Rethinking social divisions: some notes

towards a theoretical framework

Floya Anthias

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide a framework for theorising the social

divisions of gender, ethnicity and class in terms of parameters of differen-
tiation and inequality which lie at the heart of 'the social'. The paper
argues that there are common parameters to the social divisions of gen-
der, ethnicity, 'race' (and class) in terms of categories of difference and
positionality. The paper explores the distinctive ontological spaces or
domains of gender and ethnos and argues that their study must be under-
taken in local and specific contexts paying attention to their articulation.
The articulation of the different social processes at the experiential, inter-
subjective, organisational and representational levels produces specific
social outcomes. Finally, a schematic outline of some of these articula-
tions is presented.

[ntroduction

A. nod in the direction of the panoply of gender, ethnicity and 'race'

has now become the sine qua non of being a good sociologist.
However, important sociological theory books in recent years (eg
Giddens, 1991; Scott, 1995; Mouzelis, 1995; Layder, 1997) have
failed to take up the challenge of incorporating gender and ethnicity
into sociological theorising. In this paper I will attempt to provide a
framework that places the social divisions of gender and ethnos
[ethnicity and race) as pivotal concerns in Sociology. After arguing
that the social divisions of gender, ethnicity and class lie at the heart
of 'the social', I will look at the concept of 'difference', and the diffi-
culties it raises for the study of social divisions as structured forms
of inequality, providing an alternative framework. I will then argue
that there are common parameters to the social divisions of gender,
%I^r ^f^^°™^ Board of The Sociological Review 1998. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
i"6 cowley Road, Oxford OX4 UF, UK and 350 Main Street, Maiden, MA 02148, USA.
Eloya Anthias

ethnicity, 'race' and class, (although I will not amplify these for rea-
sons of space, but see Anthias, 1997) in terms of categories of differ.
ence and positionality. I will explore the distinctive ontologica]
spaces or domains of gender and ethnos and argue that their studv
must be undertaken in local and specific contexts paying attention
to their articulation. Finally I will provide a schematic outline of
some of these articulations.

Social divisions and the concept of 'difference'

Different modes for the classification of populations, differential

treatment on the basis of labelling or attributions of capacities and
needs, and modes of exclusion that operate on this basis (the core
features of what may be called social divisions) are characteristic of
modem social formations. They permeate the social order and
indeed lie at the very heart of discursive, symbolic, psychic, eco-
nomic and political practices. The very fabric of our social structure
is therefore endemically gendered, ethnicised and indeed racialised
(Goldberg, 1993). Such social divisions permeate societies in differ-
ent ways although they are by no means universal in the forms they
take or in the meanings that underlie the entities constructed.
Within sociological theory the analysis of social divisions as
forms of stratification has tended to mean, traditionally at least, a
focus on class relations. Despite the recognition that gender and
ethnic processes entail subordination and inequality, the tendency
has been to incorporate them into social analysis through the
notion of 'difference', rather than through analysing them as
forms of stratification without reducing them to class divisions.
Recent debates in sociology, particularly within post-structuralist
approaches, have given 'difference' and 'identity' their place in the
sun' (eg Woodward, 1997). Our world, as the postmodernists con-
stantly remind us, has seen both the proliferation of difference and
its increasing celebration (Rattansi, 1994). Political movements
around class, social movement theory tells us, have been displaced
by movements around identity, around the environment, around life
style. The 'end of ideology', manifested in the demise of Marxism
and the end of the cold war, has been accompanied by the growth of
claims to authenticity and community.
Much of the analysis of ethnicity, 'race' and gender has focused
on the notion of 'difference' particularly with regard to 'identity.
The recognition of difference and diversity, both at the theoretical

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 Rethinking sociat divisions

d political levels, is not equivalent, however, to the concern with

inequality, disadvantage and exclusion, key features of social divi-
sions in society For example I may say:

I am a woman; I am a woman of Greek Cypriot origin; I am a

British-Cypriot woman; I am a woman sociologist of Greek
Cypriot origin who lives in Britain.

I can continue in this vein, building and discarding self definitions,

other attributions (or labels), adding, supplementing, clarifying,
modifying . . . horses for courses as they say. Every time I assert
who I am involves asserting also who I am not. I can also choose
different assertions or self presentations at different times. I am
more of a woman in some contexts than others . . . as I am more
Greek Cypriot and more of a sociologist at other times. However
these labels are not exactly like different coloured cloaks that we can
don and then discard. They are more like different layers which can
be worn in a different order - some on top, some below at different
times.
But this is not the whole story . . . for these layers reveal our posi-
tion in the social order of things and they relate fundamentally to
our life chances (to borrow Weber's term) or relate fundamentally
to power relations and the structure of inequality within social for-
mations. Individuals will be placed in this system of hierarchical
production and organisation differently according to different grids.
These take place at the level of experience, intersubjectivity, social
organisation and social representation and together produce deter-
minate social outcomes or structural effects which involve a com-
plex interweaving of forms of advantage and disadvantage.
Postmodern theory has declared the demise of the metanarrative,
the recognition and celebration of difference, diversity and differen-
tiation and the rejection of a unitary notion of the subject which
becomes fragmented. A specificity is allocated to the local and par-
ticular as opposed to the general and the universal, and analysis
needs to focus on concrete instances. One of the assumptions made
by the notion of difference is that there is so much cultural diversity
that it is impossible to find common threads. Unlike Mr. Grimwig's
view in Oliver Twist 'I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys and
beef faced boys' the view is that there are so many different kinds of
boys that we can't even talk of them as boys at all!
Postmodernism puts at the centre of analysis a decentred subject
and is concerned with displacing the humanist paradigm which is

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Floya Anthias

ethnocentric and phallocentric, pointing to the problems of binar\

oppositions. This has led to the recognition of the problems of treat-
ing the self as unitary (Bauman, 1992). Lyotard (1984) suggests, for
example, that there are no social identities, only individuals who are
the nodes where discursive practices cross-cut. As Stuart Hall
(1992b) notes, postmodernists reject the great collective identities of
class, of nation, of gender and of the West. The categories of gender,
'race' and class within such an approach appear as too homogenis-
ing, and it becomes difficult to talk in terms of categories at all, par-
ticularly as major axes of differentiation, exclusion, disadvantage
and inequality.
The concern with difference is refiected at a range of levels and
addresses a range of social phenomena. With regard to racism, the
concern with differences between forms of racism (Balibar, 1988) or
'multi-racisms' (Cohen, 1988) exists side by side with debates of dif-
ferences amongst women (Gatens, 1991). This concern with differ-
ences has enabled a more adequate theorisation of the multifaceted
interactions of social relations. The focus has generally been, how-
ever, on 'cultural difference' and this partially reflects the demise of
class based politics and 'the end of ideology' which were concerned
with inequalities and power relations. Instead, the tendency has
been to focus on the fragmentation of social forces and on identity
politics. Central to this development is the utilisation of ethnic dif-
ference in terms of the idea of 'new ethnicities' (Hall, 1992a) which
mobilise themselves through the harnessing of identity, constructed
through common experience rather than constructed in an essential-
ist way. Although this opens up a space for a variety of forms of
politics for different projects, it nonetheless places into the back-
ground class based and transethnic solidarities.
The recognition and celebration of difference, in all its guises,
may lead to political and moral relativism. This can be found m
arguments and policies around those multiculturalisms which ratify
and celebrate difference. Perhaps, multiculturalisms do 'let a hun-
dred flowers blossom' to coin Mao Tse Tungs words, but we need to
remember that difference is not politically neutral. Challenging
dominant ethnic, gender and class based cultural constructs, as
multiculturalism does, and as the celebration of difference does, is
part of the fight against inequality and subordination, but on its
own isn't enough. In any case, the right to difference can also be
turned on iu head. If there are differences of culture and differences
of need, and each group may legitimately make claims to resources
in terms of those differences, then the dominant group may also

