Socio-Economic Review Advance Access published April 2, 2014
Socio-Economic Review (2014) 1-36 doi:10.1093/ser/mwu011
What is missing? Cultural processes and causal pathways to inequality
Michele Lamont*, Stefan Beljean, and Matthew Clair
Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA correspondence: mlamont@wjh.harvard.edu
This paper provides a framework for understanding the ways in which social processes produce social inequality. Specifically, we focus on a particular type of social process that has received limited attention in the literature and in which inter-subjective meaning-making is central: cultural processes. Much of the literature on inequality has focused on the actions of dominant actors and institutions in gaining access to material and non-material resources, or on how ecological effects cause unequal access to material resources. In contrast, we focus on processes that contribute to the production (and reproduction) of inequality through the routine and taken-for-granted actions of both dominant and subordinate actors. We highlight two types of cultural processes: identification and rationalization. We describe and illustrate four processes that we consider to be significant analytical exemplars of these two types of cultural processes: racialization and stigmatization (for identification) and standardization and evaluation (for rationalization). We argue that attention to such cultural processes is critical and complementary to current explanations of social inequality.
Keywords: inequality, economic sociology, cultural processes JEL classification: D63: equity, justice, inequality and other normative criteria and measurement, D73: bureaucracy, administrative processes in public organizations, corruption, I00: health, education and welfare general, J71: discrimination, Z13
1. Introduction
The study of the causes and consequences of social inequality is one of the most dynamic research areas in the contemporary social sciences.1 As the gulf between
1We focus on social inequality, defined as unequal access to resources between individuals or social groups and thereby distinct from, yet overlapping with, economic or income inequality While economic inequality focuses on differences in wealth and income, social inequality considers other differences between individuals, groups and nations that matter for one's quality of life and general
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those at the top and those at the bottom grows wider, researchers are increasingly concerned with 'unequal democracies', 'winner-take-all societies' and the plight of those who are 'nickel and dimed' (Frank and Cook, 1996; Ehrenreich, 2001; Bartels, 2008). In this context, analyses of how inequality is produced and grows have been multiplying. In this paper, we first take a bird's-eye view of this literature before zooming in on specific social processes that have generally escaped attention but are necessary complements to current understandings of social inequality.
One of the most significant recent developments, featured as the theme of the 2013 meetings of the American Sociological Association, concerns the relationship between micro-cognitive processes and macro-level processes: sociologists are examining how individual-level cognitive processes contribute to macro-level phenomena such as residential and racial segregation (Massey, 2007); gender inequality (Ridgeway, 2011); and employment, housing and credit discrimination (Pager and Shepherd, 2008). While these contributions reveal how micro-level cognitive and social-psychological patterns affect the distribution of material and symbolic resources, many important dynamics have remained largely beyond the scope of inquiry. These pertain to how inter-subjective frameworks or cultural structures connect the cognitive to the macro-social.
In this paper, we make a case for broadening the agenda for the study of social inequality by focusing on what we term cultural processes. These are moved by inter-subjective meaning-making: they take shape through the mobilization of shared categories and classification systems through which individuals perceive and make sense of their environment.2 Key examples of such processes include rationalization (Weber, 1978), stigmatization (Goffman, 1963), racialization (Omi and Winant, 1994), commensuration (Espeland and Stevens, 1998), identification (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000), assimilation (Brubaker, 2001), standardization (Timmermans and Epstein, 2010) and evaluation (Lamont, 2012).3
We consider these processes to be important because they contribute to the production and reproduction of inequality in routine ways, often as a side effect of other ongoing activities, and as such do not necessarily involve the intentional action of dominant actors. Furthermore, unlike the processes currently considered
well-being. Building on Fraser (1995), we are concerned with distribution and recognition of dignity as the two main aspects of inequality.
2The classical statement on classification systems is Dürkheim and Mauss (2009).
3 While these processes are described here under the lens of'culture,' they could also be described as social or economic processes. The same holds for democratization, liberalization, nationalization and other processes that result from and mobilize multidimensional causal dynamics. We term these processes 'cultural processes'; however, in order to draw attention to what we believe to be their fundamentally semiotic attributes (e.g. their inter-subjective nature and their reliance on shared scripts—see Sewell, 2005).
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by the inequality literature connecting the micro and the macro especially those inspired by analytical sociology, e.g. Hedstrom and Swedberg, 1998, they operate not only at the level of individual cognition but also inter-subjectively, through shared scripts and cultural structures, such as 'frames', 'narratives' and 'cultural repertoires' (Lamont and Small, 2008; Small etal, 2010).
