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Deviance Across Cultures Constructions of Difference 2Nd Edition Full Chapter
Deviance Across Cultures Constructions of Difference 2Nd Edition Full Chapter
p r e fa c e xi
ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s xv
Pa r t I E x p l a i n i n g D e v i a n c e 1
Introduction 2
1. emile durkheim , The Normal and the Pathological 9
2. kai t . erikson , On the Sociology of Deviance 15
3. robert k . merton , Social Structure and Anomie 23
4. gresham m . sykes and david matza ,
Techniques of
eutralization: A Theory of Delinquency 33
N
5. travis hirschi , A Control Theory of Delinquency 43
6. jack p . gibbs ,
Conceptions of Deviant Behavior:
The Old and the New 51
7. frank tannenbaum , Definition and the Dramatization
of Evil 57
vii
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viii contents
Pa r t I I S t u d y i n g D e v i a n c e 8 3
Introduction 84
11. susan j . palmer ,
Caught Up in the Cult Wars: Confessions
of a Canadian Researcher 87
12. elizabeth pisani , Sex in Boxes 97
13. robert heiner , Cross-Cultural and Historical
Methodology 105
Pa r t I I I M o r a l Pa n i c s 1 1 3
Introduction 114
14. kenneth thompson ,
The Classic Moral Panic:
Mods and Rockers 117
15. mary deyoung , The Devil Goes to Day Care:
McMartin and the Making of a Moral Panic 125
16. robert heiner , Crime Scares 135
Introduction 144
17. roger n . lancaster , The Cochón and the Hombre-Hombre
in Nicaragua 147
18. kathryn kendall ,
Women in Lesotho and the (Western)
Construction of Homophobia 153
19. serena nanda , Multiple Genders among North American
Indians 1 63
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Contents ix
Pa r t V D r u g s 2 0 5
Introduction 206
23. angus bancroft , Customs, Cultures, and the Experience
of Intoxication 211
Pa r t V I C o r p o r at e , S tat e , a n d O c c u pat i o n a l
D e v i a n c e 2 5 5
Introduction 256
28. victor e . kappeler and gary w . potter , Corporate Crime
and “Higher Immorality” 259
29. ling li ,
Performing Bribery in China: Guanxi-Practice,
Corruption with a Human Face 277
30. richard l . rubenstein ,
The Cunning of History:
ureaucratic Domination and the Holocaust 287
B
31. stuart l . hills , Corporate Violence and the Banality
of Evil 2 9 5
Pa r t V I I Re l i g i o u s D e v i a n c e 3 0 9
Introduction 310
32. robert heiner ,
Nones on the Run: Evangelical Heathens
in the Deep South 313
33. amanda knief ,Liberté, Egalité—de Féministes! Revealing
the Burqa as a Pro-Choice Issue 327
34. sharon erickson nepstad , Religion, Violence,
and Peacemaking 333
Pa r t V I I I M e n ta l I l l n ess 3 4 1
Introduction 342
35. robert heiner , The Medicalization of Deviance 347
36. david l . rosenhan , On Being Sane in Insane Places 351
37. sarah schubert , susan hansen , and mark rapley , “There Is
No Pathological Test”: More on ADHD as Rhetoric 361
38. richard warner , Schizophrenia in the Third World 371
39. ethan watters , The Americanization of Mental Illness 381
40. robert bartholomew , Penis Panics 389
O ne of the more resounding principles in the sociology of deviance is that the defining quality
of deviance resides in the audience and not in the person or the behavior. That is, there is
nothing inherent in the behavior or the person that makes it or him or her deviant. Rather, a be-
havior or person is deviant because an audience defines it or him or her as such. This proposition
is the essence of labeling theory and of social constructionism, and it suggests that a sociological
understanding of deviance requires us to study the audience. Further, an understanding of the
audience requires us to examine its cultural milieu because, quite simply, audiences react differ-
ently depending upon the cultural and historical contexts in which they reside. Thus, for example,
behaviors which led to the label of “witch” in medieval Europe would be seen as normal, rebellious,
idiosyncratic, or the product of mental illness in other times and cultures.
