ANTH_100_LECTURE_13_PART_1_SPRING_2023_

Speaker 2 [00:05:31] I guess the ironies. Speaker 1 [00:05:32] Of that statement. Speaker 2 [00:05:35] Were such an interesting, interesting species. Speaker 1 [00:05:43] That. Speaker 2 [00:05:45] There is no perfect way in terms of how to do this. I mean, you know, the US with their political system, you know, Canada with our political system, very similar to other Commonwealth countries, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. You know it. They work, but there are always still conflicts and there are ways to and these are our states that we're dealing with, right? Modern nation states. And we're not even considering more. And we will as we go along. But, you know, smaller scale groups and societies which have their own distinctive. Speaker 1 [00:06:31] Ways in. Speaker 2 [00:06:32] Sometimes those distinctive ways are are much more efficient and sometimes much more humane. But there's so much variation on this planet. Speaker 1 [00:06:43] Right? Okay, Let me just. Speaker 2 [00:06:52] So social power, this is something that is distinctive. Speaker 1 [00:06:57] And I hinted at this last class. Speaker 2 [00:07:02] Distinctive from what we can refer to as force, which is. Speaker 1 [00:07:10] Oftentimes. Speaker 2 [00:07:11] Always very physical. Speaker 1 [00:07:13] A social power is subtle. And if. Speaker 2 [00:07:18] We go by Falco's understanding and we talked about that last. Speaker 1 [00:07:21] Class. Speaker 2 [00:07:23] It works according to these almost invisible capillary. Speaker 1 [00:07:26] Networks. Speaker 2 [00:07:27] That sometimes are so subtle you wouldn't even call it or understand. It's, Oh my gosh, it's dynamics, it's effects, it's processes as power. We just see it as is. Well, isn't that just reason or rationality or logic in terms of everyday social life? Speaker 1 [00:07:48] Right. Speaker 2 [00:07:50] And this is where, you know, not trying to. Oh, shucks, I'm not trying to critique academia, but it gets a bit much sometimes when you have all of these different theoreticians and academics and philosophers weighing.

Speaker 2 [00:12:52] So this is where one individual has an. Speaker 1 [00:12:55] Influence. Speaker 2 [00:12:57] Over another person. Speaker 1 [00:12:59] And this. Speaker 2 [00:13:02] Usually, I would. Speaker 1 [00:13:03] Say could. Speaker 2 [00:13:06] Be psychological. So it could be between a parent and child. Right. So, you know, you've got to come in and clean this up because this is ridiculous. There's chocolate muffin fragments all over the place. Do it now. And, you know, with that sort of respect between the son and his father, which, you know, usually is there, okay, I'll clean it up, you know, or it could. Speaker 1 [00:13:35] Be in terms of. Speaker 2 [00:13:38] How can I say status, Right. Let's say between a public school teacher. Speaker 1 [00:13:43] And. Speaker 2 [00:13:44] And a student in grade four. Right. So let's say someone does something like our son was saying. Somebody had drawn. Speaker 1 [00:13:53] A. Speaker 2 [00:13:53] Pretty inappropriate picture in class and then started doing inappropriate things with it. And then my son was like, oh, my gosh, what's this guy doing? And then got really upset. Speaker 1 [00:14:07] And then. Speaker 2 [00:14:07] The other kid pointed at him, said, Why are you getting so upset? And then got in a lot of trouble for drawing this picture and was like, okay. And, you know, had to sort of submit to that forceful will of another person, which in that case was was his teacher. Speaker 1 [00:14:25] Moving. Speaker 2 [00:14:25] Up in scale? We've got what Wolff says. Speaker 1 [00:14:29] Or lists. Speaker 2 [00:14:31] As organizational power. This is where it gets difficult. I think I'm always very skeptical of these definitions. That's just me. I always think of definitions. Speaker 1 [00:14:46] That.

Speaker 2 [00:21:28] Example of O.W. or Ontario Works, you know, I had many. Speaker 1 [00:21:32] Of. Speaker 2 [00:21:34] The street youth who I spent 14. Speaker 1 [00:21:36] Months with. Speaker 2 [00:21:38] Get cut for not having the proper paperwork to demonstrate that they were looking for. Speaker 1 [00:21:43] Work and. Speaker 2 [00:21:44] They were subject to surveillance. They weren't allowed to to leave the city. They weren't allowed to live with anyone. And if they did, they were subject to random. I guess, audits, social audits, if that's even a term where sometimes a caseworker would come by and say, hey, are you living with anyone here? Because if you are, you're going to get your check cut. The rules were crazy and it really did limit the possibilities of an agency of of many recipients. You know, if you got or received a monetary gift, you would have to declare it. And if you got let's. Speaker 1 [00:22:22] Say a. Speaker 2 [00:22:25] Family member died and left you $1,000, you know, your caseworker would want you to report this and then $1,000 would be removed in total from your your entitlement. And that's I don't think that's really fair. And so. Speaker 1 [00:22:41] You know. Speaker 2 [00:22:41] A lot of the individuals, the youth with whom I worked for so long would devise these tactics of the week. And we'll be talking about this in terms of Scott's ethnography in just in just a few moments here. But they devised and employed many, many tactics to try and get around these rules and to. Speaker 1 [00:23:08] Sort of. Speaker 2 [00:23:09] How can I say, for lack of a better term, you know, excavate or. Speaker 1 [00:23:14] Mine. Speaker 2 [00:23:16] Some agency to be able to push back a little bit because they weren't really left with with much at all. Speaker 1 [00:23:26] So let's get this here. Speaker 2 [00:23:36] So, okay. How are culture and politics studied? Well, as you guessed it, you know, from a socio cultural anthropological standpoint, this is all done by way of ethnographic fieldwork. And that's spending time with people listening to people, engaging with people on their own terms. Speaker 1 [00:23:57] Interviewing them.

Speaker 2 [00:28:48] Pandemic hit in full force and those plans were were canceled. And that's a bummer. But the majority of that fieldwork, you know, of course, you've got to do a lot of background readings. Speaker 1 [00:29:02] You know. Speaker 2 [00:29:03] Majority of it would have been in-person ethnographic shoulder fieldwork. Of course, what I had to do was find some sort. Speaker 1 [00:29:11] Of middle. Speaker 2 [00:29:12] Ground and adapt. And so I ended up doing, you know, I'll have to do this in scare quotes, but ethnographic fieldwork over Skype. And so we had several Skype calls where we were interviewing a Sami traditional healer or not not necessarily a negotiator, but a traditional healer who employs a range of tactics. And he ended up talking a. Speaker 1 [00:29:35] Lot. Speaker 2 [00:29:37] About the struggles for seascape Saw me seascape, sea rights. Speaker 1 [00:29:43] But then this. Speaker 2 [00:29:44] Went into internal colonialism, the Norwegian government and critiques thereof, but also the Sami residential school experience. Speaker 1 [00:29:54] And all of the shame, the trauma and the sorrows. Speaker 2 [00:29:59] That were produced by that experience. So a lot of these things are. Speaker 1 [00:30:03] All. Speaker 2 [00:30:04] Tightly woven together. All of a piece, I guess you could say. And this was based on. Speaker 1 [00:30:10] On. Speaker 2 [00:30:12] Quite a bit of quite a few interviews here, which were sometimes awkward, you know, because there's a bit of a delay sometimes with Skype or any of these other programs. It sometimes involves social theory and political theory, sometimes philosophy. Speaker 1 [00:30:31] And. Speaker 2 [00:30:32] A critical reflection thereof. And so going through different individuals, theoretical approaches, considering them and we've been doing this even in this collapse a little bit by considering Franco's theoretical approach, let's say, to power. And we just looked in, considered Wolff's three definitions or Wolff's to the power six. You know, that's not. There's some theory behind it. But we didn't really get into how we got to it. You know, a little bit more so with the code that we've considered when it comes to the practicalities of writing journal articles. On the other.

