Hierarchical Structures and Social Value: The Creation of Black and Irish Identities in the United StatesCambridge University Press, 30 de nov. de 1990 - 190 páginas Through a combination of theoretical and historical analysis, the author develops the thesis that the concepts of "race" and "ethnicity" are socially constructed. With case studies of the incorporation of Blacks and Irish immigrants into the social structure of the United States, Richard Williams demonstrates that the social values that have been placed on these groups result from their placement into specific labor categories rather than from attributes inherent to the groups. The author first analyzes the process by which the social identities of Blacks and Irish developed in their native lands. Turning to an analysis of the social structure in the United States at the nation's founding, he argues that the society was hierarchical from its inception and that Black slave laborers and Irish wage laborers were demanded to fill positions created by that hierarchical structure. The conceptions of their racial and ethnic identities developed through a transfer of the value assigned to their social positions to the groups themselves. Racial and ethnic identities represent, the book argues, the legitimization of social stratification based on power relations. |
Conteúdo
Historical structures and social marks as systems | 15 |
The hierarchical context of the creation of the United | 24 |
Structural slots and identity creation in seventeenth | 35 |
The logic of a trade in humans | 59 |
The creation of the slave labor slot in Virginia | 77 |
The United States on the eve of mass migration from | 88 |
Ireland in the periphery | 101 |
The Great Famine and forced emigration | 116 |
Racial and ethnic social values the formation | 131 |
Outras edições - Ver todos
Hierarchical Structures and Social Value: The Creation of Black and Irish ... Richard Williams Prévia não disponível - 1990 |
Hierarchical Structures and Social Value: The Creation of Black and Irish ... Richard Williams Prévia não disponível - 1990 |
Termos e frases comuns
African population African-Americans agricultural assigned Atlantic attitudes became capitalist Chapter commodities context creation direct producers distinctions dominant elite emigration England English enslavement European world economy European world system existence fact factors Headright system hierarchically stratified historical human identity immigrants important indentured servants indentured servitude individuals Ireland Irish ethnic Irish population labor category labor force land large numbers long-distance trade Mali empire mark of vertical merchants migration Napoleonic Wars native nineteenth century North America notion Parliament period peripheral political poor potato potato blight production profits Protestant race and ethnicity racial and ethnic region result ruling group sector settlement settlers seventeenth century shift significant skin pigmentation slave labor slot slave slot slavery social structure social value Songhai empire stratified social systems structural position structural slots surplus tion trade routes transformed tribute U.S. economy unfree labor slot United utilized vertical classification Virginia colony wage labor West Africa workers