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1 timise its greater claims to resources in these terms. Difference

V be constructed therefore as an ideological weapon and be part
f a strategy of domination or contestation. In addition, the episte-
mological agnosticism, as Boyne and Rattansi (1990) argue, may be
nolitically disabling. Once the notion of sisterhood or a racialised
divide is rejected, then there may be no obvious basis for a feminist
or anti racist position. However, the negation of collective action
debilitates the possibility of understanding social inequalities, as
well as movements and processes, as a more than ad hoc coalition
of social relations and forces.
One of the dangers of focusing on difference may be a retreat into
empiricism. For the very assertion of the existence of differences
involves taking at face value the appearance of living in a diverse
and fragmented universe. There is a failure to interrogate what may
lie behind or beneath these surface appearances, to find connections
and commonalities. The insight is that social identities are multiplex
and the result of (discursive) practices in different social spheres.
However there is no way in which these social spheres can be speci-
fied within the analysis for they cannot be read off from the prac-
tices. The mere recognition of difference doesn't help us rethink the
categories we use.
The recognition of diversity, fragmentation and multi faceted and
emergent identities leads to the abandonment of a view of the fixed
and essential nature of identities. The postmodernist critique which
began with this insight assumed that this must lead to the abandon-
ment of general tools of analysis. It is possible, however, to make a
distinction between identities seen as outcomes (of variable and
specific social forces that are contextual and situational) and as
explanations. In order to be able to understand the production of
these outcomes we require conceptual tools.

Towards a framework for analysis

Concepts versus categories

Concepts are heuristic tools and enable us to specify social categor-

ies. They should be formulated in such a way as to enable the provi-
sional and local specification of categories. Mouzelis (1993) makes
the distinction between substantive generalisations and method-
ological generalisations. The former are grounded in what we know
about the social whilst the latter entail the tools for knowing.

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Floya Anthias

Conceptual frameworks facilitate the ability to identify patterned

social outcomes and the existence of contingent and variable catego-
rial formations. Concepts therefore require to be formulated in a way
that enables the recognition and analysis of social categories without
limiting the recognition of differences and specificities. It is necessan
therefore to redress the conflation, found in post modem theor}',
between the view that there is a fragmentation and diversity that is
foreclosed by binary and static categories of identity, and the view
that we must therefore abandon all conceptual tools of analysis.
In my understanding of social divisions, the specification of
essential unities of identity and difference is abandoned in favour of
the identification of ontological spaces or domains, which are con-
tingent and variable in their specificities. A relational ontological
space, or social domain, constitutes the framework for investigating
the social relations of difference and inequality. The ontological
spaces are not essentialist but themselves social in as much as they
have experiential, intersubjective, organisational and representa-
tional forms. The concepts relating to the ontological spaces are
merely signposts. Ethnos, for example, is a concept that can be a
heuristic device enabling the delineation and specification of those
experiential, intersubjective, organisational and representational
processes related to the ontological space of collectivity. It is an
abstraction. Nor need it emerge in any specific form. It enables the
investigation of patterned social relations and their outcomes at a
number of different levels.
The concepts of gender and ethnos, as relating to ontological
spaces, involve a heuristic device that may be defined in the follow-
ing way (and as different therefore from the Weberian notion of
ideal type):
1. It does not purport to be a model for the purpose of compari-
son.
2. It does not exaggerate any extreme feature of observable phe-
nomena.
3. By signposting the ontological territory of a set of social rela-
tions it is able to consider the experiential, intersubjective, organ-
isational and representational facets that relate to it in local and
specific contexts: it recognises variability.
4. Concepts, unlike categories, do not purport to either exist or to be
known or understood. Concepts are tools of analysis that enable
the social world to be looked at through a number of grids and be
organised in terms of a problematic or a set of assumptions. They
enable investigation into, inter alia, the following:

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1 The process of differentiation (and identification): this relates to

orocesses whereby persons are attributed or attribute themselves
characteristics, and are sorted or sort themselves into places as well
as processes whereby the differentiation of places, is constituted: what
are the primary organising principles and assumptions that underlie
the category? On what specific and local criteria have persons been
assigned to a category (ex sex difference, ethnicity, race, age). What
are the meanings produced by the postulate of categorial identities in
different contexts and how do they act as fields of contestation? What
constitute the contents of the attributions and identifications
involved in specific local contexts? What are the parameters of trans-
portability and malleability? What are the processes by which the cat-
egory establishes its salience? Under what conditions do actors come
to see themselves primarily in these terms and mobilise around it?
What factors prohibit mobilisation? More concrete sets of questions
can be investigated empirically. Let us take, as an example, the ques-
tion of social identity around the nation. In France many groups are
forced to have only one identity. The definition of foreigners was used
in schools to include those not bom in France even if they held citi-
zenship. What does it mean to be a foreigner? Who constructs the
definitions? Do the definitions refiect the role of dominant groups in
the state or dominant classes or dominant genders within an ethnic
group? Does this lead to all those defined in this way to be expected
to be the same, to have the same experiences of exclusion or disad-
vantage or the same needs? Does this serve to reproduce the label and
then perpetuate otherness?

2. The process of positionality: places in the order of things: What

are the processes by which the categories emerge as hierarchical?
How are places allocated positions? What are the social processes at
a range of different levels: the experiential, the intersubjective, the
organisational and the representational which are involved in the
production, reproduction and transformation of unequal social out-
comes? How are these embodied in institutions, structures, laws,
power relations and so on? How are places hierarchised and sub-
jected to processes of inferiorisation?

Levels of analysis
There has been a great deal of debate on the structure/agency prob-
lematic (eg see Scott, 1995, Layder, 1996, Mouzelis, 1995) and this
paper does not have the space to refiect some of the problems that

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Eloya Anthias

have been identified with it, as well as the generally fiawed attempts
to resolve them (see Mouzelis, 1995 for a useful discussion). In this
paper I will not draw on such a binarisation of social processes, and
instead focus on the idea of different levels of analysis which can be
operationalised in substantive work. I want to argue that crosscut-
ting the two problematics of differentiation and positionality are the
experiential, intersuhjective, organisational and representational fac-
tors that enable a focus at different levels: the personal (experience),
the action (interaction/practice, intersubjectivity), the institution/
structure (the organisational), the symbolic, discursive (representa-
tional). Each one may act as a context or habitus and field
(Bourdieu, 1990) for the others and enable an exploration of how
they interlink with each other. The distinctions here are heuristic
rather than actual and enable different sets of questions to be inves-
tigated.
These involve the following:

experiential: this focuses on the experiences of persons (within spe-

cific locatable contexts, say in the school, in the work place, in the
neighbourhood) of being defined as different, identifying as a par-
ticular category.

intersubjective: this arises from the level of intersubjective relations:

the actions and practices that take place in relation to others
(including non-person actors such as the police, the social security
system and so on).

organisational: this focuses on the institutional and other organisa-

tional ways in which the ontological spaces are played out: for
example, family structures and networks, educational systems, polit-
ical and legal systems, the state apparatus and the system of polic-
ing and surveillance. For example, how is sexuality, biological
reproduction or population categories organised within institutional
frameworks and in terms of the allocation of resources?

representational: What are the symbolic and representational means,

the images and texts, the documents and information flows around
the ontological spaces?

There are a number of implications of this analysis. First, it avoids

the binarisation of social relations retained within debates on struc-
ture and agency, found for example, in the work of Giddens (1991).

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 Rethinking social divisions

Although his approach rejects the dichotomy between structure and

aeency, it works within the theoretical space of that dichotomy by
attempting to show how structure and agency are intertwined in
social relations (through the concept of structuration). The
approach I have suggested instead, identifies different levels of
sociality, which are themselves outcomes, rather than originary or
essential human or social attributes (unlike 'will' or 'choice' denoted
say by the notion of agency or 'systematicity' denoted by the notion
of structure). At the simplest level one could argue that the debate
which uses the structure/agency distinction is essentially philosophi-
cal, and cannot be resolved within sociology. What can be salvaged
however is the pragmatic recognition that individuals appear to
make choices (in the sense that they do not behave like automa-
tons). These choices take place within a framework of constraints,
which include interactions with others, which themselves have
organisational and representational components that cannot be
reduced to individuals.
The sociological enterprise, it could be argued, involves the delin-
eation of the processual levels which lead to particular outcomes for
individuals and groups. These outcomes may be seen in terms of
constructing places and positions for individuals and groups
according to social evaluation and the allocation of resources of dif-
ferent kinds (economic, political, territorial and cultural) that the
groups can then deploy in terms of their positionalities. This
approach reaffirms the central role of 'struggle around resource
allocation' which involves a range of social processes within differ-
ent kinds of arenas or ontological domains: those of class, linked to
the domain of production and reproduction of material life; those
of ethnos, linked to me production and reproduction of bonds, sen-
timents and solidarities relating to collective origin and belonging;
and those of gender linked to the production and reproduction of
sexual difference. These domains involve different sets of exclusions
and inclusions; different resources and attributions are deployed.
However, there is a spilling over of one to the other which will be
discussed when I consider later the issue of social outcomes for indi-
viduals and groups.
The second implication of my position is that it may be futile to
seek for the origins of differentiated and stratified social outcomes
with reference to a single causal principle. The centrality of process,
interpreted in terms of specific rather than generalisable features,
asks the analysis to consider the overall societal context within
which outcomes are produced. This does not mean, however,

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Eloya Anthias

abandoning the attempt to locate those significant features which

may be seen to have important and determining effects, both within
the ontological domains, and between them. These may relate to the
overall societal importance of resource production and allocation.
The materialism of this position, however, treats resource allocation
in a much broader way than that found in the notion of 'the eco-
nomic'; it suggests an interplay between symbohc and material
value, and the spilling over of one onto the other without necessar-
ily always giving primacy to one over the other.
The third implication of the analysis is that it becomes necessary
to rethink traditional approaches to stratification. These tend to
identify material resource production and allocation within the
domain of class relations alone and treat gender and ethnic/race
inequalities in terms of the distinction between the material and the
symbolic. These inequalities are either seen as emanating from the
natural or symbolic realm, or as particular articulations of the
material, defined in narrow class or economistic terms. Nor is the
alternative focus on human capital (eg Gershuny, 1998), which
essentially concentrates on individual capacities and skills as deter-
minants of market inclusion and exclusion, fully adequate; this
approach presupposes that individuals can acquire human capital
attributes without reference to the overall system of stratification,
which determines which categories of persons are eligible to accom-
plish particular forms. Such a system includes within its very heart
gendered, ethnicised and racialised relations; the experiential, inter-
subjective, organisational and representational features of these
ontological domains are themselves constitutive of the stratification
system. These are spaces where the production and reproduction of
valuational and material inequalities take place, and where rela-
tional and antagonistic social relations are embodied and per-
formed.
More substantive work is required to fully think through the
implications of this for social theorising in general and for theoris-
ing social stratification in particular. The following discussion, how-
ever, begins to show that the domains of class, gender and ethnos
have certain common features in terms of the construction of differ-
entiation and positionality. They work, nonetheless, with different
elements relating to different domains of social existence or differ-
ent existential locations implicated in constructing places in 'the
order of things'. In the following section I will provide a schematic
outline of some of these ideas in the context of the social divisions
of gender and ethnos.

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 Rethinking social divisions

Common parameters for social divisions

Social divisions may be considered in two separate but related ways.

1 he first is in terms of constructing categories of difference and iden-
tify involving other and self attributions or labelling and self iden-
titv This involves the formation of social categories of the
population and boundaries of differentiation. The other is in terms
of constructing social relations in terms of differential positioning,
and the allocation of power and other resources. This is the issue
that relates to social relations of stratification or inequahty.
Social categorisation is an essential part of the classifying prin-
ciples found in human societies (Durkheim and Mauss, 1963; Levi-
Strauss, 1949). Although there are no uniform ways in which
societies categorise, once individuals are placed into categories
(although they are not mutually exclusive) across different dimen-
sions, the relational terms of otherness and sameness are con-
structed. In the process notions of self and other, identity,
identification and division come into play. Usually the categories are
constructed in a binary way and as mutually exclusive. They endow
individuals with attributions of difference which are then seen to
have necessary social effects.
Such constructions are rarely neutral or value free. They organise
possessive properties and attributions of individuals and also allo-
cate differential value and produce hierarchies. They are also impli-
cated in the development of particular types of social relationships.
These range from forms of closure where the group has resources it
wishes to protect, to exploitation which is a form of subordinated
inclusion (although this also entails closure in terms of the denial of
access to the resources of the exploiting group). Relations of avoid-
ance are found in the case of the caste system and certain forms of
racism (such as apartheid), in the case of class stigmatisation and in
the case of women in some cultures at certain times of the month
and in certain contexts (during the menstrual cycle for example).
The logic of extermination may be applied where the threat of the
'Other' is seen as too great and/or complete dehumanisation of the
group has taken place (as in the Holocaust).
We can see, therefore, that the discussion of social divisions
entails considering social categorisation and social identification. It
also entails looking at differentiated social interactions and the for-
mation of collective or solidary bonds as well as forms of closure.

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Eloya Anthias

The establishment and location of 'difference'

I will now look at the commonalities of the categorial formations in
terms of the construction of difference. The common principles of
the categories may be identified in three ways as:
1. the principle of relationality/dichotomy (or absolutism)
2. the principle of naturalisation
3. the principle of collective attributions.

The principle of relationality I dichotomy

The categories of gender and race/ethnicity are relational, con-
structing difference and identity. They involve attributions of differ-
ence and identity, proclamations of difference and identity and
identifications at the psychic and social level. These function at the
experiential, intersubjective, organisational and representational
levels. To identify is to differentiate from and vice versa. Within
each one a dichotomy or binary opposition is established.
The binary oppositions, common in Western social and political
thought, construct mutually exclusive categories. They also con-
struct a necessary relation of super and sub ordination of one by the
other and are therefore never free of evaluative connotation. Within
the category of gender, for example, there is to be found a dichoto-
mous relation between men and women. This is often echoed in
academic work on gender that takes for granted this assumption of
absolute difference. This often leads to gender being treated as
causal rather than as an outcome of social relations. This is found
for example in Parsons' account of the 'expressive' female and the
'instrumental' male, or in some feminist accounts of patriarchy (for
a good summary see Walby, 1990). There is a supposition that to
understand gender relations it is not necessary to look further than
the relations between men and women. In some feminist versions
gender relations are regarded as the product of what a man does to
a woman and how a woman responds to a man (see Ramazanoglou.
1991 for an account). If this is the case it becomes redundant to
investigate state processes, the structural location of individuals,
ideology or politics. Both the attributions of each half of the binary
divide (of masculine and feminine), and their relation to each other.
become privileged in understanding gender.
In the case of 'race' the dichotomous relation is often constructed
through the opposition White/Black. This unifies the subjects
within each and suggests that all White people are one thing and all
Black people are another. It assumes that to understand processes

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 Rethinking social divisions

f "race' the focus must be on the relations between Whites and

Blacks or 'race relations' (see Miles 1989 for a critique ofthe race
lations approach). In addition, the interrogation of the terms
White and Black are missing. Who may be included in one or the
other what the boundary markers are and how they change are
questions that may not be raised.
This leads to a failure to examine wider social structures and
processes. Notions of culprits and victims may emerge. The possibly
contradictory nature of sexism and racism may not be considered
(see Cohen, 1988). The individuals that are placed in each category
may occupy a different position in the other categories (eg White
women are on the left (subordinate) using the gender grid but on
the right (dominant) using the race grid (see Hertz, 1978 on the
analysis ofthe Right and Left hand).

The principle of naturalisation

In George Bernard Shaw's words (1898, Caesar and Cleopatra Act
2) 'He is a barbarian and thinks that the customs of his tribe and
island are the laws of nature'. This exemplifies the naturalising
process involved in culture generally. With regard to social divisions,
naturalisation relates to the fact that both gender and ethnic phe-
nomena are underpinned by a supposedly "natural" relation. In
gender, necessary social effects are posited to sexual difference and
biological reproduction. For ethnicity/nation, assumptions concern-
ing the natural boundaries of collectivities or the naturalness of cul-
ture are used. These supposedly natural differences in capacities and
needs on the basis of gender or of ethnicity/nation then come to
enter into economic relations as legitimisers of inequalities in class
position (Anthias and Yuval Davis, 1983). The subordinate position
of women may be legitimated differently, however, within their own
ethnic group and that ofthe dominant majority.
Both gender and 'race' are social categories which are seen to be
filled by people who share some fixed, unchanging essence, in the
case of gender this is related to the 'blindingly obvious fact of sexual
difference' and in the case of 'race' to the 'blindingly obvious fact of
human stock difference or cultural difference' (sic). This is not to
say we have to accept the case, in fact quite the opposite. In the case,
for example, of the race category there is no way in which the attri-
bution of racial stock can be verified, and indeed it has been totally
discredited (Miles, 1989, 1993; Guillaumin, 1995).
In terms of the concept of ethnicity, there are naturalising

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Eloya Anthias

assumptions concerning the boundaries of ethnic groups particu.

lady through the importance often given to the historical origin or
common descent of the group or in terms of the taken for granted
character or naturalness of cultural difference in constructing sol-
idary bonds. Although the borders of the ethnic group may not be
as fixed and rigid as those of 'race', nonetheless there are markers
on who has the right and who hasn't the right to belong to the
group that specify biological parentage, descent, origin or even des-
tiny. Whereas, with nation, it is possible to accede through gaining
political rights of citizenship or acquiring cultural or linguistic
skills, the acquisition of the latter does not automatically entitle an
individual to ethnic belongingness, although in some cases marriage
or religious conversion may.

The principle of collective attributions: unitary categories

Gender, 'race' and ethnic categories construct their subjects in uni-
tary terms. The gender category homogenises women, that is in its
very nature: it uses the attribution of sexual difference and certain
postulates about its necessary social effects to treat all women as a
unity. The unity of experience, on the other hand, is one hailed hy
many feminists in constructing the idea of sisterhood (for a critique
see eg Spelman, 1988). The categories of 'race', ethnicity and class
also homogenise. The individuals within may be treated as though
they are all the same and sensitivity to difference, contradiction,
diversity and multiphcity may be absent.
There are a number of ways in which collective attributions func-
tion. One is in terms of stereotypes. Stereotypes are not necessarily
false. Rather they are ways of organising and selecting aspects or
characteristics that individuals are seen to be endowed with because
they are placed or classified into a particular category. The charac-
teristics are not derived from observation or experience of the indi-
vidual. Or to put it another way, the experience and observation of
the individual is always overdetermined by the attribution, in an a
priori fashion, of certain characteristics.
Examples of gender stereotyping are found in the construction of
women as passive, irrational, sentimental, caring, emotional, dexter-
ous. Men may be constructed as aggressive, rational, instrumental,
logical, ambitious and so on. In the case of ethnic stereotypes there
are stereotypes of say the lazy Spanish, the phlegmatic English, the
jolly Irish, the miserly Scottish to name a few. In the case of 'race
there are ideas about the Savage and the Nature, which function in

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 Rethinking social divisions