Speaker 1 [00:36:16] Who are. Speaker 2 [00:36:17] Even amongst themselves ranked in. You have families who might occupy a higher rank than other families, owing to some sort of socio cultural or religious cosmological historical. Speaker 1 [00:36:29] Sanction or. Speaker 2 [00:36:31] Justification. Speaker 1 [00:36:32] Rather. And the. Speaker 2 [00:36:34] Textbook gives us an example of the. Speaker 1 [00:36:36] Hmong. Speaker 2 [00:36:37] People of Southeast Asia, who are an indigenous group who occupy. Speaker 1 [00:36:42] China. Speaker 2 [00:36:43] Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, and they're a considerable. Speaker 1 [00:36:48] Group. Speaker 2 [00:36:50] In terms of their numbers. But I think the U.N. is considered them an underrepresented indigenous group, which is which is a shame, actually, as with all indigenous groups, whether they be Inuit. Oh, my goodness. First Nations, matey, Native American Maori, they're under threat by again. Speaker 1 [00:37:16] This, this. Speaker 2 [00:37:20] Ever looming specter of of neoliberal capitalism, which seeks to homogenize and bring within its its orbit. All that is different. And to reorganize that difference, to attempt to homogenize it, which is the intention, but it's never the result. And suss out its value for productive purposes. Speaker 1 [00:37:47] And if it doesn't meet or. Speaker 2 [00:37:50] Have any intrinsic productive value, then it's sort of. Speaker 1 [00:37:56] In some ways. Speaker 2 [00:37:56] Seen. Speaker 1 [00:37:57] As a. Speaker 2 [00:37:59] Sociopolitical economic irritant. Speaker 1 [00:38:03] And yes. Speaker 2 [00:38:05] This is where you get these justified protests. Those indigenous groups, many of them in the Amazon, pushing back against North American mining

Speaker 2 [00:43:30] Vast that territory was, ranging. Speaker 1 [00:43:32] From modern day. Speaker 2 [00:43:34] Italy through Egypt all the way to the. Speaker 1 [00:43:37] UK. Speaker 2 [00:43:40] Fascinating in many ways. That's a lot of people. Speaker 1 [00:43:46] I'm not going to try and count them and I'm not going. Speaker 2 [00:43:50] To reckon or wager a guess here. So we're going to move on. But this picture has a lot to do with this idea of population growth. And some would say the problem of economic activity and these are obviously tightly tethered or connected together in terms of the distribution of power, especially in modern nation states. You know, power is is something that. Speaker 1 [00:44:19] Is. Speaker 2 [00:44:20] Especially these days. Constantly under question and under shift and always being politically sort of recontextualized reassessed. Speaker 1 [00:44:32] As it should be. Speaker 2 [00:44:33] And as would seem logical and high. And Captain obvious here. But an increase in population most definitely puts a lot of pressure on the carrying capacity of a certain geopolitical context, the number of resources available to people to support the population. And obviously the more people you have, resources are spread thin. Speaker 1 [00:44:59] And. Speaker 2 [00:44:59] You get a lot of pressure and a lot of issues. Of course. Speaker 1 [00:45:09] Population growth. Speaker 2 [00:45:11] Exponential or. Speaker 1 [00:45:12] Not. Speaker 2 [00:45:14] Can lead to good things, can lead to positive developments or inventions. Innovations in technology. Speaker 1 [00:45:24] More. Speaker 2 [00:45:24] Efficient ways to. Understand how we work, how we work together in our relationship with the planet and its resources. But it can also lead to the development of new social practices, new social policies, but also migration, which is which is a really great. The thing for for. The world so people can leave these contexts where they otherwise would have been killed, which is a pointless waste. So, you know, this very process here can save lives, but of course it can create its own issues as well. And we're

Speaker 1 [00:53:54] Didn't. Speaker 2 [00:53:56] See themselves as separate from their environment trees, rocks, they saw them as. Part of it. And so when asked or if asked if there was an I, it would be an inconceivable to them. I am. I can't even. Speaker 1 [00:54:20] Speak. Speaker 2 [00:54:21] Without referring to this Western in some ways construct of an eye of a self that separate. And this is where language comes up against a really an interesting limit. Here. But anyways, these are sort of the westernized Europeanized Americanized ideas anyways. Free agency, freedom of self contained individuals to pursue their own interests and to challenge one another for dominance. So cooperative living from Thomas Hobbs. Speaker 1 [00:55:01] To the. Speaker 2 [00:55:01] European. Philosopher Great 18th century. Is not natural. So living in groups from this perspective is not natural. And so thus. Hobbs, with his wife being nasty, brutish and short. The right. This leads to selfishness, which leads people to constantly vie for dominance. But that's not putting this out there. Like this is very ethnocentric, which is weird to me. A relativistic perspective would say, Well, that's just one way because. Speaker 1 [00:55:43] The issue T. Speaker 2 [00:55:45] Of South Africa or the Kung saan don't see life this way. Never did. Speaker 1 [00:55:50] Right. Yeah. Speaker 2 [00:55:56] I think. Any any First Nation group historically didn't see life this way either. But we're talking more and. Speaker 1 [00:56:08] More modern contexts. Speaker 2 [00:56:10] So what a state does is it imposes political limits and organizational. Speaker 1 [00:56:19] Limits. Speaker 2 [00:56:20] And apparently keeps in check from this Hobbesian perspective, this free will. Speaker 1 [00:56:29] Of of. Speaker 2 [00:56:30] Rampant free will of of individuals and sort of keeps them all in check, taking the textbook sweet again jumping era, which I don't really like, but we'll do it anyways. In the face of power. Speaker 1 [00:56:46] Right. Speaker 2 [00:56:46] And this is more sort of a brute sense of of power or dominance. Some individuals are able to lend meaning or impute meaning to their experience, which affords them the ability to push back. This sits nicely in the literature of resistance and