Our central goal is to establish the main characteristics of cultural processes and illustrate how they contribute to the production and reproduction of inequality. For this purpose, we focus on identification and rationalization as two broad meta-categories—or 'families'—of cultural processes and provide a discussion of two examples of each: for identification, we focus on racialization and stigmatization and for rationalization, we focus on standardization and evaluation. We also consider the causal pathways from cultural processes at the micro- and meso-levels to social inequality at the macro-level. We conclude with a discussion of the added value of the perspective offered here.
2.  Three dimensions in the study of inequality
We start by locating our contribution in the broader sociological literature on inequality. Lukes (1974), we identify three broad dimensions of inequality that correspond, grosso modo, to three overlapping phases in the study of inequality.4 Each phase brought to light an important and complementary set of social processes and causal pathways to inequality—which has led to an increasingly refined understanding of how inequality in society is produced and reproduced. But this literature has also left important pathways unexplored. A fuller understanding of inequality requires us to extend the focus to an additional type of social processes, which we term 'cultural processes'. The bulk of the paper describes such cultural processes, comparing exemplars with the types of processes. Table 1 previews of our argument and is explicated in the pages that follow.
2.1   Dimensions 1 and 2: control over material and non-material resources
Traditional approaches to inequality have been mostly concerned with control over material resources. Here we have in mind for instance the concept of exploitation in Marx (1961) (extraction of surplus value as described in Das Kapital), the concept of power in Weber (1978) which is defined in terms of the likelihood that someone will realize her will against the resistance of others (p. 212) the concept of closure, as
4A full consideration of the literature on inequality would also require a discussion of the macro-sociological and macro-economic literature on institutional dynamics such as union decline, technological change or globalization, and how they have exacerbated inequality over the last few decades (see e.g. Western and Rosenfeld, 2011). However, space constraints prevent a full discussion of this literature.
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Table 1 Social processes and relationships to inequality 3,
	Processes concerned with first dimension of inequality: material inequality	Processes concerned with second dimension of inequality: symbolic inequality	Processes concerned with third dimension of inequality: location-based inequality	Cultural processes
Ideal-typical processes	Domination, exploitation, opportunity hoarding, closure etc.	Distinction, symbolic violence, self-relegation, social resources (networks), etc.	Neighbourhood effects, network effects, social isolation, segregation, etc.	Identification (racialization, stigmatization, etc.), rationalization (standardization, evaluation, etc.)
Main outcome of interest	Distribution of material resources	Distribution non-material and material resources	Distribution of material and non-material resources	Distribution of material and symbolic resources, and recognition
Temporal nature	Discrete and continuous actions	Both ongoing and discrete actions	Ongoing	Ongoing
Key agent(s)	Dominant party	Dominant party ('dominant class exercises symbolic violence')	No dominant party/actor; rather the 'actor' is ecology/ neighbourhood/city)	Both dominant and subordinate actors
Intentionality of agent(s)	Intentional ('willful domination', 'exploitation', etc.)	Intentional or unintentional	Largely unintentional	Intentional or unintentional
Pathway to inequality	Often deterministic	Often deterministic	Probabilistic	Open-ended and complex
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detailed in Weber's writings on the Chinese Literati (Economy and Society 1978) and developed by Parkin (1979) and others. Such classic statements have inspired contemporary attempts to expand our understanding of the social processes central to the creation of inequality. The 1950s through the 1970s were marked by the work of C. Wright Mills (2000) and Domhoff (1967) on the power elite and related studies. In the last two decades, Tilly (1998, 2008) turned to inequality-producing social mechanisms such as exploitation and opportunity hoarding, and keystone studies such as Massey and Denton (1993) analysed segregation as an intentional, conscious process that is the root cause of Black poverty in the USA. As in resource dependency theory and world system theory (e.g. Wallerstein, 1974; Aldrich and Pfeffer, 1976), much of this work is concerned with relationships in which a dominant party wilfully creates a situation that works to the detriment of the subordinate group, mostly by depriving it of material resources.5 This analytic attempt to identify the causes and pathways underlying the distribution of material resources is what we call the first dimension of the study of inequality. As Table 1 illustrates, studies focusing on this dimension have tended to examine social processes such as domination, exploitation, opportunity hoarding and social closure. It is safe to say that until 1980s, the vast majority of North American sociologists were concerned with these types of processes, with the exception of social psychologists and those studying the particulars of place-based inequality.
Without abandoning this concern for the distribution of material resources, over the past 40 years, American sociologists have shifted their focus towards a wider range of relationships that contribute to inequality, turning their attention to the distribution of non-material resources, such as cultural and symbolic capital. While this line of work is not independent from Dimension 1, as a rule, relevant authors developed a greater interest in the role of status signals and symbolic domination in the study of inequality, building on early insights from Weber, Veblen and others on culturally based closure.
Collins' The Credential Society (1979) and Bourdieu's Distinction (1979) are signal contributions in this vein. In Distinction in particular, Bourdieu showed how cultural exclusion feeds into inequality and how the class struggle operates in the symbolic realm through the monopolization of symbolic power or the imposition of a specific class culture as a dominant standard (or 'doxa'). This shift
5To some degree, Tilly (1998) examines the role of subordinates and how 'people below' engage in contentious action with 'people above' (e.g. McAdam et al, 2001). While his concepts of emulation and adaptation include the active role of subordinates (Tilly, 1998, p. 97), his central focus is on exploitation and opportunity hoarding, which he argues 'cause the installation of categorical boundaries within organizations, while emulation and adaptation reinforce those effects' (Tilly, 1998, p. 114). In contrast, we argue that cultural processes can create categories of exclusion and inclusion themselves require coordinated action, are open-ended in their consequences for inequality, and, as such, are broader fundamental social processes implicated in many aspects of social life.
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towards a focus on the role of symbolic and cultural relationships in the reproduction of social inequality represents what we view as the second dimension in the study of inequality. In Dimension 2, inequality is primarily understood as the result of both intentional and habitus-driven actions by a dominant party over a subordinate group. Social inequality, here, entails symbolic domination and is determined by access to non-material resources such as cultural and social capital.6 This framework has become prevalent in a large segment of American and international sociology, largely through Bourdieu's influence (for evidence, see Sallaz and Zavisca, 2007; Coulangeon and Duval, 2013). As Table 1 illustrates, the social processes studied in this dimension have tended to include distinction, symbolic violence and symbolic exclusion, which may lead to self-relegation.
2.2   Dimension 3: ecological effects
The third dimension of inequality accounts for the causes and consequences of inequality at the network (DiMaggio and Garip, 2012), neighbourhood, community or city levels of analysis. For instance, the neighbourhood effects literature interrogates the social processes of neighbourhoods and cities, taking the social-ecological environment, rather than the individual social actor, as its starting point. It focuses on specific inequality-related outcomes, such as differential crime rates and health outcomes (Sampson, 2012; Browning et al, 2013), differential educational outcomes (Wodtke etal, 2011), intergenerational disadvantage (Sharkey, 2012) and joblessness (Wilson, 1996). These neighbourhood-level processes are durable and continuous; they typically do not entail purposeful domination of one group over another. Wilson (1980, 2010) famously argued that while residential segregation may have brought about the conditions of inner-city neighbourhoods, the development of the latter took on a life of their own, resulting in the reproduction of inequality.
As the recent ecological effects literature has attempted to unpack the causal 'blackbox' connecting neighbourhoods to social disadvantage, scholars have investigated specific 'cultural patterns' (e.g. cultural adaptations that explain disparate crime rates), arguing that these patterns take on a self-replicating character even if their initial causes were structural or environmental (see Sampson and Wilson, 1995; Harding, 2010). Focusing on social disorganization, others have considered the role that 'collective efficacy', 'social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good' (Sampson et al.,1997,
6Of course, symbolic domination is also central in Marx and Weber. While one can give a cultural interpretation of Marx's analysis of capitalism, it is fair to say that in the sixties and the seventies, he was almost exclusively read through a structural lens—that is, until E. P. Thompson's writings became influential.
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p. 918), plays in the amelioration of place-based inequality. The centrality of place in the ecological effects literature draws attention to meso-level social processes that are 'supra-individual' (Sampson, 2012) in nature (see Table l).7 While this focus brings to light important processes and mechanisms at work in place-based inequality, social actors and situated social practices are often lost in this account.8
2.3   What is missing?
These literatures have not captured the full range of relationships involved in the production of inequality. Focusing on the individual social actor as the unit of analysis {contra much of the ecological effects literature), several authors have recently aimed to connect the social structural and the social psychological to develop a more refined understanding of the pathways through which inequality develops and is perpetuated. For instance, building on the social psychological literature on cognitive boundaries and prejudice, Massey (2007) argues that because human memory is finite, our brains rely on patterns of information (schemas) that enable us to quickly interpret the world around us. We use such patterns inter alia to automatically and subconsciously categorize people based upon warmth and competence (as argued by Fiske et al, 2002). Furthermore, psychological studies suggest that we routinely apply such schemas to various social categories. As such, these cognitive schemas not only play an important role in the construction and reification of group boundaries, but also shape how we perceive and evaluate different groups: while we associate mostly positive attributes (e.g. competence, honesty, etc.) with high-status in-group members, members of low-status out-groups are perceived in largely negative terms (e.g. as incompetent, dishonest, etc.). In Categorically Unequal, Massey (2007) suggests that this cognitive mechanism has wide-ranging ramifications for social stratification: it not only leads to discrimination and exclusion for low-status out-group members, but also affects the distribution of important resources, as the esteemed in-group hoards (or extracts) social, cultural, economic and spatial capital at the expense
7The relational assumptions of the ecological effects literature are shared with the literature on fields, networks and geographical space, which by definition all focus on the supra-individual. We thank Bart Bonikowski for alerting us to this point.
8Recent work at the intersection of cultural sociology and ecological effects has begun to account for individual-level perceptions of place. Such work has investigated, for example, individual-level frames (see Lamont and Small, 2008), 'cognitive landscapes' (Sampson and Wilson, 1995) or cultural perspectives (e.g. Harding, 2010). Sampson (2012) and Sampson and Bean (2006) also argue for a more integrative approach from the starting point of the ecological tradition. Sharkey and Faber (2014) argue for a more complex focus on when, how and why neighbourhoods matter to better identify social processes and 'the operation of systems that generate inequality in individuals' residential environments and the ways that these contexts affect the individuals within them'.
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of the low-status out-group. Complementing this perspective, Ridgeway (2011) centres her work on the cognitive interpersonal processes that contribute to the perpetuation of gender inequality in spite of the increase of women's control over resources in the past century. She asks: why does gender inequality persist in everyday social relations despite the important progress of the past decades? She uses various studies to reveal that others by their sex and that this largely unconscious categorization primes us with shared cultural stereotypes about each gender. She also shows how this leads to inequality in access to resources. She proposes that our shared cultural biases and our inclination to categorize people into two distinct sexes collude to affect the way in which we engage in social situations, reifying expectations of gender distinctions and thus reinforcing/reproducing existing inequalities.
Both of these authors offer accounts that go beyond traditional explanations of inequality: these accounts are different from Dimensions 1 and 2 approaches in that they highlight the role of micro-processes that contribute to inequality in subtle and largely unconscious ways (for instance, by drawing on the psychological literature that Bourdieu largely ignores). Moreover, their approaches are distinct from Dimension 3 (ecological effects) in that they focus on concrete individuals or groups and their actions. However, in doing so, they move directly from intra-individual cognitive processes to macro-level patterns of inequality with insufficient consideration of, or analytic precision regarding, what lies between those levels. In particular, what is typically missing from the picture is an understanding of how inter-subjectively shared meaning structures (e.g. scripts, narratives, repertoires and symbolic boundaries) come to enable and constrain behaviours. This is where we make our intervention, as we theorize that cultural processes are a crucial missing link between cognitive processes and macro-level inequality (see Figure l).9
A number of cultural sociologists have begun filling this gap over the last 20 years. For instance, Lamont (1992, 2000) compares conceptions of worth among upper-middle-class and working-class individuals in France and the USA, looking at how these are shaped by available cultural repertoires and how these symbolic boundaries create the conditions for social boundaries. Lareau (2003) compares cultural tools used by middle-class and working-class parents to raise their children. Blair-Loy (2001) reveals how incompatible frames concerning motherhood and career (as exclusive commitments) are used by female financial executives to navigate the boundary between home and work. And in the neighbourhood effects literature, several authors have integrated cultural concepts
9Symbolic interactionism gives considerable attention to the construction and negotiated character of the social order, but has not focused on the comparative study of cultural processes of the type that we advocate here. However, we see our perspective as particularly germane to the interactionist perspective proposed by Frank (1979) who conceptualizes structure as constraints.
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Material Inequality {Dimension 1)
Place-Based Inequality (Dimension 3}
Symbolic Inequality (Dimension 2)
Processes concerned with control of material resources
ecological processes
Processes concerned with control of non-material resources
Meso-level Cultural Processes
identification tracialization, Stigmatisation), rationalization (standardization, evaluation) etc.
Micro-level Cognitive Processes
Figure 1 Pathways from cultural processes to the three dimensions of inequality.
into the mechanisms that explain neighbourhood effects. For example, Harding (2010) analyses the mobilization of divergent toolkits among adolescent boys in low-income neighbourhoods in order to understand violence in peer relationships. In Villa Victoria, Small (2004) reveals how residents' differential framing of the same neighbourhood can enable or constrain community participation between cohorts (for additional examples, see Lamont and Small, 2008).
Yet, while this work highlights the role of inter-subjective meaning in the production (and reproduction) of inequality, it does not systematically tackle the fundamental cultural processes that are our focus here. What we have in mind are processes such as evaluation, standardization, racialization and stigmatization, which are ongoing, routine and fundamental features of social relationships.10 While such processes may be perceived as having little to do with inequality, we show below how they help create the conditions from which inequality takes shape and argue that ignoring them blinds us to crucial pathways that contribute to the production (and reproduction) of inequality. Indeed, we understand these processes as acting as a privileged, but overlooked, link between the cognitive categories studied by Massey and Ridgeway and the macro-level processes studied by
Note that while scholars such as Ridgeway and Correll (2006) and Correll and Ridgeway (2003) write about how evaluation influences gender typing (of mothers, for instance), they do not draw parallels between the specific case they study and other instances of evaluation, or other cultural processes.