The subtitle of this edition, “Constructions of Difference,” reflects its emphasis on social con-
structionism as a means of understanding deviance. Different societies at different times
construct different categories by which people differentiate among themselves. As social construc-
tions, these categories have little or no inherent meaning, but they often have very real social and
economic meaning. “Race,” for example, has little or no scientific meaning. All of us are de-
scended from the same first human ancestors and fall onto a continuum of skin colors, with few
of us sharing the exact shade of coloring. There is no scientific reason for choosing skin color as
a relevant basis for differentiating among people and no scientific basis for slicing up that con-
tinuum of skin color into different races. While “race” has no inherent meaning, as a category of
difference it has impacted the lives of millions of people, justifying centuries of slavery and then
continued inequality. When we think about deviance, most of us probably do not consider race;
but race is a prime example of how societies create categories of “otherness,” and the sociology of
deviance is largely about this process.
While this volume emphasizes a social constructionist perspective, it does not do so to the
exclusion of all other perspectives. Enormously valuable contributions have been made to the
sociology of deviance outside of social constructionism. These contributions are presented par-
ticularly, but not exclusively, in the first section of readings on theories of deviance. Sociological
xi
theories are often classified among three broad theoretical perspectives: functionalism, conflict
theory, and symbolic interactionism. Social constructionism is more closely affiliated with the
latter perspective, but from my viewpoint it is not incompatible with either functionalism or
conflict theory, and, quite often, it complements them.
Since deviance is socially constructed, it is culturally relative, and the study of deviance is
most appropriate for a cross-cultural analysis such as this book is designed to facilitate. We tend
to judge other cultures and their standards by the standards of our own. This tendency is called
“ethnocentrism” and it is, to an extent, natural and unavoidable; but it stands in the way of objec-
tive understanding, and it is one of the great bugaboos of social scientific inquiry. One very
common manifestation of ethnocentrism is the tendency to view customs in other cultures as
being strange, exotic, or bizarre, and a book such as this runs the risk of catering to this tendency.
I was ever-conscious of this dilemma when selecting articles for this volume and did my best not
to make this a look-how-weird-they-are book. It is my hope that the combination of articles con-
tained herein and the introductions that precede each article will make it clear to the reader that
his or her own country is just as “weird” as “they” are and that the same processes that generate
and influence deviance in other cultures do so in their own. Further, I expect that our ethnocentric
tendencies will be counterbalanced by the fact that deviance in other cultures will be seen as more
distant and therefore less threatening than deviance in our own culture, thus improving our abil-
ity to understand the phenomenon of deviance more objectively.
This new edition of Deviance Across Cultures is substantially different from the first edition.
Specifically, new to this edition are:
Together, with the additional articles, the section introductions, the individual article intro-
ductions, and the discussion questions, this book is intended to be used either as a principal
textbook or as a supplementary text.
This book was made possible by a host of friends, scholars, and professionals who assisted
and inspired me. I want to thank the various reviewers of this and an earlier version of this project
who provided me with encouragement and very useful criticism. They include:
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Preface xiii
Very special thanks go to my editor at Oxford University Press, Sherith Pankratz. We have
worked together on many projects for many years now, and it has never been anything but a plea-
sure working with her. Thank you to Caitlin Greene, Katy Albis, Joyce Bruce, and Philip Haskell.
They have always been ready with their able assistance whenever I have faltered. Thanks also to
Katherine Donahue, Kathryn Melanson, Nikki Nunes, Alice Staples, and Cynthia Vascak for their
support and encouragement. Lastly, I want to thank my wife, Sheryl, and daughter, Laurel, for
their love and for putting up with me when I was skipping out early in the morning on weekends
and school breaks to go work on this book.
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Acknowledgments
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Deviance Across Cultures
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PA RT
I
Explaining Deviance
2 part i explaining deviance
Introduction
This section on theories of crime and deviance begins with the classic work of Emile Durkheim.
Durkheim was a nineteenth-century French intellectual who was largely responsible for introduc-
ing the field of sociology into university curricula, and he was a pioneering figure in the develop-
ment of the sociological perspective known as functionalism. Early functionalists likened society
unto a living organism and, like other living organisms, society has its component parts that
contribute to the functioning of the whole. Just as with the human organism, the pancreas can
only be understood in terms of how it contributes to the functioning of the whole body; any
given social phenomenon must be understood in terms of how it contributes to the functioning
of the whole of society.
