A collage of images, featuring most prominently a person holding a sign reading "no justice no peace"

Tagged: discrimination

Duties / General / International / Moral values / Rights / Social justice

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We Should Talk About Caste (alongside Gender and Race)

In this post, Ajinkya Deshmukh from The University of Manchester discusses his article recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy on why thinking about caste can help us better understand social identities like gender and race that impact our lives.

Image Source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/group-of-friends-laughing-on-a-night-out-32105833/

Features of our identity that we have little to no control over can influence how we think, what we do, and who we become. The lottery of birth – what the famous investor Warren Buffet called the ovarian lottery – heavily determines things like nationality, gender, and race. Your passport influences how easily you can pursue international opportunities. Your gender can govern where and when you can be out in parts of the world. Your race can affect if you get that job. No wonder then that philosophers have thought about social categories like gender and race. Caste – which is also determined at birth and also impacts life trajectory – has not gotten similar attention.

“So what?” you might ask. Surely it is a niche phenomenon not affecting most of the world. But the numbers are staggering. Caste-based discrimination affects hundreds of millions of people globally, and manifests as segregation in schools, housing, and public life; reduced access to political and civil rights; and inadequate representation in educational curricula and the media. Caste is found in Asia, Europe and the Americas, and among Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Christians. Anti-discrimination policies at Universities, in cities, and even countries are being revised in light of caste.

What is caste anyway? It is a centuries-old hierarchical grouping of individuals in society wherein caste membership comes with corresponding expected behavioural, social, or cultural practices. Failure to adhere to these expectations can result in varying degrees of social sanctions, including (in serious cases) “honour” killings and mob lynching. Castes are divided into so-called “upper” and “lower” stratas. Many practitioners follow the outlawed practice of “untouchability”, physically and socially distancing themselves from so-called “lower” caste members. The most persistent feature of the caste system is endogamy, where members of a caste will only marry within their caste or their caste strata. In India, for instance, most people have friends from within their caste/strata and most will go on to marry within their caste.

Three things stand out as strange about caste, especially to those who did not grow up in societies where it operates.

1. It is inherited from one’s parents but there are no genes that determine any visible features by which one could tell somebody’s caste. Indeed, there are not even invisible traits expressed by one’s genes that correspond to one’s caste identity.

2. Despite being the foundation of a lot of discrimination, it is invisible. You cannot tell somebody’s caste just by looking at them. Go on, try it. You don’t need to know the names of castes. Just look at the picture at the head of this post and see if you can hierarchically group the individuals based on anything other than a hunch. You have to ask or infer one’s caste from other information. And yet, people cannot easily ‘pass’ as belonging to a caste other than their own because caste bona fides are often verified communally and institutionally.

3. For an invisible, non-genetic property, it is nevertheless ‘sticky’ like gender and race. Just as one cannot easily change one’s gender or race, caste also sticks to the person. This table from my paper summarises these peculiar features of caste.

#Features↓ / Social Kinds →GenderRaceCaste
1Basis for discrimination / affirmative actionYesYesYes
2Typically ascribed at birthYesYesYes
3Hard(er) to change or disavowYesYesYes
4Genetic basis to ascriptionYesYesNo
5Visibility claim / Marked bodyYesYesNo

Table 1: Similarities and dissimilarities between various social kinds.

Yet most theoretical accounts of social kinds focus on gender and race, then generalise from there. This often leads to explanatorily inadequate theories. I argue that using caste as a test case for understanding systems of social identity will benefit both the scholarship on caste and our broader understanding of the social world.

Broadly speaking, I argue that theories of social identity that try to give fixed, unchanging definitions – often called ‘essentialist’ accounts – fail to capture the changing fortunes and social dynamics of these identities. Further, while such accounts might do a good job of capturing a snapshot of present-day conditions, they risk fueling views that see certain social identities as perpetually dominant or subordinate. A good theory, I claim, must not only aid in emancipatory efforts against social-kinds-based discrimination, but also be able to explain how an erstwhile oppressed group can redefine itself on its own terms.

If you want a very quick primer on caste, I encourage you to read section 2 of my paper. If you want to learn how caste is like and unlike gender and race, sections 4 and 5 do exactly that. If those sections pique your interest, read the rest of the paper!

Ajinkya Deshmukh is a post-doctoral researcher in philosophy at The University of Manchester. His research interests are social ontology and epistemology, the philosophy of attention, and Buddhist philosophy.

AI / Migration / Social justice / Technology

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Xenophobic bias in Large Language Models

In this post Annick Backelandt argues that xenophobia should be understood as a distinct bias in Large Language Models, rather than being subsumed under racial bias. She shows how LLMs reproduce narratives of “foreignness” that particularly affect migrants and refugees, even without explicit racial references.

Image by HelenSTB from Flickr

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Academia / General / Migration / Rights / Social justice

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Limits of language promotion

This post is written by Dr. Seunghyun Song (Assistant professor, Tilburg University). Based on her research on linguistic justice, she provides a tentative answer to the issue of the limits of the linguistic territoriality principle and its aim to protect languages. She uses the Dutch case as a proxy for these discussions.

Image by woodleywonderworks from Flickr (Creative Commons)

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Democracy / Governance / International / Social justice

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At last, justice for the Chagos Islanders?

Aerial photograph of the coconut plantation at East Point, Diego Garcia. Photograph shows strip of land between both ocean and lagoon, with the dilapidated plantation buildings sitting in a lawn surrounded by coconut trees.
Aerial photograph of an abandoned coconut plantation at East Point, Diego Garcia. See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Last week, the news that the UK has agreed to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius was widely reported. The agreement was denounced by many in the British press and political establishment – including by all current candidates for leadership of the Conservative Party. On the other hand, in other quarters the deal was greeted with cautious optimism. US President Joe Biden welcomed the agreement as a “clear demonstration that … countries can overcome longstanding historical challenges to reach peaceful and mutually beneficial outcomes”. In a joint statement, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth called it “a seminal moment in our relationship and a demonstration of our enduring commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes and the rule of law”.

Among Chagossians the feelings seem more mixed. Some see it as a step in the right direction, suggesting that Mauritius is more likely to put resettlement plans in place. Others, however, have criticised the fact that, even in a decision like this, Chagossians have been systemically excluded from the discussion. One group representing Chagossians in the UK, Mauritius and the Seychelles claimed that “Chagossians have learned this outcome [of the negotiations] from the media and remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland”. Others, speaking to the BBC, expressed frustration that, once again, decisions about their future were made without their input.

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Academia / Distribution / General / Work

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Is it justified for firms to offer prestige based rewards to some employees?

Consider the following excerpt from an article written by a former student at the University of Oxford –

“The green and lush lawns of the colleges you observe are due to the policy Oxford has maintained for centuries of allowing only professors to step on the grass. Everyone is obliged to keep walking along the concrete path, even when talking to a professor who may be walking through the grass. The rule is indeed odd one since it creates a certain one-manship between the professors and other teaching and supporting staff, as well as students.” 

I argue that this rule, which I refer to as ‘restrictive lawn policy’ henceforth, is not merely odd but it is also morally objectionable. 

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Duties / General / Liberty / Moral values / Rights / Work

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Invisible discrimination: the double role of implicit bias

In this post, Katharina Berndt Rasmussen (Stockholm University & Institute for Futures Studies) discusses her recently published article in the Journal of Applied Philosophy (co-authored by Nicolas Olsson Yaouzis) exploring the roles that implicit bias and social norms play in discriminating hiring practices.