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non-cultural inequality scholars. As we elaborate in the following section, these cultural processes underlie and contribute to each of the three dimensions of inequality. They also contribute to recognition, an important but often neglected aspect of inequality. Our task now is to explicate how cultural processes contribute to each dimension and to make the case for a systematic study of cultural processes as a complement to the other dimensions of inequality.
3.  What are cultural processes?
The view we develop here is informed by publications that were largely published over the previous 15 years. They deal with the following processes: stigmatization (Goffman, 1963), racialization (Omi and Winant, 1994), commensuration (Espeland and Stevens, 1998), identification (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000), standardization (Timmermans and Epstein, 2010) and evaluation (Lamont, 2012). Considering these processes in the study of inequality opens an under-theorized dimension of social inequality, moving empirical sociological work down a novel path.11 As outlined by Table 1, we make a systematic effort to analyse these processes in a parallel fashion, going beyond previous efforts seeing these in isolation without systematically examining similarities and differences in the role they play (or do not play) in the production of inequality. In addition, we consider their impact on distribution and recognition.
These various papers offer close theoretical and empirical consideration of processes (as opposed to 'states' or 'attributes') that mobilize collectively produced categories.12 They also highlight ongoing actions or practices denoted by the gerund 'ing' as in 'racializzng' or 'evaluating, which may result in specific outcomes such as a racialized social structure or hierarchies of status and worth. Describing and illustrating several of these cultural processes in more detail in the next section, we spell out their other shared characteristics, by distinguishing cultural processes from the social processes considered in Dimensions 1, 2 and 3. Before we illustrate specific cultural processes and their roles in the production and reproduction of inequality, we must first explicitly define 'cultural processes'—an analytic definition that we have inductively developed through a systematic comparison of the ways in which these various processes contribute (or not) to social inequality.
11 While Foucault and others have considered the importance of classification for power and exclusion, his writings have not been systematically put in dialogue with the sociological literature on inequality nor integrated into a broader approach to cultural processes. Pursuing such an objective would be a logical extension of our current agenda.
12Brubaker (2001) makes a parallel argument regarding assimilation, which inspired our analysis on this point.
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First, compared with Dimension 1 processes (control over material resources), cultural processes are centrally constituted at the level of meaning-making: in their essence, they take shape around the creation of shared categories or classification systems through which individuals perceive and make sense of their environment.13 They all involve a sorting out of people, actions or environments that requires the creation of group boundaries (cf. Barth, 1969; Tajfel and Turner, 1986; Lamont and Molnar, 2002; Wimmer, 2013) and the creation and relative stabilization of hierarchies, objectively and inter-subjectively (Douglas, 1966).14 These boundaries and hierarchies are typically a collective accomplishment that requires de facto the use of shared conventions and coordination between various actors and institutions (Boltanski andThevenot, 1991; Thevenot, 2006). Individuals do not necessarily aim to consciously deploy one system of categorization over another, as they are rarely conscious that they inhabit a categorization system. Thus, classification systems and linked cultural processes are not necessarily oriented towards ultimate instrumental goals such as gaining resources or exercising power (as in Dimensions 1 and 2), since these systems emerge as shared frameworks that are constitutive of reality (e.g. Berger and Luckmann, 1964; DiMaggio, 1997; Sewell, 2005).15
Second, it follows that cultural processes do not solely depend on the actions of dominant actors. As we show in the illustrations in Section 4, subordinates often participate in the elaboration of cultural processes as much as dominant agents do (e.g. in self-racialization through self-identification or self-stigmatization; see, e.g. Jenkins, 2008). Furthermore, the sorting can result from intentional actions or as an unintended consequence. Thus, 'a will for domination is not posited as
13 Tilly (1998) highlights the role that categorization processes play in the production of inequality While Tilly's work explicates how exploitation and opportunity hoarding 'establish systems of categorical inequality' (p. 10) both intentionally and unintentionally (through emulation and adaptation), our approach envisions a systematic explication of how classifications are negotiated inter-subjectively by dominants and subordinates and how specific types of classificatory processes employ categorization at the meso-level. For example, we specify how evaluation or standardization practices bring about social inequality rather than simply revealing the myriad ways shared classificatory practices generally bring about such inequality See also Footnote 5.
14Classification struggles are also central to Bourdieu's theory of fields. However, he does not theorize their place in a broader theory of cultural processes and predefines them as always resulting in symbolic domination, whereas we consider the impact of classification on inequality to be somewhat open-ended. A full comparison of the concepts of fields and cultural processes is beyond the purview of this paper.
15Our focus on the cultural 'supply side' (or the repertoires that individuals mobilize to make sense of their environment) is one of the points of difference from cognitive psychologists. We are inspired by the work of John Meyer (1986) which draws broadly on the phenomenological tradition. Moreover, we share with Lahire and Rosental (2008) a Durkheimian focus on collective representations, as opposed to psychological binaries (e.g. a focus on warmth and competence in Fiske et al, 2002).