refusal, which is more for anther or two or two, but that's fine. So here we've got James Scott, and in. Speaker 1 [00:57:23] 1985. Speaker 2 [00:57:24] He wrote in an graffiti called Weapons of the Week Every day forms of peasant Resistance in Malaysia. And. He was specifically looking at. Speaker 1 [00:57:40] The. Speaker 2 [00:57:40] Ways that his his like the word research participants. You know what I'm trying to say? The people with whom we spent a lot of time with how they were able to adapt to situations. Speaker 1 [00:57:58] In. Speaker 2 [00:57:58] Terms of government policy, organization and power and sort of push against it, you know, in ways that afforded them. Speaker 1 [00:58:12] Some. Speaker 2 [00:58:13] Degree of agency or choice or the ability to to make a decision for themselves. So among the seductive people, unquote. I think Alexis is trying to send me a text. I'll read that later. Scott, you know, this idea of hidden transcripts. So these were the private accounts which. Speaker 1 [00:58:39] Weren't shared. Speaker 2 [00:58:40] In a broad social sense or broadcast socially for fear that government officials would hear. Speaker 1 [00:58:46] And put an end. Speaker 2 [00:58:48] To these these sort of tactics. But these are private accounts by dominated groups of their oppression and alternatives to this oppression created outside of the political arena. So in terms of everyday life. And there are some interesting examples. So if you turn to page 300 and hopefully you'll read this, the textbook gives. Speaker 1 [00:59:11] A nice. Speaker 2 [00:59:12] Definition and talks about. Speaker 1 [00:59:13] Some of. Speaker 2 [00:59:14] These examples of routine oppression, you know, whereas in here, according to Scott, these peasants were not kept in line by some form of state sponsored terrorism. Rather, the context of their lives was shaped by what he called routine repression, occasional arrests, warning, diligent warnings, diligent police work, legal restrictions, and an internal security act that allowed for indefinite preventative detention and prescribes much political activity. So these are the things that the seductive were sort of pushing against.

Speaker 1 [00:59:49] If. Speaker 2 [00:59:52] And this sort of interesting. On that note. Anthropologists political and otherwise have shown. In many ethnographic instances that power is not only coercive, not only can result in physicality, but it's also persuasive. It's rhetorical that seeks to convince you that you need to be kept it be kept in line or else. Right. Which is really an interesting and subtle dynamic there. And so non-state or smaller scale societies, it isn't not the story everyone. If I could scratch my uvula. Speaker 1 [01:00:47] Anyways. Speaker 2 [01:00:50] Right. So limiting the self-interest you've got is smaller scale societies that are kept in line through more subtle. Speaker 1 [01:01:02] Means here. Speaker 2 [01:01:04] Belief systems, social obligations, unwritten rules between how, let's say, land owners are to, you know. Or how peasants, let's say, or to interact with people who own the land that they're they're working. And I'm not talking in a futile context I'm talking about. But let's say. Speaker 1 [01:01:29] In. Speaker 2 [01:01:32] 1980s Malaysia and, you know, these social obligations are based on codes and ideas of respect. Speaker 1 [01:01:40] Right. So some might call BS. Speaker 2 [01:01:50] However, in terms of their own scale ideologies, right. So our textbook explains that, you know, a perspective. Speaker 1 [01:02:03] World. Speaker 2 [01:02:03] View. Otherwise known as a Dalton showing that. Justifies. Social relations and the power differentials there in. In legitimates The basis of power that justifies these power differentials is called an ideology. That's really clumsy to me. Yeah, that's probably going to be a question. Speaker 1 [01:02:30] Or. Speaker 2 [01:02:31] A couple on the exam about this. All go to Karl Marx though, and see what he understood as is ideology. He explained that ideology is used through various means to solidify and justify domination or coercive rule by the ruling class. So remember, it was the bourgeois or bourgeoisie who owned the private property. They were the owners of the means and modes or the modes of production. Means of production and use this authority to keep the proletariat or the working class in check. The proletariat or an hour bummed out in a lot of ways because they sell time. Speaker 1 [01:03:22] Right? Speaker 2 [01:03:23] Time is the commodity and they sell their time to.

Speaker 1 [01:03:27] A. Speaker 2 [01:03:27] Factory or to whatever context. And the owners of the factory or, you know, the modes of production. By that time in can profit from it in terms of the making of goods or whatever it is that you're talking about. But this, if you've noticed, we're not really defining ideology. Right. And this is kind of one. But let's go to a more precise, if you ask me, a more precise definition. So here's Karl Marx. And then his partner, Friedrich Engels, actually was pretty wealthy. Father owned. But quite a few factories in Manchester ideology. Okay, so here's this is Marx's definition. From the German ideology, the production by the ruling class of ideas, of conceptions of consciousness. So basically ways of thinking, all that people see, imagine and conceive. And this includes things like politics, law, morality, religion and metaphysics. Speaker 1 [01:04:47] So. Um. Speaker 2 [01:04:52] I don't know why that. Speaker 1 [01:04:54] There we go. Speaker 2 [01:04:56] It's really a tightly bound system of ideas that promotes a distinctive way of thinking. Right. You've got conservative ideology. You've got liberal ideology. But the interesting thing, too, is this needn't be in a macro political context. You can have family ideologies. Right. Speaker 1 [01:05:20] So. Speaker 2 [01:05:21] Oh, my gosh, you can have ways of thinking that are particular to families that produce in Orient children in particular ways. Right. So shocks like we have friends. Speaker 1 [01:05:42] Sort of. Speaker 2 [01:05:44] Our. Speaker 1 [01:05:44] Son. Speaker 2 [01:05:46] He had a very good friend. And their family is very, very, very sports oriented and extremely, extremely competitive. And so everybody except. Speaker 1 [01:06:01] For one. Speaker 2 [01:06:03] Kid plays sports and is almost obsessed by it. And these are sort of organized team based sports. And our son in our family ideology is not like that. Not that there's anything wrong with it. I'm not sorting of value here. But so there have been some problems, though, with our kids. You know. Speaker 1 [01:06:26] In. Speaker 2 [01:06:27] Our son is a bit more free form. He's into BMX biking, doesn't like more individual expression and team based things. But then there are some huge problems happening between them. And, you know, we can sort of if you want to trace this back to family ideology and I like being a skateboarder. I can't help that. You know, I've

always been drawn to creative expression, individual expression, you know, skateboarding, whatever these kinds of things. You know, I didn't really like team based sports. I was forced to play soccer and my dad would always be yelling at me to get my hands in my bloody pockets and start kicking flowers on the field, because I just I wasn't interested. Speaker 1 [01:07:12] In. Speaker 2 [01:07:13] What I saw as this sort of aggressive competition playing with these kids who I didn't really even know, and then trying to like, score goals and get in there. I just I wasn't for me. But when I found out I was into BMX biking first, but I thought it was a beautiful individual expression where you didn't have to compete. I just never really liked competition. Maybe that's it, who knows? But this is, you know, now that I'm older and Alexis isn't a skateboarder, but she feels exactly the same way. Our family has its own sort of particular ideological. Speaker 1 [01:07:47] Focus. Speaker 2 [01:07:48] And has influenced our kids. And other families do this, too. So ideology, it's sort of like a family thing, but it's also a state wide thing. Right. And when you see ideology that goes. Speaker 1 [01:08:03] Wrong, oh. Speaker 2 [01:08:04] My God, look at my gosh, go back. Speaker 1 [01:08:08] To 39. Speaker 2 [01:08:10] To 2, 4245, sorry. And even before that, with Nazi ideology and how poisonous that got, you know, and it works very in subtle ways, but this definition. Speaker 1 [01:08:23] And. Speaker 2 [01:08:24] Marxist use of it is very, very problematic for ways that the textbook gets into. And I don't have time to hear, but he treats it as if ideology is. Speaker 1 [01:08:36] Something. Speaker 2 [01:08:37] That's unquestioned and yielded by the ruling class. And it just almost, you know. The dominant D class submits to it and is overcome by it almost like an ideological tidal wave. And they just never question it. Just like, Oh, okay, yes. As if a moth to a flame and they just go into it. Boom. Done. But its ideology is always uneven, it's always patchy, it's always porous, and it's always subject to expansion, contraction and hemorrhaging. Speaker 1 [01:09:11] Um. Speaker 2 [01:09:11] And so, you know, you've got these movements that are land back movement, you know, all of these Occupy movements, you know, just questioning neoliberal capitalism, questioning its dynamics. So ideology isn't as all encompassing as Marx thought. And there's a more.

Speaker 1 [01:09:40] Well, he's. Speaker 2 [01:09:41] Dead now, but it's sort of. You know, a philosopher, French philosopher, kind of sociologist named Louis Altuzarra. I don't really like. Speaker 1 [01:09:54] Him. Speaker 2 [01:09:55] Because he he stabbed his wife to death. So he I don't know what happened to him. But anyways, he wrote a lot about ideology and ideological state apparatuses and really took from Marx and really developed it. But of course, we we don't have time to do that in this class, but we do have time to look at, you know, an allied concept which is really interesting and maybe more flexible and practical. Speaker 1 [01:10:23] Than. Speaker 2 [01:10:23] Marx's definition of ideology. This is Antonio Gramsci. Speaker 1 [01:10:29] Or it was. Speaker 2 [01:10:30] This is Antonio Gramsci. He argued quite aggressively. Speaker 1 [01:10:37] From. Speaker 2 [01:10:37] Jail because he was thrown in jail for his political views in. Speaker 1 [01:10:40] Italy that. Speaker 2 [01:10:43] Coercion, physical coercion and threats and violence. Speaker 1 [01:10:47] Alone. Speaker 2 [01:10:48] Aren't sufficient for social control. And so he came up with this distinction. Speaker 1 [01:10:54] Between. Speaker 2 [01:10:55] Physical domination and hegemony, and we've talked about hegemony a little bit. So this is Antonio Gramsci, 1891. This is going to sound weird to many of you. So I'm in my mid-forties now. Speaker 1 [01:11:09] And. Speaker 2 [01:11:11] My family's weird, not my immediate family, but so my dad was. Speaker 1 [01:11:16] Born in. Speaker 2 [01:11:17] I was born in the mid seventies. My dad was born in 1925. His dad was born in 1900. His grandmother was born in 1900. Jumping to my mum's side. My grandmother had my mother when she was 46. Which is really late. So my grandmother was born in 1901, but her husband, my grandfather, was born in 1891, the same year she which is a whole different world. But what's really great about this, I used to get made fun of a ton growing up. My dad was 50 years older than me. So people would always be like,

Dude, is that your grandpa? Why is your dad so old? And I used to cry sometimes because we all Why is my family so weird? But then, you know, as I got older, I was like, Well, screw you guys. You know, I understand living history in a whole different way. Grew up around a different way of looking at the world, different expressions used. You know, my dad, my grandmother called Coach's Chesterfields. Speaker 1 [01:12:27] My gosh. Speaker 2 [01:12:28] All these really interesting things that I didn't start appreciating. Speaker 1 [01:12:31] Well. Speaker 2 [01:12:32] Divergence here anyways. So he wrote the prison notebooks between 29 and 35 when he was in jail in Italy for his political views. This is where he really hashed out this idea of hegemony. It's a social process. The textbook doesn't really explain that, but it's a social process that's ongoing. Some anthropologists would say it would say it's processional way. So it's this process where, you know, the object is is to persuade subjects to accept an ideology that portrays domination by a ruling class as thoroughly socially and sometimes. Cosmological is legitimate, but it's a rhetorical process too, which means that it's a process where. Speaker 1 [01:13:23] In. Speaker 2 [01:13:24] The objective is to persuade, in to convince. And hegemony is never. It's always partial. And like I explained before, by way of ideology, it's never all encompassing. So, you know, using cultural institutions like schools to disseminate ideologies, you know, and this is. Speaker 1 [01:13:54] Where. Speaker 2 [01:13:55] You start to realize, you know, in school, ideas work hard, work hard, work hard. And if you work hard and do well, you will get a job and that will be high paying and you'll be fine. And I can see it with our kids. The way some teachers treat them is just work hard, work hard. But, you know, sometimes. Speaker 1 [01:14:20] That's not. Speaker 2 [01:14:22] Really truthful and that some people are just born into to things and born into being rich and and sometimes powerful, too. And so it's not about. Divisions that are put in place between those who are lazy like lazy bums, who are good for nothing. Speaker 1 [01:14:47] And. Speaker 2 [01:14:48] Can't do anything right and will never get a good job. And then those who are hard workers. That to me is a hegemonic sort of. It's like that so dominant out there that you hear sometimes even our parents saying this. I remember my dad sometimes. Speaker 1 [01:15:04] You know. Speaker 2 [01:15:05] Sometimes saying, Oh, look at those bums over there. You know, they just need to get jobs. And I was always a little shocked at the way he would talk