• Dortant ways to inferiorise and dehumanise. These stereotypes

e cultural constructions and are historically produced as well as
having a contextual character. They are therefore ideologically
roduced and are not only products of inaccurate observation or
ndividual prejudice. They may function to justify exclusion and dis-
advantage.
Collective attributions may become internalised by the groups.
The poignant title of Fanon's important book 'Black Skin, White
Masks' (1986), indicates the power of racist attributions in produc-
ing negative self concepts and in endowing positive value to
Whiteness. The plethora of magazines devoted to particular stereo-
tvpes of the ideal female body is another testimony to the effects
such values and norms have on the self esteem of individuals.
Collective attributions are also about We-ness. The group may
construct itself in a particular way: as stronger, more intelligent, as
great warriors or lovers, as honourable, and so on. In terms of the
less value laden aspects, the group may stress the importance of
conformity to religious or cultural practices as well as those of gen-
der which are seen as central to the groups self-definition. Often the
behaviour of women is crucial, where the collective attribution say
of being a good ethnic subject may depend on the sexual control of
women: mediterranean rural societies, Muslim cultures and a range
of others place special emphasis on the performance of differenti-
ated gender roles. Here the question may be raised about who has
power in the group to promote dominant characterisations. For not
all members of the group will have common interests in terms of the
distribution of resources and honour. Therefore We-ness is always
undercut by Other-ness within the group; as in women's position
and that of subordinate classes or ethnicities.
Such a notion of We-ness may be less pivotal in class groups and
gender groups and will emerge under specific conditions. In the case
of ethnic groups however, the We-ness is a paramount aspect of
social relations.

Categories of positionality/inequality
I vvill now focus on the commonalities in terms of the production of
social outcomes of inequality or positionality which have experiential,
mtersubjective, organisational and representational aspects. These
involve three further principles:

1- the principle of hierarchisation

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Eloya Anthias

2. the principle of unequal resource allocation

3. the principle of inferiorisation.

The principle of hierarchisation

Earlier it was suggested that the difference postulate by the categor-
ies was not value free. Indeed the construction of difference is usu-
ally accompanied not only by a relative value, on a pole of negative
to positive. The categories construct places or positions in the social
order of things. Sometimes this involves the allocation of specific
social roles such as occupational (caste and class) or familial (gen-
der) but more often than not these are accompanied by a pecking
order of roles and places.
This may be seen in terms of the constitution of gender, race and
class as systems of domination (Spivak, 1987). However, none of
them function in a coherent manner nor are they mutually exclu-
sive. All individuals occupy places in each one of them. But how
they are attributed, the claims that they themselves make and their
own psychic identifications may vary greatly. Indeed some of the
claims and identifications may be seen as forms of resistance as well
as external constructions and social attributions. To be proud to he
woman/feminine, black/minority ethnic (or say disabled (Oliver.
1995)) is to refuse the attribution of a hierarchical otherness. Also
people's identities are multiplex, contextual and situational.
Therefore, in terms of social relations that are hierarchical, it is
not purely a question of a hierarchy of individuals within a cate-
gory. For example in the category of race, where the distinction
between say White and Black is constructed, the White is dotni-
nant over the Black. The White is able to reproduce advantages
and privileges and reproduce the evaluative components of
Whiteness. However, within this construct, there exist class differ-
ences and gender differences also which interplay with those ot
race to produce hierarchical outcomes for individuals. These may
lead to complex forms of hierarchy across a range of different
dimensions. If the constructs are read as 'grids' their salience will
not only vary in different contexts but the interplay of the different
grids needs to be always considered in any analysis of social out-
comes or effects.

The principle of unequal resource allocation

Resource allocation has often been conceived in terms of economic
resources which have generally been theorised in terms of class. The

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 Rethinking social divisions

mpirical evidence that 'race' attributions and gender attributions

re correlated with economic position in general terms has meant
that many of the explanations concerning the dynamics of 'race'
and gender have reduced them to some form of economic category.
Instances of this are found within Marxist, Marxist feminist and
within radical feminist theory.
Much of the debate on 'race' and class (Anthias, 1990), takes as a
starting point the economic position of Black people and explains
this with reference to economic processes and their link to racism.
In much of the analysis that links 'race' and economic processes it is
racism as an ideology that connects racialised groups with a specific
economic positioning. However, it is not so easy to show that eco-
nomic disadvantage is the effect either of racism or that racism itself
is constructed as the medium by which capital benefits from an
underclass that can act either as cheap labour or a reserve army of
labour (Castles and Kosack, 1973; Castells, 1975). As Miles (1989)
points out, there are a range of exclusionary practices in society that
are not merely coterminous with racism but are 'a component part
of a wider structure of class disadvantage'.
The depiction of Black people as an underclass (Castles and
Kosack, 1973) or as a class fraction (Phizacklea and Miles, 1980)
underemphasises the heterogeneity given by the distinct employ-
ment characteristics of different 'racialised' groups (eg Asians,
Afro-Caribbeans and other colonial migrants in Britain), it also
takes no account of gender differentiation. The concern to show the
class bases of 'race' allows divisions within the category to be
glossed over.
However, despite the problems of the class analogy, the principle
of unequal resource allocation, in general, stands. This is not only
because of the wealth of empirical evidence that shows that women
and ethnic minorities suffer disadvantages in the labour market
(see Miles, 1989; Newnham, 1986; Castles, 1984; Modood et al.,
1997; Anthias, 1993): these are well known. It is also because
unequal resource allocation also involves the issue of power at the
political, cultural and representational levels. Gender, ethnicity and
race' are structured in terms of unequal social relations. Regarding
::;ultural resources, for example, such as language, education and
religious values, there is no doubt that the dominant ethnic, 'race'
and gender groups within the state have privileges in terms of cul-
tural production and reproduction: this despite the growth of
"qual opportunities policies at various levels and the growth of
multiculturalism.

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Floya Anthias

The principle of inferiorisation: 'otherness', normality and pathology

One side of the binary divide in each case is seen as the standard, as
the norm, as expressive also ofthe ideal. The yardstick for the individ-
ual where gender is concerned, becomes male capacities or achieve-
ments, male needs or interests. This is one example ofthe assumptions
that underlie the specification of binary social categories.
These assumptions are often reproduced in struggles against the
disadvantage conferred on the 'wrong' side of the binary divide.
This is found in feminist struggles that argue for equality of capaci-
ties and needs taking as given that those expressed in the masculine
are the yardstick. This leads to forms of theory and practice that are
concerned with redressing disadvantage relative to the 'normal/
right' side. It may lead theoretically to treating the 'normal/right'
side as the explanatory field for the 'other/wrong' side. This is
expressed in those arguments within feminism for example that treat
men as the cause of women's oppression or those arguments by
anti-racists that treat Whites or racist individuals as the problem
that needs to be countered, rather than locating the sources of
racism within broader social relations.
In many discussions, the Other is contrasted to Self (eg in sym-
bolic interactionism). The Self cannot also be Other. Yet the work
of Fanon (1986) shows us how within the experience of coloniahsm
the Black assumes a White mask, how in other words the Self is
considered as the Other.
At the same time, and as a corollary, normality and pathology
become ascribed to individuals within these categories in two ways.
One is that the 'Other' becomes pathologised. The second way is
that individuals who do not perform the ascribed roles in a satisfac-
tory way also become pathologised. In the first way pathology is
seen as endemic to particular categories (Blacks, ethnic outsiders,
women). In the second way, pathology is derived from failing to per-
form adequately the appropriate roles imputed to a particular posi-
tionality.

Conceptualising gender and ethnos

Having discussed the commonalities between the social divisions in

terms of categories of difference and categories of positionality, I
will now look at the distinctiveness of each categorial formation in
terms of a relational ontological space or social domain. The onto-
logical spaces are not essentialist but themselves social in as much

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 Rethinking social divisions

as they have experiential, intersubjective, organisational and repre-

sentational forms. I shall briefly and very schematically attempt to
provide a kind of 'map' for the social divisions of gender, ethnicity
and 'race'. I will not look at class here (but see Anthias, 1997) as I
have explored this elsewhere. Gender can be located in terms of the
domain of the social construction of sex and biological reproduc-
tion, ethnos (ethnicity and race) can be located within the space of
the social construction of collectivity and class can be located in the
space of the social construction of the production and reproduction
of economic life (see also Anthias and Yuval Davis, 1992).

Conceptualising gender
As I argued above gender relates to the ontological space of sexual-
ity and biological reproduction, not as an essence but in terms of
experiential, intersubjective, organisational and representational
processes. Gender relates to the way in which sexual difference
(itself discursively constructed) is experienced, practised/performed,
organised and represented. Gender cannot be seen as the outcome
of the workings of the social on a self-evident sexual difference con-
stituted through the physical givens of the male and female body.
Further, it is not solely behavioural or identificational. Gender is
not only manifested in such facets as dress, habits, personality, atti-
tudes, behaviour and sexual preference. It is not only about norms,
representations and attributions. Gender is also about positionality
and placement. Indeed, it could be argued, it is itself constitutive of
human subjectivity (Butler, 1993).
The distinction between sex and gender has been a necessary step
for arguing against biological explanations of women's role (Oakley,
1974). However, it has now become evident that the relationship
between sex and gender is more complex than initially conceived.
There is a growing recognition that sex is itself a cultural construct.
This points attention to the socially meaningful ways in which the
sexual characteristics are discursively organised to produce two sub-
species of people, male and female. We have often been reminded of
the historicity of sex categories and a wealth of important new liter-
ature has attempted to correct or displace the crudely sociologistic
socialisation model of gender constructions (eg Butler, 1993).
In mainstream sociology the mechanism of gender construction is
seen to lie in socialisation processes that provide the context for the
intemalisation by sexed individuals of the appropriate gender char-
acteristics. This is linked to the notion of the individual as either an

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Floya Anthias

empty vessel (apart from a prior knowledge of one's fixed sex differ-
ence which guarantees that gender division is gridded adequately)
or the individual as being able to take models of the right biological
sex through the assumption of an automatic recognition or through
interaction with significant others.
The experiential dimensions of gender relate to constructions of
identity as well as attributions by others, the intersubjective dimen-
sions relate to the sphere of interactions and how these establish
meanings and identities, the level of the organisational relates to the
range of social forms and institutions within which it is enacted and
the level of the representational relates to the symbolic and discur-
sive constructions that surround it. For example discourses around
sex and gender are embedded in juridical relations, state policies
and the actions of social actors finding expression at all social levels,
from the economic to the familial or personal. Gender manifests
itself in society in a range of social processes and outcomes and
involves social relations of subordination and inequality. In other
words the difference of gender is embedded in a range of social rela-
tions, including economic, political and juridical that produce dif-
ferentiated outcomes along with the other constituent elements of
the positioning of individuals (such as class, ethnicity and racism).
Gender in other words has a materiality beyond the ways in which
some recent writers have seen it (Butler, 1993). Gender relations
have material effects on human subjects as they are inserted into a
broader range of social relations.

Ethnos: ethnicity
Ethnicity, along with 'race' forms part of what I have called the con-
struct of ethnos (Anthias, 1992a) or collectivity. This has experiential,
intersubjective, organisational and representational forms. The cate-
gory ethnos denotes populations attributing and attributed a com-
monality derived from some point of 'origin', essential and distinctive
trajectory or experience (usually implying an origin or destiny).
A central feature of many definitions of ethnicity is the impor-
tance given to ethnic identity formation (ie ethnicity is regarded
solely as identity or identification). The idea of ethnicity as culture
also lies at the heart of most definitions. Identity may be seen as
constructed through shared culture (eg see the work of Smith,
1986).
Ethnicity therefore is a highly contested term. There has been a
tendency, particularly in anthropology, to treat ethnic groups as pri-

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mordial ie as givens which continually reproduce themselves and

will not die down. They are seen as an essential feature of social
organisation. This has been challenged for example by Barth (1969),
who contributed to a situational view of ethnicity. However, Barth
retains the notion of ethnic groups as

organisational vessels that classify a person in terms of his most

basic, most general identity, presumptively determined by his
origin and background (Barth 1969: 130).

A transactional and situational view of ethnicity is married to the

idea that it is primary.
There is also a long tradition of treating ethnicity as instrumental,
particularly as a medium for political mobilisation although there
are a number of different ways this can be argued. Ethnic groups
have been seen as 'interest groups' bargaining within a plural society
for a greater share of scarce resources (Cohen, 1974). Ethnic actors,
it has been argued, strive to promote their individual interests within
ethnic organisation (Rex and Tomlinson, 1979). Ethnic organisation
has been regarded as facilitating the expression of socio-economic
interests - as a vehicle utilised at particular conjunctures (Hechter,
1987).
A clear strength in this view is that ethnicity is devoid of the
'essence' it is given by the other views examined. One weakness is
that the political mobilisation for resources is always defined as eco-
nomic however. There is no notion of cultural resources as being a
field of contestation or of culture as being itself essentially pohtical.
Much recent writing has harnessed the term 'ethnicity' in a radi-
cal way to the analysis. The term the 'new ethnicities' is more cele-
bratory with regard to ethnic identity. It focuses more on a search
for roots and grounding, but one that can reach out to diverse expe-
riences from both the homeland and the present, to forge a new and
more positive way of being which could be harnessed to more effec-
tive cultural intervention in racialised discourse (Hall, 1992a). It
also designates the formation of new identities which may have a
more transethnic and transnational character.
However, much of this literature reflects the focus on identity and
difference and has not been able to address the issue of social divi-
sions in terms of structured forms of inequality. The issues of class
position and indeed gender position and the economic and political
relations within which ethnic processes need to be contextualised
have been absent from much of the recent debate on 'new ethnicities'.

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Eloya Anthias

To conclude, ethnos is a relational category that denotes the

ontological space of collectivity. This is generally formulated
around the social construction of an origin as a significant arena of
experience, intersubjectivity, organisation and representation: this
may take highly diverse forms and denote a space for struggle over
resources of culture, symbols, power and material resources of dif-
ferent types.
At the experiential level it denotes the construction of identity
and attributions, at the intersubjective level forms of interaction
both with those 'inside' and 'outside' the boundaries of the group
(which are themselves shifting and dynamic), at the level of the
organisational, it finds expression within a range of institutional
and other social forms and at the level of the representational in a
rang of symbolic and discursive processes.