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a primary condition for producing these outcomes as it is in the major theories of Dimensions 1 and 2.
Third, cultural processes typically operate in a routine fashion (e.g. Sewell, 2005: Chapter 10; Giddens, 1984). As individuals and groups go about acting in the world (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998), they tend to use schemas that are largely taken for granted and made available by the cultural toolkits that surround them. Thus, while considering cultural processes, we move from a focus on discrete, instrumental actions aimed at monopolizing material and non-material resources to a focus on a range of ongoing, routine relationships that enable and constrain social action (Giddens, 1984; Sewell, 1992). In this way, our approach resembles the ecological effects literature (Dimension 3), which considers processes to be durable and self-replicating. Yet, we understand these cultural processes to be the result of the actions of individual and group actors and the systems of meaning in which they operate, as opposed to the consequence of an ecological environment.
Fourth, while Dimension 1 processes are largely concerned with the distribution of material resources, cultural processes explicitly concern the distribution of both material and non-material resources as well as recognition, which, borrowing loosely from Fraser (1995) (also Taylor, 1992; Honneth, 2012), we define as the fact of being acknowledged and given validation, legitimacy, value, worth, dignity and full cultural membership (Lamont, 1992, 2000).16 The dual focus on the distribution of resources and recognition is crucial, as we understand social inequality as operating both at the level of legitimacy and dignity as much as the distribution of material and social resources (Taylor, 1992; Honneth, 2012).17 While the contribution of cultural processes to inequality would largely be mediated by feeding into Dimensions 1,2 and 3, we argue below that cultural processes can also feed directly into inequality through recognition and its opposite, misrecognition.
Fifth, we argue that—as a general rule of thumb—the inequality-related outcomes of most cultural processes are largely uncertain and open-ended. Cultural processes unfold in routine fashion as individuals and groups generally go about
Fraser (1995) focuses notably on cultural or symbolic injustices, rather than inequality. The remedy is recognition as 'upwardly revaluing disrespected identities and the cultural products of maligned groups [...] recognizing and positively valorizing cultural diversity' (p. 73). See also Fraser (2000).
17Although most of the literature on inequality is focused on the distribution of material and non-material resources, we consider distribution and recognition to be two equal faces of inequality. Historically, this literature has often only considered contests over recognition by analysing resistance and related phenomena. The alternative is to consider the full range of strategies deployed to gain recognition (as in the articles included in Lamont and Mizrachi, 2012). Following Jenkins (2008), we would advocate examining all forms of categorization and legitimation contests around the meanings associated with individual and collective social identity. Note that Lamont (2012) identifies categorization and legitimation as fundamental features of evaluation. Future research should ascertain whether these can be understood as shared by all types of cultural processes.
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pursuing other goals: they can feed into Dimensions 1,2 and 3, but do not have to do so in every particular instance. The examination of this indetermination marks the study of cultural processes as distinct from the classic and contemporary analyses of social processes in Dimensions 1, 2 and 3. The study of these latter processes often begins with the goal of explaining inequality, whereas the study of cultural processes does not necessitate such a premise. For example, the study of standardization or evaluation processes in a firm may or may not be motivated by the analyst's desire to understand how the firm contributes to the unequal distribution of resources and recognition among its employees. We advocate approaching this as an empirical question, with the goal of gaining a better understanding of when, how, and by how much inequality results from the unfolding of cultural processes.
Sixth, these processes do not operate ex nihilo: they unfold in the context of structures (organizations and institutions) in which individual live. As we will see in the next section, organizations and institutions contribute significantly to both distribution and recognition. For instance, even in the 1990s, eligibility in the mortgage lending industry depended on apparently neutral rationalized evaluative practices that led to unequal access to resources for African Americans.18 Similarly, there are many other institutions that allocate resources based on taken-for-granted rules that depend on the activation of 'neutral' classification systems, but which systematically privilege some groups over others. It is the case for access to higher education in American colleges (Lemann, 2000; Karabel, 2005) and the determination of salaries for working mothers (see Budig and England, 2001, on the motherhood penalty). Along the same line, social scientists have shown how the recent growth in wealth inequality in the USA has resulted from small, but incremental political-legal changes (Hacker and Pierson, 2010) and staggering 'performance based' increases in executive compensation that advantage the rich (DiPrete etal, 2010).
