Oppression, Dehumanization and Exploitation: Connecting Theory to Experience

1. Oppression, Dehumanization and Exploitation: Connecting Theory to Experience

2. This presentation is in three parts: 1. A lecture about recent theories which distinguish between oppression, dehumanization and exploitation.

3. This presentation is in three parts: 2. A brief rendition of work I’ve just completed on the relationship of human needs to oppression, dehumanization, exploitation, and injustice.

4. This presentation is in two parts: 3. An exercise in which we identify words and affective phrases associated with our own experiences of oppression, dehumanization and exploitation.

5. In the exercise….(later) • Participants identify the words and affective phrases describing the feelings we have experienced due to acts of oppression, dehumanization and exploitation. These are shared on 3x5 cards that are shuffled, redistributed, and discussed.

6. For Example • beaten down • being left behind • being used • beleaguered • belittled • blamed • boot in the face

7. A similar list of words…. In the textbook written, Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skills, a similar list was developed. But in my teaching of a course on oppression at Fordham University in 1989, I found that these lists didn’t seem to match the words and affective phrases my students were coming up with to describe their experience of oppression.

8. A similar list of words…. But the use of lists of words and effective phrases is therefore an established part of social work education. Why not expand the list, my students and I decided. And, over the years, we concluded that it was not just feelings of oppression we were identifying, it was also feelings of dehumanization and exploitation.

9. A similar list of words…. And, we realized that some of our words and phrases described how we felt at the very moment of the experience of oppression, and others were how we felt seconds or minutes latter. Finally, some were things we felt that evolved over time from our experiences of oppression, dehumanization or exploitation, including both adaptive and maladaptive feelings.

10. A similar list of words…. So, while I’m talking about theories of oppression, dehumanization and exploitation, feel free to start thinking back to experiences you have had. You won’t be asked to describe them or discuss them. But try to remember how you felt at that very moment, and begin to jot down the words and phrases which describe how you felt.

11. Introduction • Bertha Capen Reynolds said in Uncharted Journey, "Oppression produces the resistance which will in the end overthrow it ... We shall learn how to struggle when we care most what happens to all of us, and we know that all of us can never be defeated.”

12. First….. • We begin by defining and discussing theories of oppression, dehumanization and exploitation. Then I discuss theories of human need and how oppression, dehumanization and exploitation product injustice via the denial of the ability of people and communities to fully meet their human needs.

13. First….. • We begin by defining and discussing theories of oppression, dehumanization and exploitation (O, D, & E). Then I discuss theories of human need and how O, D & E produce injustice by denying of the ability of people and communities to fully meet their human needs. Then we move beyond theory, beyond the “isms”, and share the feelings produced by these experiences.

14. Oppression In their article in the Encyclopedia of Social Work, Wambach and Van Soest cite an excellent metaphor for oppression, one which explains why it is so hard to theorize and to observe a structure of oppression. That metaphor is the cage. They point out how hard it is "to understand that one is looking at a cage and there are people there who are caged, whose motion and mobility are restricted, whose lives are shaped and reduced." A well designed cage has a strong structure, but the actual wires that keep the birds in are as thin as possible to enable people to see in.

15. Mechanisms of Oppression • The authors argue there six mechanisms of oppression: • (1) violence and the threat of violence, • (2) rendering the oppressed group or their existence as an oppressed group as invisible, so that their status is taken for granted and not questioned, • (3) ensuring that the group is ghettoized so as to be out of sight, out of mind,

16. Mechanisms of Oppression • (4) Engaging in cultural oppression by treating the group as inferior, • (5) When oppressed groups are easily visible, they argue that the oppression can be rationalized or excused or • (6) keeping oppressed groups divided within themselves or from other oppressed groups.

17. On second thought…. Just because this is in the encyclopedia of social work doesn’t mean we should agree with this, however. We should always think critically about social theories, by which I mean think analytically. We might end up agreeing or not agreeing, being critical or not critical, but we should analyze the theory, i.e. think critically about it. And of course I would encourage you to think critically about the things I say as well.

