Segregated, standardised, repressed: socialisation and the entrenchment of structural domination

Louette, Antoine (2021) Segregated, standardised, repressed: socialisation and the entrenchment of structural domination. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

For radicals, structural domination – e.g., sexism, racism, or classism – refers to the disempowerment of social groups by social practices. In recent years, a growing number of critical theorists have drawn on sociological and anthropological work to argue that the entrenchment of structural domination is largely due to agents’ socialisation into these practices. This thesis is sympathetic to this approach, but argues nonetheless that it stumbles over its own account of the contradictory character of socialisation. For if socialisation is contradictory – if agents should be expected to frequent not only social milieux that confirm the schemas of dominating practices, but also milieux that challenge these schemas – then it is unclear how exactly their socialisation in these practices can explain the entrenchment of structural domination. To solve this problem, the thesis suggests that we should pay closer attention to the various influences which structural domination itself has on socialisation. The thesis identifies three such influences, depending on the case at hand: a segregating influence, such that agents do not frequent the milieux that challenge the schemas of dominating practices; a standardising influence, such that there are too few of these milieux for agents to gain critical insight from them; and a repressive influence, such that the critical insights agents gain from these milieux may be psychologically repressed through physical repression.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2021 Antoine Louette
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Sets:	Departments > Government
Supervisor:	Ypi, Lea
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4274

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