Event Highlights: Addressing the Recognition Gap: Destigmatization and the Reduction of Inequality – A Lecture by Michèle Lamont
Last Monday, September 18, Boston University’s brand new Center for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering building was host to one of the world’s most influential current sociologists, Michèle Lamont. Lamont is a Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies, and Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, as well as former president for the American Sociological Society.
As a cultural and comparative sociologist, Lamont has written a dozen books and edited volumes and nearly one hundred articles, chapters, and features on sociological topics ranging from racism and stigma to culture and social change. She was recently awarded the 2017 Erasmus prize for her devoted contribution to social science research into the relationship between knowledge, power, and diversity.
Her lecture at Boston University not only allowed attendees a peek into her past research (she spoke about one of her most recent publications, a book called Getting Respect that she co-authored that sets a new global agenda for the comparative analysis of race and ethnicity). With a focus on how vulnerable populations defend themselves from oppression, Lamont explored the interconnectivity between two crucial parts of inequality: recognition and distribution.
From the achievement gap to the recognition gap, Lamont states that there are dire consequences when social groups lack recognition and distribution. “For example, the poor are more stigmatized in the United States than in other industrialized societies. There is little compassion, little solidarity for the poor. They feel alone, and out of luck.”
“It’s not only about feeling good,” Lamont shares. There are more consequences for people who don’t have a strong sense of this sort of groupness, on top of feeling ostracized from society; Lamont names health disparities like chronic stress, limited access to material resources, and an overall silencing of their voices as just a few of the costs of these inequalities.
How, then, are these messages being perpetuated? “Institutions contain messages about who’s in and who’s out,” Lamont posits. That facet is in direct contrast to what the goal of a successful society should be: “to extend cultural membership to the largest possible number of people.” In short, we should be making everyone feel like they belong.
This extension of cultural membership doesn’t just mean grandiose acts of mutual respect; it means the little things too. “Often times,” Lamont explains, “these groups face assaults on worth.” They are insulted, ignored, and overlooked. “These are things you can’t sue about,” she adds, because often the problem lies in things that do not happen—like exclusion, for example.”
Sharing her own research for her aforementioned book Getting Respect, Lamont discussed how inequality and stigmatization have yet to be fully grasped by both sociologists and the media. “The media talk and talk, but they don’t have the analytical vocabulary required to develop an empirical sociological outlook on the recognition and stigmatization processes,” she posits.
In an interview about Getting Respect, Lamont said it best. “I believe we can create inclusion in the context of the law, through narratives, through social policy, and by using institutional tools and cultural repertoires together to create shared notions of solidarity.”