groups

1. Public perceptions of Disabled People- a confusing mix of conflicting emotions

Fear, Pity, Charity, Disgust2. Stigma can be superficially linked to

impairments3. Lack of “Safe Havens“ 4. Socialized as “normal”

Gill, “Divided Understandings,” Handbook of Disability Studies, Albretch, et al 2000

15

=Reflection of Society

What is Stigmatized…

16

Examples

What is stigmatized now that was not 60 years ago?

What was stigmatized 60 years ago that is not now?

17

Stigma

Can be a very rapid process: Japanese Americans

Destigmatizing: Usually a gradual process taking years /

decades Our Culture Reinforces Stigma through

it’s Obsession with Rank Orderings

18

II. Society & the “Other” Douglas

Concept of Dirt 5 Ways Cultures deal with “dirt”

19

Douglas 1966

Concept of Dirt / “Matter out of Place.” How Societies Groups or Deals with

Ambiguous Margins. Dirt is an Anomaly - A Discordant

20

Douglas (cont.)

Argues that ambiguity proves difficult: Culture involves classification Dirt is disorder which then creates

breakdown of classification and boundaries are ambiguous or confused.

21

Douglas: 5 Ways Cultures deal with “Dirt”

1. Reduce ambiguity (Fuzziness of Otherness) by creating dichotomies.

2. Elimination. 3. Avoidance 4. Label as dangerous. 5. Incorporating into ritual.

22

1. Reduce Ambiguity

• Create dichotomies:• Disabled / Non-Disabled • Gay / Straight• Child / Adult• Male / Female

• That which defies classification is especially troublesome to society:

• Transvestites, Mulattos, Part Timers, Intersex, Passers, Multiple Impairments

23

2. Elimination

Eugenics Holocaust War Prenatal Testing Human Genome Project Death Penalty

24

3. Avoidance OR Strengthen dirty status:

Prisons Asylums Ugly Laws Not-In-My-Neighborhood Special

Education

25

4. Label as Dangerous

Bodies / Minds Out of Control Epilepsy Hallucinations

26

5. Incorporate

Into Ritual Special Olympics Charity / Telethons

27

28

ClareThe mountain as metaphor looms large in the lives of marginalized people, people

whose bones get crushed in the grind of capitalism,patriarchy, white supremacy. How many of us have struggled up the mountain, measured ourselves against it, failed up there, lived in its shadow? We've hit our heads on glass ceilings, tried to climb the class ladder, lost fights against assimilation, scrambled toward that phantom called normality. We hear from the summit that the world is grand from up there, that we live down here at the bottom because we are lazy, stupid, weali, and ugly. We decide to climb that mountain, or male a pact that our children will climb it. The climbing turns out to be unimaginably difficult. We are afraid; evely time we look ahead we can find nothing remotely familiar or comfortable. We lose the trail. Our wheelchairs get stuck. We speak the wrong languages with the wrong accents, wear the wrong clothes, carry our bodies the wrong ways, ask the wrong questions, love the wrong people. And it's goddamn lonely up there on the mountain. We decide to stop climbing and build a new house right where we are.Or we decide to climb back down to the people we love, where the food, the clothes, the dirt, the sidewalk, the steaming asphalt under our feet, our crutches, all feel right. Or we find the path again,decide to continue climbing only to have the very people who told us how wonderful life is at the summit booby-trap the trail. They bum the bridge over the impassable canyon. They redraw our topomaps so that we end up walling in circles. They send their goons-those working-class and poor people they employ as their official brutes-to push us over the edge. Maybe we get to the summit, but probably not. And the price we pay is huge.