Are Boundaries to Keep People Out or In?

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Symbolic Boundaries Research Network

Abstract

In almost all of the research that addresses categorical inequality, there has been an emphasis on discrimination or exclusion of some types of people from the benefits enjoyed by the normative in group. In much of the discussion of boundary work, there has been an implicit assumption about boundaries being created in order to keep some people out, but much less attention about how boundaries ensure that other types of people get in. I discuss in this paper the important distinctions between boundaries that ensure some people get in versus those that are intended to keep people out. Rather than being just different sides of the same coin (or same boundary), there are cognitive, political, legal, and economic implications about exclusion versus inclusion, about boundary work that is inclusive versus that which is exclusive.

Author

• Nancy DiTomaso, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers