Visualizing Theory

By Cynthia Oyarce  Technology is developing rapidly in the 21st century and appears to show no signs of slowing down. Although tech production, research, and maintenance are depicted as clean, elegant processes handled by well-paid and educated professionals, this is quite far from the truth. Who ends up paying the price? According to Ricarda Hammer and Tina Park, technological development makes use of preexisting pathways of oppression laid down by historical colonialism, racism, and capitalism.  Using a Duboisian sociological structure, Hammer and Park argue that a combination of capitalistic exploitation, previous colonization, and racialized domination go hand in hand with the commodification of humans who are seen as "lesser than". For instance, the idea of the veil plays into the colonial view of colonized individuals as mere sources of labor and capital. In many industries, including technology, the "global operation of the veil created and maintained a situation ...

By Cynthia Oyarce  According to C. Wright Mills, the  power elite  refer to individuals whose positions allow them to transcend the influence of ordinary people. In other words, their decisions (and lack of decisions) have major consequences on society at large, especially when compared to the decision-making of the average person. There are three main areas in which the American power elite reside: the economic domain, the military domain, and the political domain. As "the typical institutional unit has become enlarged, has become administrative, and . . . has become centralized" within the big three, increased cooperation has also emerged between the three sectors (Mills 2002:7). The picture above shows Rex W. Tillerson, former chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, giving welcoming remarks during his first day as the U.S. Secretary of State. The economic influence of big oil is no secret, as oil executives have had a role to play in political decisions for decades. However,...

By Cynthia Oyarce          When outlining modes of incorporation into the civil sphere, Jeffrey Alexander notes that America has jumped from assimilation to hyphenation to multiculturalism. Through assimilation, outgroups were forced to shed any qualities that did not mix with the norms of the primary civil sphere, resulting in an ambiguous social process stemming from "a contradiction between civil solidarity and primordial exclusion" (Alexander 2006:430). The shift into hyphenation eased the tension between public and private spheres considerably, allowing foreign qualities to "become hyphenated with core identities and blended into a new race" that reflected the "unique particularity of America itself" (Alexander 2006:432). Now, in a time of multiculturalism, displaying one's ethnicity has become a matter of pride in many cases.         As multicultural representation in the United States has grown, so too has the array of restaurant ...

By Cynthia Oyarce      Robert Bellah's analysis of civil religion points to the existence of a "public" religion in America that is shaped by religious ideas and rituals. The base of this idea can be found within Emilé Durkheim's basic understanding of religion, which claims that there are three requirements for a religion: people must agree on which beliefs should be sacred (and which aren't), which rituals are sacred (and which practices are not), and which symbols (literature, food, accessories, etc.) are sacred. For Bellah, America's civil religion exists regardless of whether or not all Americans agree with its promoted ideals. Instead, so long as citizens recognize the significance of particular symbols and rituals, civil religion will persist. This contrasts with traditional, private religion, in which sacred beliefs, rituals, symbols, etc. are shared among group members, who are connected by their adherence to these ideas.       From an early a...