'Race' and racism

'Race' and racism are also contested term and I have examined the
concepts elsewhere (Anthias, 1982, 1990, 1992a, 1992b, 1994, 1995)
as well as argued that they belong to the ontological space of 'eth-
nos'. 'Race' attributions tend to view the people designated as shar-
ing a different human stock. That is the delineating characteristic of
this category. The inherited human stock difference may be seen as
manifested in biological or physical difference or in culture. 'Race'
may use the reference of colour of skin or physiognomy but may
also use culture or territory as markers of the boundaries of the cat-
egory.
Racisms take different forms and may involve practices of exter-
mination, repatriation, exploitation, slavery as well as racial harass-
ment and unequal social rights. They involve a denial of access to
resources of different types and construct their object not only as
different but as inferior or undesirable; racism is therefore a dis-
course of exclusion and inferiorisation.
From this point of view again 'race' is not just a question of dif-
ference, but must be seen in terms of a range of economic and polit-
ical practices which structure forms of inequality for racialised
groups, and the different constituent elements within them. Racism
may be regarded as the most extreme form of the exclusionary face
of ethnic phenomena (Anthias, 1982, 1992). Other forms of the
exclusionary face of ethnic phenomena are to be found in ethnocen-
trism (the belief in the naturalness or taken for granted superiority
of the ways of being of the ethnic group) and xenophobia or the dis-

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like of outsiders. This becomes racist when the group has power to
exclude as already noted in a diverse number of ways.
Ethnicity is a resource that may be marshalled by both racists
and antiracists in order to mobihse politically around the assertion
of common interests that override those of class and gender. In
other words the connection between racism and ethnicity is a perti-
nent object of sociological investigation.

Connecting social divisions

In this paper I have argued for the analytical separation of gender,

ethnos and class for heuristic purposes: for enabling the examina-
tion of experiential, intersubjective, organisational and representa-
tional features of social processes and relations. However, in terms
of exploring differentiated social outcomes ie at the level of identi-
fying structured forms of inequality in society, the ontological
domains of gender, ethnos and class intersect and become consti-
tutive of each other. The social outcomes for specific persons and
specific constellations of persons is a product of the interplay within,
determinate time/space dimensions, of the processual features of
social relations identified through the heuristic device of the onto-
logical spheres or domains. In earlier approaches forms of reifica-
tion and reductionism have utilised notions of autonomy (where a
depiction of separate realms of gender, race and class for example
led to the 'triple burden' approach) or determination where there
was a tendency to reduce race and gender to some manifestation
of class relations. It has now become much more common for
approaches to gender, race and class to refer to crosscutting divi-
sions (eg Anthias and Yuval Davis, 1983, 1992; Phoenix, 1991;
Brah, 1996). The focus has been on the social experiences and
location of categories identified in a particular way (eg racialised
women workers or young black mothers). Indeed, the relations of
gender, ethnicity/race and class interconnect in specific contexts
and it is important to focus on these rather than trying to build a
totalising theory. Many of the important insights of this work have
not been incorporated into the realm of sociological theorising
although a passing reference to gender or 'race' may be made (eg
Scott, 1995). This may be partly because of the dominance that
class still has within sociological theory as well as the barriers in
the discipline between different areas of study. A substantively
grounded theorisation of intersectionality is needed which can be

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Ftoya Anthias

used for a range of different analyses and not only within 'ethnic
and gender' studies.
In this part of my paper I want to provide an outline, drawing
particularly on some of the foci of my own work, for considering
intersectionality, particularly at the level of social outcomes pro-
duced out of the intersections of the social relations within the
spheres of gender and ethnicity as well as class. The complexity of
the intersectionalities may be indicated by the following themes,
drawn at random, from some of my own work:

1. Ethnic cultures contain rules about sex difference, gender roles,

sexuality and sexism at their ver>' heart. This includes the role of
the family and other institutions and discursive formations in the
reproduction of these central facets of culture.
2. Gender relations are important boundary markers between one
ethnic group and another. The 'true' ethnic subject is often
defined through conformity to gender stereotypes (this is the case
for both men and women). For example a 'true' Cypriot man is
one who conforms to gender specific rules concerning sexually
appropriate behaviour (Anthias, 1989).
3. Ethnic minorities or racialised groups, like all subordinated
social groups including those of class, are subjected to two sets of
gender relations, those of the dominant society, state and culture
and those internal to the group (Anthias, 1993). Where women
may be regarded as more domesticated in Western dominant
society, they may be regarded as more dominant and economi-
cally active within their own group or vice versa. Therefore both
the gender relations and the ethnic cultural processes of the
group will be affected by mainstream rules about gender rela-
tions.
4. Gender rules may be used to promote racialisation and racist
rules may be used to increase sexism. Alternatively a reduction in
one may mean a growth in the other. Therefore it is not easy to
try to forge struggles on the basis of fighting against both in tan-
dem always. Strategies are needed for building dialogue across
and between groups on the basis of ethnicity, racism, class and
gender interests, and finding the common links in terms of politi-
cal goals of a strategic kind, and not just on the basis of localised
tactics.
5. Women's labour has tended to be appropriated in diverse ways.
In the case of minority ethnic groups it may function to mitigate
some of the exclusionary effects of racialised labour markets,

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 Rethinking social divisions

giving rise to particular forms of economic activity and adapta-

tion which have class implications, and which can lead to avoid-
ance of intersubjective forms of racism. This relates to the
development of ethnic economies, small scale entrepreneurship,
and petit bourgeois class formation. Different racialised groups
will differ in the ways in which they appropriate women's labour.
The forms of the appropriation are culturally specific and work
in interplay with local markets (Anthias, 1983).
6. I have argued (Anthias, 1982, 1983, 1992a) that gender divisions
are central to understanding the social placement of ethnic
minority groups. This does not merely mean that men and
women from ethnic minorities are positioned differently in rela-
tion to each other. It also means that the social and economic
position of men and women from ethnic minorities is partially
determined by the ways in which gender relations, both within
the ethnically specific cultures of different groups, and within the
wider society interact with one another. This interaction has
implications for both the positioning of men and women from
these groups, on the one hand, and for the whole of the migrant
group on the other. There are therefore two sets of gender rela-
tions that are involved, those of the minority and those of the
dominant majority. These gender relations then produce a partic-
ular class structuration for different migrant and ethnic minority
groups in conjunction with labour market processes and raciali-
sation.
7. Women may have a different relation to the nation and the
nationahst project. Women's roles vis-a-vis ethnic hegemony are
different and they are given specific roles to perform (as mothers
of patriots, as symbolic of boundaries and as carriers of culture
(for an analysis see Anthias and Yuval Davis, 1989). Women are
often used to symbolise the nation, depicting it as a woman
mourning her loss. One example is found in the case of Cyprus
(Anthias, 1989). After the 1974 coup and Turkish invasion of the
island, posters appeared everywhere of a black clothed woman
weeping bravely but with fist held high, and the caption under-
neath read 'Cyprus, our martyred motherland'.
8. The state is related to women in a heterogenous way. This was
recognised a long time ago by socialist feminists in the discussion
of class as a central differentiating feature, but they did not
recognise the importance of ethnicity, nationality and racialisa-
tion. Ethnic minority women, through their construction as
having limited rights to citizenship and outside the proper

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Floya Anthias

boundaries of the nation, and through racialisation, can be posi-

tioned in a particularly disadvantageous position in social rela-
tions.
9. Women's link to the state is complex. On the one hand they are
acted upon as members of collectivities, institutions or classes
and as participants in the social forces that give the state its
given political projects in any specific historical context
(Anthias and Yuval Davis, 1989). In this sense they are partici-
pants in the relationship between the state and civil society as
an integral albeit often subordinate category within wider social
forces. However, as a subordinate category, usually relegated to
the private sphere, they are often a special focus of state con-
cerns, both with regard to their role in human reproduction but
also in a number of other ways, with regard to ideology and the
economy also.

The selection above indicates the need for a systematic approach

to social stratification, not so much in terms of the production of a
unified theory but in terms of developing, through substantive work
on intersectionality, more adequate conceptual tools for under-
standing social relations and outcomes, particularly in terms of sub-
ordinations and inequalities of different types that lie at the heart of
the modem social order.

Conclusion

Understanding the placement of collective subjects who stand in the

camps of gender, ethnicity, 'race' and class and at their crossroads is
a complex issue. In this paper I have argued that this understanding
lies at the heart of social theory. Gender, ethnicity, 'race' and class
are pivotal forms of differentiation and stratification of human pop-
ulations in the modern era. I have also argued that such an under-
standing requires not merely the recognition of a postmodernist
proliferation of identities, but an analysis that can indicate their
connections in producing specific social outcomes. I have main-
tained that it is important to address social divisions as parameters
of social inequality and exclusion. Such an approach requires spe-
cific and local analyses of differentiated social outcomes looked at
through the complex interweaving of social relations. I have also
discussed some of the connecting threads between the different
social divisions

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 Rethinking sociat divisions

This approach differs from one that merely asks sociologists to take
e\'erything into account when studying specific research problems.
Rather it asks for an approach that doesn't merely add on dimensions
of gender, ethnicity (and class) to any analysis as though they are
merely contextual: rather it seeks to place them at the heart of under-
standing modem societies. This suggests rethinking the way we use
terms like social stratification or social inequality. It also suggests that
we fully incorporate social divisions into our theorising and not only
attend to the 'difference' and diversity of modem hfe.
Gender, ethnos (ethnicity and 'race') and class may be seen as
crosscutting and mutually interacting ontological spaces which entail
social relations and social processes (having experiential, intersuhjec-
tive, organisational and representational dimensions) that coalesce
and articulate at particular conjunctures to produce differentiated
and stratified social outcomes. Any analysis at the level of social out-
comes cannot look at each social division in isolation from the
other, therefore. The analogy of a grid may be useful which can be
overlaid onto individuals. The different grids are experienced con-
textually and situationally as sets of simultaneous and mutually
effective discursive instances and social practices.
This need not lead to an infinite description of differences of a
smaller and smaller nature but to the delineation of patterns by
which the articulations emerge. This is the task of a theory that is
neither a repeat of foundationalism (because it is emergent and con-
ditional) nor one that is merely the instancing of discrete and unre-
lated experiences. Such a theory considers the ways the experience
of being a woman, man. Black, White (or whatever the identities) is
itself a formation from its location within the other contexts of dif-
ference. This also enables looking outside the sphere of human
experience and interrogating discourses, practices and structures at
the more 'macro' level of analysis.
This discussion of connecting threads pinpoints two ways in
which social divisions may be seen to articulate. The first way is in
terms of crosscutting and mutually reinforcing systems of domina-
tion and subordination, particularly in terms of processes and rela-
tions of hierarchisation, unequal resource allocation and
inferiorisation, which I discussed earlier as fundamental principles
of social divisions. For example, racialised or minority working
class women may be seen to inhabit the worst social spaces in a
range of contexts, from the economic to the political and cultural.
In this case social divisions articulate to produce a coherent set of
practices of subordination.

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Eloya Anthias

The second way in which the articulations may be seen is in terms

of the construction of multiple and uneven social patterns of domi-
nation and subordination ie in terms of contradictory locations,
This is where human subjects are positioned differentially within
these social divisions, for example where white working class tnen
may be seen to be in a relation of dominance over racialised groups
and over women but are themselves in a relation of subordination in
class terms. This leads to highly contradictory processes in terms of
positionality and identity.
The exploration of reinforcing aspects of the divisions, and their
contradictory articulations, opens up fundamental political ques-
tions also. In other words the discussion of connecting social divi-
sions is not purely theoretical. It has a direct relevance in terms of
how inequalities, identities and political strategies are conceptu-
alised and assessed.
First, whether mutually reinforcing or contradictory outcomes
are produced, the articulation of social divisions makes a concep-
tion of individuals as having singular identities problematic. To
identify say as a woman, without considering one's ethnic or class
location, produces problems of being able to understand the rela-
tionship one has to women and men in terms of the other dimen-
sions. This is one reason why Western feminism, organising around
the category 'woman', was unable to address issues of racism and
economic subordination.
This also makes a politics of identity problematic for such a poli-
tics assumes a unitary subject whose identity and political struggle
is given by a position, say as a woman, or as a member of a class, or
a member of a racialised group. A more emancipatory approach
may be found in a politics of multiple identifications (rather than
identities); a politics of identification with subordinated others/
selves. This opens up the possibility of more refiexive forms of polit-
ical struggle and avenues to greater dialogue and collaboration
between groups organising around particular kinds of struggles
rather than particular kinds of identities.
In a small way I have tried to map out some ideas for investigat-
ing social divisions as unities of differentiation and inequality along
non class lines. I have argued that we need to retain the notion of
heuristic tools which enable signposting ontological spaces and
investigating the social relations and outcomes around them.
Ethnos and gender are two such concepts which in the past postu-
lated essential unities, but when interrogated through the distinction
between category and concept, are shown to be compatible with a

532 © The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 1998

 Rethinking sociat divisions

fragmented, multiplex and decentred reality espoused by postmod-

errist theory. I have been concerned with redressing the conflation
between the recognition of fragmentation within categories of iden-
tity on the one hand and the need for conceptual tools of analysis
on the other.
University of Greenwich Received 18 November 1997
Finally accepted 16 March 1998

Note

This paper is a revised version of an inaugural lecture given in February 1996 at the
University of Greenwich.

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