Perhaps the most important institutional actor is the state, which has a considerable effect on the macro patterns of distribution of material and non-material resources, and on the recognition of diverse social groups. Through law and social programmes, the state wields immense power in shaping and legitimizing systems of categorization, which we have argued are fundamental preconditions for cultural processes. Many cultural social processes operate at the state level, particularly those processes that are associated with rationalization (compare, e.g. Gupta, 2012). These processes—like standardization and evaluation—often animate the everyday functioning of major social programmes. For example, No
18Munnell et al. (1996) collected loan application data from Boston-area financial institutions in 1990 and analysed the variables that lenders themselves identified as important for their decision-making. The authors conclude that even if two mortgage applicants were financially identical, a minority applicant would be 60% more likely to be rejected than a comparable white applicant.
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Child Left Behind is a government-led programme at the federal level that enforces the standardization of the education system—the standardization of teachers as well as classroom content within, and increasingly, across, states. Other prime examples of such state-sponsored, large-scale standardization programmes include the census or statistical indicators such as the GDP. Moreover, these processes are often intertwined with identification processes such as the racialization of citizens through the inclusion of racial categories on the census and other forms. These types of state actions are based on classificatory schemes (e.g. Bowker and Star, 2000; Loveman and Muniz, 2007; Fox, 2012), which, just like cognitive categorization on the individual level, we view as the fundamental root of inequality (Massey, 2007). However, such schemes do not operate in isolation, but always in specific institutional contexts composed of systems of rules and sanctions, which channel and magnify the impact of classification systems.
To recap, we conceptualize cultural processes as ongoing classifying representations/practices that unfold in the context of structures (organizations, institutions) to produce various types of outcomes. These processes shape everyday interactions and result in an array of consequences that may feed into the distribution of resources and recognition—and thus, often contribute to the outcomes considered by each of the three dimensions of inequality. These processes are largely a collective accomplishment as they are shared representation systems involving dominants and subordinates alike.
We nowturn to concrete examples to put empirical flesh on the theoretical bones of this approach by focusing on the cases of racialization, stigmatization, standardization and evaluation by drawing on the relevant literature. While some authors explicitly consider the analytic role that cultural processes play in the reproduction of inequality, none systematically analyse in parallel cultural processes as analytically meaningful pathways to unequal social outcomes. By considering various studies through the analytic lens offered here, we reveal how cultural processes sort out individuals and groups on an ongoing basis. This sorting process both opens and closes opportunities, and enables and constrains individuals' life course trajectories. The outcomes of such processes are open-ended or uncertain, as opposed to always resulting in exploitation (Dimension 1), exclusion (Dimension 2) or isolation (Dimension 3).
4. Illustrations
For heuristic purposes, we organize cultural processes into two types of process 'families': identification and rationalization. We illustrate these with the specific exemplars of racialization and stigmatization (for identification) and standardization and evaluation (for rationalization). We describe how different types of practices 'anchor' these processes and how these processes feed into inequality in often
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unpredictable ways. While we may describe these processes as concrete 'real-wo rid' happenings, they are in fact analytical constructs we devise for the purpose of capturing and illuminating social dynamics.
4.1 Identification
The first type of cultural processes concerns identification, i.e. the process through which individuals and groups identify themselves, and are identified by others, as members of a larger collective. A large body of sociological and anthropological research shows that this process can occur on the basis of a broad range of individual categorical attributes, such as race, ethnicity, gender, language, nationality, citizenship, sexual orientation and the like (Owens etal, 2010). For their part, groups can identify themselves as members of more or less clearly defined and bounded supra entities (e.g. a nation, church, sport, ideological community, lifestyle enclave, etc.).
Brubaker and Cooper (2000) advocated the use of the concept of identification over 'identity' because it derives from an active verb, and is therefore a processual concept that 'lacks the reifying connotations of "identity"' While the latter term suggests a characteristic that is inherent and fixed, identification avoids essentialism and 'invites us to specify the agents that do the identifying' (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000, p. 41; Wimmer, 2013 for a kindred perspective). Similarly, in studying cultural processes, we focus on identification by tracing specific micro practices of boundary work through which individuals and groups construct their identities (through self-identification) as well as the practices through which their identities are constructed by other individuals, groups and institutions (through group categorization)—inspired by Jenkins (2008). The classification of people into groups and categories is central to both racialization and stigmatization.
4.1.1 Racialization Racialization is the process by which social markers or biological and phenotypic differences between human bodies are imbued with significance by social actors (Murji and Solomos, 2005). Meaning-making is central to this process, as phenotypic markers do not speak for themselves, but have to be interpreted through shared and locally embedded categories. Moreover, racialization necessitates that social actors (e.g. individuals, groups, nation-states) share an understanding of the significance attached to these markers and of how they distinguish between groups of people.19
Various schools of thought define racialization in particular ways. Just as anthropological, sociological and biological disagreements abound over the definition of race (Morning, 2011), authors compete around the proper definition of
Of course, the same process operates for gender, which results in 'genderization' and which interacts with racialization to generate differentiated representation of men and women belonging to same ethno-racial groups.
