Page 177 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification

Notes • The most glaring weakness and deficiency of Risley’s classification is that many of his points
are based on preconceived notions and arbitrary conclusions which have nothing to do with
reality.
• Some Proto-Australoid racial features have been noted from the skeletal remains found from
Mohenjodaro. A number of scholars have expressed the view that the Australoid and Proto-
Australoid racial elements are present throughout the Indian population. If the Negrito
racial element had ever dominated the Indian population then some definite and clearly
visible Negrito features should be there in the North Indian populations.
• The term ‘ethnic’ popularly connotes [race]’ in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter
value load. In North America, by contrast ‘[race]’ most commonly means color, and ‘ethnics’
are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries.
‘[Ethnic]’ is not a noun in Britain.
• “Ethnicity ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific
needs of political mobilization. This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity,
and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity is salient depends on whether people are
scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down
depends generally on the political situation.
• An “ethnic category” is a category set up by outsiders, that is, those who are not themselves
members of the category, and whose members are populations that are categorised by
outsiders as being distinguished by attributes of a common name or emblem, a shared
cultural element and a connection to a specific territory. But, members who are ascribed to
ethnic categories do not themselves have any awareness of their belonging to a common,
distinctive group.
• “Perennialism” holds that ethnicity is ever changing, and that while the concept of ethnicity
has existed at all times, ethnic groups are generally short lived before the ethnic boundaries
realign in new patterns. The opposing perennialist view holds that while ethnicity and
ethnic groupings has existed throughout history, they are not part of the natural order.
• Ethnic stratification is one of many different types of social stratification, including
stratification based on socio-economic status, race, or gender. According to Donald Noel,
ethnic stratification will emerge only when specific ethnic groups are brought into contact
with one another, and only when those groups are characterized by a high degree of
ethnocentrism, competition, and differential power.
• When people having differences in terms of these aspects of social life, and are ranked as
higher and lower or superior and inferior, ethnic stratification emerges as a social reality.
The proponents of ethnic stratification consider the idea of ethnicity as a functioning mode
of organization.
• Ethnicity is thus a set of cultural areas or complexes, and these are synonymous with ethnic
groups. Cultural representations, differences, boundaries, units/communities are created
based on ethnic criteria and divides. On the one hand, one can see cultural affinities, and on
the other, antipathies based on ethnic segregation.
• The studies of the Blacks and Whites in the USA imply both “racial” and “ethnic” dimensions
of stratification and inequality. More than the stratification aspect, ethnicity is used as a
means of identification. It is a way to know the “cultural other”.
• Answers to these questions are: Today, human society is polyethnic and multiethnic.
Interethnic cleavages, competition and conflict have become a common tendency. Ethnic
demands are made in the name of interests of a religious, linguistic and regional community.
Ethnic community is projected as a nation.

172 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY