2025-2026 Fall Seminar I

The Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion draws on expertise from across disciplines to gain international and comparative perspectives on how to extend cultural membership to the greatest number in society, to gain a better understanding of the social and cultural processes behind recognition gaps, and to determine how social scientists and policy makers can better respond to help make societies more inclusive. 

Advanced industrial societies have become increasingly characterized by two trends: growing inequality and an increasing recognition gap. As the distribution of wealth and income have grown more unequal, a growing number of groups are making claims for recognition as the poor, workers, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and various ethnoracial and religious minority groups experience stigmatization. This double tension will serve as a fruitful point of entry for future multidisciplinary inquiries into the conditions for collective well-being.

A major challenge for contemporary societies is to extend cultural membership to the greatest number. Thus we need to gain a better understanding of the social and cultural processes behind recognition gaps, and determine how social scientists and policy makers can better respond to help make societies more inclusive. 

This seminar brings together cluster affiliates and colleagues across departments to share their published and in-progress work in an effort to find responses to the timely questions related to inequality and the recognition gap. For more information, please check the seminar’s upcoming events. 

Presenters:

Michèle Lamont (Harvard University) and Jane Choi (Harvard University)

“Paths to Recognition through Politics in the 2024 Presidential Election Among Young Workers Living in and Around Manchester, New Hampshire"

Abstract: How do young adult workers (18-30 years old) living in and around Manchester, New Hampshire, seek recognition through politics? We interviewed 45 randomly sampled low-status white collar workers and blue-collar workers during the 2024 US presidential election to capture how they understand their political orientation and involvement in politics, and whether they connect them with a need for recognition and respect. Based on qualitative inductive content analysis, we identify four recognition paths through which these workers engage in politics: (1) Recognition through exclusion is the path that attracts mostly men who planned to vote or voted for the Republican Party and those who define themselves as conservative. They favor channeling resources toward “people like us” and use particularistic criteria in doing so (nationality and others). They believe that President Trump prioritizes their grievances and needs, which gives them recognition; (2) Recognition through inclusion is the path favored by a smaller number of participants who declared voting or intending to vote for the Democratic ticket or who define themselves as liberal or progressive. They promote inclusion and solidarity and associate their political leaning with a need for recognition which they connect to their personal identity as person of color, immigrant, women or LGBTQI+;  (3) Recognition through distance from politics is the path favored by individuals who did not vote or did not plan to vote in the 2024 Presidential election. These participants maintain distance toward politics because they believe politicians don’t pay attention to “people like them,” associate politics with conflict and corruption, or feel politically uninformed, disinterested, or disempowered; Finally, (4) Recognition through elevation is the path favored by voters who self-define as “independent” because they feel that the main parties are corrupt, or that they do not represent their views. They put themselves above the fray and seek recognition as individuals who are not bound by dominant discourses and institutional structures. We also consider how exclusive and inclusive orientations concerning redistribution and symbolic membership vary between respondents across these four pathways based on their declared political preferences. This reveals less differences across political identification and less polarization than expected.

Sabina Pultz (Roskilde University)

“Exploring (in)dignity through situated struggles”

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to answer the research question: how do unemployed people engage hopefully in their everyday lives? It is based on ethnographic research following six unemployed people over a year in a peripheral, de-industrialized city in New England, US. For the purpose of an in-depth analysis of how the unemployed engage hopefully, we foreground the case of Sheila, a long-term unemployed 61-year-old woman and contextualize her case with ethnographic insights from other unemployed participants. During the fieldwork we used qualitative methods, including shadowing and participatory photo elicitation to understand the relationship between unemployment and hope. Theoretically, the study draws on Laurent Thévenot’s regimes of engagement; plan, familiarity, exploration, and worth, and combines this framework with insights from the social psychology of everyday life to investigate experiences of hope as it unfolds in everyday life. The study argues that hope is a social process and a non-linear life force, oriented towards amore or less vague object of future improvement, while also revealing the roots of hope in one’s past. We problematize the relationship between hope and agency, as it can occur with varying degrees of agency. The many forms of hopeful engagements contribute to maintaining dignity among unemployed people whose worthiness is often challenged in a society that primarily valorizes humans through paid labor. The paper critiques conventional unemployment research that focuses on deprivation and in the process inadvertently reinforces stigmatizing narratives. We offer a more nuanced approach based on exploring the everyday lives of unemployed people, unveiling in the process the value that unemployed people create for themselves and others around them, outside of paid labor through what we term hopeful engagements.