Durkheim examines the phenomenon of crime and applies a similar logic. He starts with the
observation that all societies have had and will always have crime. He reasons that a society
without crime, or as he put it “a society of saints,” is not possible unless all members of a society
think and act exactly alike. Otherwise, the slightest deviation from the norm would be treated as
a serious deviation. Thus, within a society of saints, while there may be no murders, robberies, or
burglaries, etc., masturbation would be treated as a very serious crime. Durkheim further posits
that since crime occurs in all societies, it cannot be taken as a sign of an unhealthy society and
it must, therefore, exist for a reason. The excerpt included in this section concludes with the
following line: “If crime is not pathological at all, the object of punishment cannot be to cure it,
and its true function must be sought elsewhere.” This passage leads us directly to the next article
in this section of readings.
Kai Erikson’s article, “On the Sociology of Deviance,” is another, more recent classic written
in the functionalist tradition. Erikson argues that all societies need to have moral boundaries that
separate members of the community from non-members, or, as sociologists say, members of the
in-group from members out the out-group. Much like Durkheim, Erikson argues that this is
necessary to enhance group identity and social cohesion, giving members a reason to take pride
in their membership and to follow the group’s norms. People, he says, “need to sense what lies
beyond the margins of the group before they can appreciate the special quality of the experience
which takes place within it.” Societies need deviants in order to locate and maintain their moral
boundaries. Deviance and deviants, and, more specifically, reactions to them serve to publicize
the moral boundaries of the community and let its members know which behaviors are tolerated
and which are not.
Erikson argues that given this crucial function served by deviance, societies develop ways
of ensuring a steady supply of deviants; and here we arrive at Durkheim’s assertion that the
true function of punishment lies somewhere other than curing crime. Do we really believe that if
we take a deviant (i.e., criminal) and lock him up for years in an extremely deviant environment
(i.e., prison) he will come out less deviant? Erikson helps us make sense of this most ironic re-
sponse to deviance in arguing that the true purpose of incarceration is not to protect society from
the threat of deviance, but rather to ensure a steady supply of deviants to “patrol” our moral
boundaries. Thus, according to Erikson, the high rates of ex-convicts who are returned to prison
after re-offending are not an indication of the failure of our criminal justice system, but rather a
sign of its success.
Part I Explaining Deviance 3
The next article in this section, “Social Structure and Anomie” by Robert Merton, is by far one
of the most famous, most often cited works written in the sociology of crime and deviance. In this
piece, Merton starts with a theoretical foundation already built by Durkheim in another one of
his classics, Suicide (1897/1951), but he diverges considerably from Durkheim and develops a
theory specific to American society. Merton notes that all societies set goals for which their mem-
bers should strive. One society, for example, might emphasize family honor as a goal; another
might emphasize military service; and the United States, he argues, is distinctive in the emphasis
it places on the goal of financial success. All well-socialized Americans are supposed to strive for
financial success and their ability to achieve this goal becomes a measure of their success in life.
This is where Merton diverges from Durkheim, who argued that our goals in life are moderated
by our social class. For Merton, they are not; everybody wants to be financially successful.
All societies also specify the legitimate means by which we are to attain the goals specified for
us. In the United States, people learn that if they are ambitious, work hard, and follow the rules,
then they will achieve financial success. The goal of financial success for all presupposes that the
condition of equal opportunity exists, that all who are ambitious, work hard, and follow the rules
will attain financial success. This, however, is not the case. It is much easier for people born rich
to stay rich than it is for people born poor to get rich. Thus, while all well-socialized Americans
are striving for financial success, tens of millions are being set up for failure—especially those on
the lower rungs of the class hierarchy—because society’s institutions simply are not equipped to
provide wealth for all. The theory is also called “strain theory” because all Americans are under
this strain to achieve and the strain and frustration is especially acute for the poor.
Merton also works with Durkheim’s concept of anomie. In Suicide, Durkheim argues that the
norms are what anchor us in society and the norms that regulate our goals are the most important
norms of all. When these norms lose their salience or become irrelevant, other norms start to lose
their salience as well and people (or individuals) lose their anchor and are set adrift in a sea of
meaninglessness or, to use Merton’s term, “normlessness.”
Now I will summarize Merton’s theory and relate it to deviance. The well-socialized American
learns that his or her main goal in life should be to achieve financial success and that their ability
to achieve this goal is a measure of their value as a person. They are also being told that there is
equal opportunity to achieve financial success when, in fact, there is not. In essence, they are
being lied to and the result is anomie. Those most important norms that regulate our goals lose
their meaning and other norms start to lose their meaning also. People under this strain may
adapt by breaking the rules in order to achieve financial success or by dropping out of the “game”
altogether. Merton discusses other modes of adaptation as well.
Undoubtedly, the resilience of Merton’s theory rests in part in his critique of the American
economic culture. His theory is one of the best in the history of the sociology of crime and devi-
ance to explain the connection between crime and poverty in a specifically American context and
it also helps us to understand white-collar crime as well as some acts of non-economic deviance,
such as drug addiction and what might have been called the “tramp phenomenon” in 1938 when
Merton wrote the article. It is a theory that draws heavily on the functionalist tradition, but, in
its critique of American capitalism, it also has strong appeal to those who are inclined toward
conflict theory (discussed later). The two theoretical perspectives are often seen as antithetical;
but Merton’s theory is one among a few that shows that the two can complement one another.
4 part i explaining deviance
The next article, “Techniques of Neutralization” by Gresham Sykes and David Matza, was
written during a spate of theories emerging from sociology that dealt with lower class male gang
delinquency in the 1950s. One of the more influential of these was developed by Albert Cohen in
his book Delinquent Boys, published in 1955 (Cohen, 1955/1971). Much like Merton, Cohen
argued that deviance often occurs when people’s goal aspirations are frustrated. For Merton,
the goal is wealth; for Cohen, it is status or self-esteem. Kids born into poverty, he argued, are
deprived of ascribed status and they are deprived of legitimate opportunities to achieve status.
Consequently, many kids react to this situation by rejecting or inverting society’s dominant values
and by joining gangs where they can earn status from other gang members by committing
acts that are offensive to the middle class (Cohen, 1971).
Sykes and Matza begin by challenging Cohen’s notion that the behavior of delinquent kids
represents an “inversion of the values held by respectable, law-abiding society.” They argue that
lower class delinquent males have the same values as most kids. Kids’ idols—heroes, famous
movie stars and athletes—represent their values and delinquent kids have the same idols as
other kids. They love their mothers just like other kids. And they draw sharp lines between ap-
propriate and inappropriate targets (or victims) of their criminal activities. In other words, they
know what they are doing is wrong. So Sykes and Matza devote their article to the very interest-
ing question: Why do people violate the rules in which they believe? In answer to this question,
they note that most of the rules that we learn through socialization are attenuated. That is, early
on, one of the first rules that we learn is that there is an exception to every rule. We learn, for
example, that it is wrong to kill, but that killing is appropriate in battle, in self-defense, or in
legal executions. The problem for the juvenile delinquent, they argue, is that he or she recognizes
exceptions to the rules that are not recognized by the authorities. Sykes and Matza describe five
categories of exceptions, or techniques that juveniles use to neutralize the wrongfulness of their
acts. Importantly, these are not just “lame” excuses that come into play after the deviant act; but
the juvenile actually believes in the validity of these exceptions and this belief paves the way
for the act.
In the next selection, “A Control Theory of Delinquency,” Travis Hirschi starts out with a
somewhat different angle than most theories of deviance. Deviance, he argues, is not that hard to
explain. If, for example, a person sees something in a store that he or she wants, and they do not
have the money or do not feel like spending the money to purchase it, it is not difficult to under-
stand why they might pocket the item and walk out of the store with it. The question is why
doesn’t everybody do that? The answer, says Hirschi, lies in the strength of the bonds between the
individual and society. These bonds act as “controls” and inhibit deviant behavior. Hirschi de-
scribes the nature of these controls. In doing so, he sheds light on a perennial question posed by
comparative criminologists concerning the high rates of violence and street crime in the United
States vis-à-vis other industrialized societies. It is the remarkable emphasis that American society
places on the value of individualism that may go a long way in explaining its high crime rates. If
it is the bonds between the individual and society that inhibit crime and deviance, then a society
that emphasizes individualism will be more prone to crime and deviance.
The next selection, by Jack Gibbs, delineates the differences between the “old” and “new”
conceptions of deviance. The old conceptions assumed there to be something inherent in the deviant
individual and/or inherent in deviant behavior that makes the individual or the behavior
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VII.
Décadence des contrées du Dniéper.
Le nouveau monde russe et ses
prétentions.