18. Thinking Critically (Analytically) Van Soest and Garcia (2003) themselves, in the first edition of their CSWE book Diversity Education for Social Justice: Mastering Teaching Skills point out that it is important to critically challenge the assumptions of the prevailing academic approaches to diversity education.

19. Thinking Critically (Analytically) I would argue that although Van Soest and her colleague refer to these six processes as the social mechanisms of oppression, they are really ways in which oppression is maintained after it has already be put in place. The oppressed group is made invisible, ghettoized, treated as inferior, and kept divided only after it has already become an oppressed group!

20. Thinking Critically (Analytically) In other words, racist beliefs and other ideologies of oppression serve to justify oppression after it has been established. For instance, I’ve just finished a great new book, Darwin’s Sacred Cause.

21. Thinking Critically (Analytically) Charles Darwin was motivated all his life by the abolitionist views of his family of origin, which had their origin in a religious belief that all people were creatures of God. Even though Darwin no longer believed in the Biblical account of the origins of life, he firmly believed that all human beings share a common origin.

22. Thinking Critically (Analytically) Darwin used objective scientific methods in service of his deeper beliefs. He would have been heartbroken if he had found otherwise, but he was able to establish theories of natural and sexual selection that argued that human beings were indeed descended from a common origin.

23. Thinking Critically (Analytically) Darwin’s sacred cause in over 30 years of research was to refute the growing scientific racism which claimed that people of African origin were a different and inferior species and that this justified slavery. But that scientific racism came after slavery, to justify slavery. Theodore Allen in his acclaimed book The Invention of the White Race has also shown that racism as an ideology came after slavery to justify it, not before.

24. Mechanisms of Oppression So what are the originating mechanisms of oppression? And how do they differ from the mechanisms of exploitation and dehumanization? First, I would like to discuss one important mechanism, called closure.

25. Parkin’s Concept of Closure • Closure is a mechanism through which one group dominates another group. Frank Parkin theorized that a mechanism called social closure is a "process by which social collectivities seek to maximize rewards by restricting access to resources and opportunities to a limited circle of eligible." (p. 44)

26. 3 Kinds of Closure • He defines THREE kinds of closure: One is what he calls exclusionary closure, which is the process by which one group excludes another group. Different kinds of exclusionary closure are in place in different kinds of societies. This is the most important kind of closure to understand for our purposes.

27. Parkin (Weberian Perspective) • The concept of closure was first introduced in Parkin’s 1979 book, Marxism and Class theory. This is perhaps the most salient Weberian critique of neo-Marxism. Marxist class analysis, he argues, tends to deny the importance of "racial ideology", of "ethnic cleavages" or "communal divisions.”

28. Weberian Theory • Parkin argued that it is important to understand the oppression of groups by groups. Many of the current theories of oppression we are using today - including feminist theory - are derived from Weberian group theory. Weberian group theory provides a powerful ability to sustain social critiques.

29. Classical Origins of Theories of Oppression, Dehumanization and Exploitation • Oppression – Weberian group theory • Dehumanization - Durkheimian institutional theory • Exploitation - Marxist class theory

30. Theories of Oppression, Dehumanization and Exploitation Last Fall, I published a chapter, “Oppression, Dehumanization and Exploitation: Connecting Theory to Experience,” as Chapter 16 in the Second Edition of Van Soest and Betty Garcia’s book, Diversity Education for Social Justice (Second Edition). Alexandria VA: Council on Social Work Education. In that chapter I presented an original typology of theories of oppression, dehumanization and exploitation.

31. Basis of Typology of ODE Content For Social Work Education • Oppression: Ann Cudd’s Analyzing Oppression (2006). First unified and philosophically constructed theory of oppression. • Dehumanization: Nick Haslam’s social psychological theories of animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization. • Exploitation: Robin Hahnel and Chuck Tilly’s post-Marxist theories of exploitation.

32. Exploitation • Let’s skip any real discussion of classical Marxist class theory of exploitation, but there is one great article which explains it well: Longres, John. Marxian theory and social work practice. Catalyst. 1986; (20)13-34.

33. Exploitation But in order to establish a typology of ODE content, it is necessary to show the manner in which oppression, dehumanization and exploitation can be distinguished from each other. That’s easier said than done, because theories of oppression have become broader and broader in their conceptualization in recent years, so that O, D, and E become indistinguishable.

34. Exploitation For instance, Tilly (1998) has developed a theory of inequality that posited mechanisms of group domination as well as economic extraction. David Gil (1994) has sought to incorporate exploitation and dehumanization into a theory of oppression.

35. Exploitation But efforts to theorize oppression, dehumanization and exploitation in ways which incorporate each other risk overstressing the extent of the overlap between each other’s arguably distinct mechanisms.

36. Exploitation A major problem with classical and most recent theories of exploitation has been that they see the exploitation of economic class by economic class as the root of all evil, as the source of all oppression, and as the engine of all dehumanization. Modern feminist, postmodernist and other emerging theories were a reaction to this overemphasis on the role of class.

37. Exploitation For the source of a theory of exploitation which both avoids this kind of ideological imperialism and recognizes the manner in which oppression can be distinguished from exploitation, I chose Robin Hahnel’s work.

38. Exploitation Hahnel recognized that exploitation can be analyzed in terms other than Marxian theories of surplus value. Even mutually beneficial, voluntary economic exchanges can worsen the degree of inequality.

39. Exploitation Those who begin with a capital advantage will have a competitive advantage in economic exchanges, because they will be able to operate with greater efficiency. This in turn leads to further efficiency gains with each exchange. The result is still greater inequality of income and assets, via accumulation. Exploitation is simply based upon unfair advantage.

40. Exploitation What is one of the most important concepts which can help understand the outcome of such unfair exchanges? Cumulative disadvantage. Cumulative disadvantage refers to the manner in which over the life course of individuals and of entire groups and communities of people, such unfair exchanges can become institutionalized into a system of economic exploitation.

41. Exploitation Unjust outcomes follow from transactions between unequal parties within an institutionalized environment. The outcome is a result of exploitation. But Hahnel said unjust outcomes can happen outside the context of exploitation as well. Hahnel’s model of exploitation leaves room for consideration of the relationship of exploitation to oppression and dehumanization.

42. Oppression Just as Hahnel theorized exploitation in a way which left room to theorize oppression, so Ann Cudd theorizes oppression in a way which leaves room to consider exploitation separately. In fact, Cudd devoted a major portion of his book to showing that exploitation isn’t necessarily coercive. Therefore, E may (or may not) be unjust, but it isn’t necessarily oppressive.

43. Oppression Wait, am I saying that the feminist philosopher Ann Cudd argued that exploitation isn’t necessarily oppressive? Yes, the reason is that Cudd’s theory of oppression requires that all oppression be conceptualized much like Parkin did: as a function of the oppression of one social group by another social group.

44. Oppression Cudd argued that the origins of different historical examples of oppression may differ and while the effect of oppression on various groups may diverge, oppression has a common set of features.

45. Oppression Cudd identified four necessary and sufficient conditions for oppression: (1) Harm, (2) Inflicted on a group, (3) by a more privileged group, (4) using unjust forms of coercion. Let’s look at each of these four and then I’ll provide you with a definition of oppression based on Cudd.

46. Oppression • A harm condition related to an identifiable institutional practice; Avoidance of serious harm is a universal human goal according to Doyal and Gough’s Theory of Human Need. Harm is a much theorized concept in moral philosophy. But the harm must be performed in an organized, institutionalized manner, says Cudd.

47. Oppression (2) A social group condition that requires that the harm be perpetrated by a social institution or established practice on a social group. And that social group must have a pre-existing identity other than that stemming from the presence of the harm condition itself.

48. Oppression (3) A privilege condition associated with the existence of a social group that benefits from the identified institutional practice;

49. Oppression (4) A coercion condition consisting of the ability to demonstrate the use of unjust forms of coercion as part of the bringing about of the identified harm.

50. Oppression Thus, according to Cudd’s theory, oppression involves the infliction of harm in a fully institutionalized way by a more privileged group on another identifiable group via the use of unjust forms of coercion.