because he was so left of center, you know, And I just I got into a conversation with two metal friends on the weekend. It was really frustrating. But anyways, just talking about downtown London and how they're a bunch of lazy bums down there and it's like, Well, let's take a more nuanced approach and not be influenced by a hegemony and think, well, maybe structural violence has made it so that some of the Indigenous people and non- Indigenous people out there who have grown up in poor neighborhoods haven't had access to proper education and their parents haven't. And so the very idea and ideal of education is not even a possibility because the agency has been constricted. So not only have choices in decisions. Speaker 1 [01:16:00] Been. Speaker 2 [01:16:01] Constricted, but the very possibility of even thinking that has been choked out means constricted. It's not about laziness sometimes, anyway. So Head Jiminy is always partial. It's never for all encompassing and it can be threatened by some subgroups. And you can develop these these counter discourses, you know, the Occupy movement, land back movements. There's another one I keep forgetting. Occupy a lake. Look at me. Oh, crap. Load, battery. Oh, man. I got to plug myself in. Hang on, everyone. I didn't think I was going to go this long. Oh, forget that, Occupy. Now, we'll just leave it there because I. And I've got to wrap this up, too. So you've got all these counter hegemonic. Why am I fumbling? Discourses and cultural practices that question hegemony theory. Speaker 1 [01:17:08] So. Speaker 2 [01:17:14] I'll just give you an example. Say, how do you define counter hegemony? It's just itself a process that's always oppositional in oppositional to hegemonic discourses or ways of thinking and talking. So these are. It's a process wherein people develop ideas to challenge dominant assumptions and beliefs and establish patterns of behavior. And this can happen in any and many ways. What do we have here? Okay, so here we have. Botticelli's, The Birth of Venus. Right. Which really in many ways sort of set the foundation for European ideals of beauty. Let me just check what you think. Right this. Oh, sorry. 15th century. And it has it's it's seen as iconic. But when we look at it more carefully in sort of sus through the dynamics of hegemony and representation or representation of beauty, these people are light skinned. And so living in a multicultural world as we do, why should the very standard of beauty be based on whiteness? Speaker 1 [01:18:46] So we need. Speaker 2 [01:18:48] Counter assumptions in other ways of thinking to sort of be like, Well, hold. Speaker 1 [01:18:53] On. Speaker 2 [01:18:54] And so this is just an example of the counter hegemony of representation of beauty where we have results. And so this is Birth of Ocean from 2017 or Ocean, which seeks to show. This painting. But reconceptualize it. Speaker 1 [01:19:17] From. Speaker 2 [01:19:18] An African-American perspective in showing a different ideal of beauty. Right. And so it's just taking one thing and being like, well, let's question it and flip

