State Categories, Bureaucracies of Displacement, and Possibilities from the Margins

Cecilia Menjívar

American Sociological Review, 2023, vol. 88, issue 1, 1-23

Abstract: In this presidential address, I argue for the importance of state-created categories and classification systems that determine eligibility for tangible and intangible resources. Through classification systems based on rules and regulations that reflect powerful interests and ideologies, bureaucracies maintain entrenched inequality systems that include, exclude, and neglect. I propose adopting a critical perspective when using formalized categories in our work, which would acknowledge the constructed nature of those categories, their naturalization through everyday practices, and their misalignments with lived experiences. This lens can reveal the systemic structures that engender both enduring patterns of inequality and state classification systems, and reframe questions about the people the state sorts into the categories we use. I end with a brief discussion of the benefits that can accrue from expanding our theoretical repertoires by including knowledge produced in the Global South.

Keywords: state; bureaucracies; classification systems; immigration law; gender-based violence; Latin America; inequalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00031224221145727 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:amsocr:v:88:y:2023:i:1:p:1-23

DOI: 10.1177/00031224221145727

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in American Sociological Review
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().