Image by Roland Steinmann from Pixabay

The US, like many other countries, is marked by pervasive racial inequalities, not least in the job market. Yet many US Americans, when asked directly, uphold egalitarian “colour-blind” norms: one’s race shouldn’t matter for one’s chances to get hired. Sure enough, there is substantial disagreement about whether it (still) does matter, but most agree that it shouldn’t. Given such egalitarian attitudes, one would expect there to be very little hiring discrimination. The puzzle is how then to explain the racial inequalities in hiring outcomes.

A second puzzle is the frequent occurrence of complaints about “reverse discrimination” in contexts such as the US. “You only got the job because you’re black” is a reaction familiar to many who do get a prestigious job while being black, as it were. Why are people so suspicious when racial minorities are hired?

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Academia / General / Rights

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Language, justice, and linguistic prejudice in academia

Guest Post by Sergi Morales-Gálvez and Josep Soler

This post provides a tentative view about the justice issues that arise from linguistic prejudice in academia. It introduces the plights that affect non-native English speakers, and how these may count as forms of epistemic injustice.

Image by Melk Hagelslag from Pixabay (Free to use under Content License)

Have you ever had something to say at the tip of your tongue, but you momentarily forget the correct word to express it? We are sure that’s an experience many of us are familiar with. For people who speak two, three or even more languages on a regular basis, this can be a frequent occurrence. This is, at least, our experience as speakers of Catalan, Spanish, English, and other languages. Although a momentary lapse like this does not mean that someone is not a capable speaker of a particular language, it might be interpreted negatively.

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Children / General / Rights

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Small in the City: The Exclusion of Children from Public Spaces

by Nico Brando and Katarina Pitasse-Fragoso

I know what it’s like to be small in the city…The streets are always busy. It can make your brain feel like there’s too much stuff in it.

Sydney Smith – Small in the City

Don’t look by Cristian Blanxer & Victor Garcia Delgado

More than a billion children grow up in cities. This means growing up in densely populated areas with political, and cultural prosperity, but with radical inequalities. While some have access to parks, playgrounds, and child-friendly streets, others are forced to navigate crowded roads, deal with violence, and difficult (sexist, racist, ageist) environments. Children are among the various groups (think, as well, of individuals with disabilities, the elderly, or animals) who suffer from discrimination in their right to make use of public spaces safely. Especially in large urban areas, public spaces can be highly threatening to children of all ages. Smaller children suffer from lack of accessibility, and high risk of busy roads. Older children and youths, even if able of navigating urban areas alone, can have their free movement limited due to status offences, insecurity and violence.

In this short reflection, we wish to introduce some preliminary thoughts on the issues that affect children living in urban spaces. Why are children excluded from equal use of public spaces? Do children have a right to responsive and inclusive urban design?

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General / Work

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Replying to the reverse discrimination objection: a context-depended argument rather than an abstract one

Last month, Magazine Luiza, a Brazilian department store that specialises in selling electronics and home items, published a trainee call intended only for young and black candidates. According to Luiza Trajano, president of the administration council, this initiative could prove a better anti-discriminatory policy than other programmes adopted by the company in the past (they currently have 53% of blacks in its staff. But only 16% of them hold leadership positions). Luiza Trajano’s company seeks to ensure more diversity in top positions whilst, at the same time taking action against structural racism in Brazil. The company’s new trainee programme, however, has been the subject of judicial action and criticism from a part of the general population, who claim that it embodies an unfair policy that discriminates against white candidates. (more…)

Academia / Distribution / Economics / Gender / General / Rights

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“Level playing fields”: a misguided complaint about discrimination against well-off women

This is the third, and last, of a series of three posts about gender justice and conflicts of interest between women who belong to different classes. In the first post I argued that priority should be given to the worse off women: When a particular policy (which is otherwise justified) would benefit poor, or working class, women, there is a strong presumption in favour of that policy even if it would, at the same time, set back the interests of better off women. Many care-supporting policies are like this: The very mechanism that makes them work in favour of those women from low socio-economicbackgrounds who are saddled with care duties leads to the reinforcement of statistical discrimination and other biases against professional women. (more…)