the script here and and push back with. Dynamics of refusal and resistance and make a statement about it by saying, well, that's not that's just one idea of beauty that pertains to a particular group, but not everybody. So hold up a second there. So sometimes in some instances, not this one in particular. Speaker 1 [01:19:54] Well, I. Speaker 2 [01:19:54] Guess in this one, too, you have these hidden transcripts that can actually be marshaled, pulled together and mobilized into its own counter hegemonic discourse. Speaker 1 [01:20:06] And, you. Speaker 2 [01:20:07] Know, I guess you can in this case, in push back against the establishment or established norms of of thinking in this kind of, you know, ties in what Scott had to say. In Malaysia. And it's hilarious because I can see I was looking at the textbook when doing this and actually be 85 anyways. So in Malaysia with the Sudhakar, you have local peasant farmers who occupied a lower. Speaker 1 [01:20:38] Rung. Speaker 2 [01:20:39] On the social hierarchy. Speaker 1 [01:20:41] Right? Speaker 2 [01:20:42] And there were really wealthy landowners who owned the rice fields that they worked on. And you also had a fairly repressive government who sought to, through sometimes coercive dynamics. I read from the textbook before they had to control things. So open rebellion wasn't an option for these people, this attacker. So they had to engage in more subtle forms of resistance. And what did these include? So here. Speaker 1 [01:21:17] You have. Speaker 2 [01:21:18] An artistic representation of what I would say is subtle resistance. So you have what looked to be male figures all represented. One is in red here for the most part, but then you've got one who's upside down. But you wouldn't really notice that at first. Subtle, right? So you would have instances. And again, as for the textbook and as per Scott's work. Speaker 1 [01:21:42] Foot dragging. Speaker 2 [01:21:43] Dissimulation concealing your thought. So if you're talking to a government initial official, they might see something that you fully disagree with. And inside you're like, what? That what? No, I'm not going to say it, though. Desertion. So leaving and walking off, let's say leaving work. False compliance, pilfering. So taking things here and there. Speaker 1 [01:22:07] On the slide. Speaker 2 [01:22:09] Feigned ignorance. Oh, well, I took this. I didn't know I was actually. And I'm not allowed to do that. Okay. Sorry. My bad. I didn't mean to do that.

Speaker 1 [01:22:17] Slander. Speaker 2 [01:22:18] Arson, sabotage. So kind of, you know, stepping up the tactics a little bit. But. What these did was they introduced a subtle form of refusal, a subtle form of resistance where people could feel that they have agency. Speaker 1 [01:22:38] Right. But. Speaker 2 [01:22:42] What ended up happening was apparently these wealthy landowners wanted to, as according to the dynamics in the principles of neoliberalism, they wanted to make more efficient, to streamline. Speaker 1 [01:22:56] And cut. Speaker 2 [01:22:56] Out inefficiencies. Now, I sound like Doug Ford, and this is this is very dangerous talk, especially when you're talking about education and health care. Here we're talking about rice production and rice harvesting. So what these wealthy owners wanted to do was start minimizing peasant labor. Speaker 1 [01:23:15] And profiting from. Speaker 2 [01:23:19] Bringing in new technology. So what they wanted to do was bring in machines to start doing the work of actual people. Now, of course, the peasants didn't like this because they feel, what the hell we need to do this. This is how we've been doing this for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Bringing these in. Speaker 1 [01:23:41] Won't. Speaker 2 [01:23:42] Be as efficient as you think, and it'll probably be destructive in other ways that are unintended. You might be able to. Not pay as much and do it in half the time, perhaps. But there was some resistance and refusals there. So peasants organized and resorted to character assassination. Assassination. Saying you're not you know, this is not respectful. This is ridiculous to basically acknowledge that, hey, there are traditional obligations. You are supposed to in some ways take care of us. You are the ones who have the money. We are peasants. You know, we need to rely on this relationship. And because we're reliant on this relationship almost like a paternalistic relationship. There should be an instance of care there. So anyways, what ended up happening was. The peasants responded by using counter hegemonic discourses or discourse rather than the singular, to sort of push back and explain to the owners of the. Speaker 1 [01:25:03] Land. Speaker 2 [01:25:05] That, you know. They need some sort of respect. Speaker 1 [01:25:11] For. Speaker 2 [01:25:12] Compliance and there needs to be some sort of relational harmony between everyone to get this, you know, to engage. Speaker 1 [01:25:20] In the. Speaker 2 [01:25:22] Cultivation of these rice fields. So, you know, these counter

hegemonic discourses weren't outright sort of full on political critiques. There were more sort of silent and hidden in the sense that Scott writes about them. Yeah. So, you know, what this does is it sort of blends over into now this idea of bio power. Speaker 1 [01:25:55] And how bio. Speaker 2 [01:25:56] Power can sort of produce hegemony, but also produce counter. Speaker 1 [01:26:01] Hegemony. Speaker 2 [01:26:03] And now we get back into Cole and his idea of bio power or bio politics, which is. Speaker 1 [01:26:11] An approach. Speaker 2 [01:26:12] To. Organization that is preoccupied with human bodies. Bodies of obviously, citizens, but also the social body of the state itself. Now, what are we going to do is a leave off here and we'll pick this back up on Wednesday. Because I've already gone way too long, so. Okay, everyone, have a great. Afternoon.