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racialization (cf. Barot and Bird, 2001). However, the process in which actors instil biological markers with meaning is common among all these understandings (Murji and Solomos, 2005). For instance, Omi and Winant (1994) account for racialization as a recursive process whereby racial meanings are constantly re-interpreted and re-classified.
Racialization's implications for inequality can be ambiguous and open-ended. In many cases, actors who engage in racialization intend, in fact, to counteract oppression and inequality through calls for social inclusion and political representation (Polletta, 2009). More specifically, the subordinated contribute to the reproduction of group boundaries by embracing their ethno-racial identity, thus participating in the stabilization of racial classification systems. Hence, the generation of inequality along racial lines comes not primarily 'from above' (as in Dimension 1), but is produced conjointly and relationally by the dominant and the subordinated group (Desmond, 2013). In other cases, racialization by dominant group members is more unidirectional (via the mobilization of racial stereotypes in the workplace for instance), and closes opportunities for the subordinate group, without the direct input of the subordinate group. Thus, the outcome of interest is open-ended and has to be traced on a case-by-case basis.
A body of social-psychological literature has uncovered the cognitive processes that enable the cultural categories of race to be socially meaningful (see for instance the Implicit Association Test literature; Ottaway et al., 2001). Building on this work, Massey (2007) shows how (often-unconscious) cognitive classification of groups along racial lines (racialization) has resulted, historically and to this day, in structural discrimination such as discriminatory lending practices and de facto segregation. However, Saperstein and Penner (2012) reveal how racial classificatory categories are fluid and depend upon context and social position. Assessing two decades of longitudinal data, they find that self-racialization and racialization by others is associated with changes in socio-economic status: they show that individuals are more likely to identify and be identified as white with increases in their socio-economic status and as Black with drops in status.
Other examples come from research on the durability and fluidity of racial categorization across national contexts. For instance, Roth (2012) studies immigrants from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to reveal that increasing Latino migration into the USA has re-shaped the nation's historically two-tiered racial hierarchy; now, the migration of Latino immigrants has structured 'a middle tier between whites and blacks' (193). In addition to re-shaping American racial classifications, Latino migrants 'send' back to their home countries new racial schemas that they have adopted from their exposure to the American racial hierarchy. This includes diffusing a more clear-cut bimodal view of race (which opposes whites to blacks) into societies that historically have had a gradational view of race. The cross-pollination of racial categorization between host and home countries impacts not
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only individual-level identification but also macro-level and institutional identification and racialization, and reshapes inequalities. For example, in the USA, new common cultural understandings of race (increasingly a three-tiered view) create new forms of stratification.
Saperstein and Penner (2012) and Roth (2012) showus that racialization is a collective accomplishment that occurs through a wide range of interactions, and that both in-group and out-group members participate in the construction of boundaries by mobilizing schemas that are available to them (e.g. the association of racial groups with socio-economic standing in the case of Saperstein and Penner). They also show that the resulting hierarchies can operate to the detriment or the advantage of those being racialized. This work points to a quite different reality than theories that focus on the first and second dimensions of inequality. Through racialization, individuals and groups are being not only sorted out but also put on differentiated paths for accessing material and non-material resources, often through the impact of apparently neutral institutions. In this sense, cultural processes such as racialization are a precondition for inequalities that result from the processes most often considered in Dimensions 1 and 2. However, because racialization also results in the devaluation of certain categories of individuals, it also acts as direct source of inequality in itself (via misrecognition). The same holds for stig-matization.
4.1.2 Stigmatization In his classic book Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Goffman (1963, p. 3) defined stigma as 'an attribute that is deeply discrediting'. Link and Phelan (2001) extended this definition by characterizing the phenomenon as the convergence of interrelated components of labelling, negative stereotyping, separation and status loss / discrimination in the context of a power structure. More recently, social scientists have shifted the focus from stigma to stigmatization, defined as the process that consists in designating symbolically, and qualifying negatively, identities and differences (e.g. Dubet etal, 2013; Fleming et al, 2012).
As comparative studies of responses to stigmatization by marked groups in Brazil, Israel and the USA and other countries demonstrate, stigmatized groups respond to this process in part by promoting alternative definitions of their social identities and mobilizing a range of repertoires and alternative classification systems (Lamont and Mizrachi, 2012). When combined, these responses may gain momentum and can modulate the impact of stigmatization on their circumstances and influence what definition of their social identity comes to be seen as legitimate. Thus, even though the outcome of stigmatization might appear less open-ended than that of other cultural processes, it is still far from over-determined: one cannot tell a priori how and to what extent stigmatization will affect the lives of a stigmatized group. While some individuals are greatly affected by the stigmatization of their group, others can
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come out relatively unscathed. Link and Phelan (2001) suggest that one important reason for this stems from individual differences in the access to resources which might moderate the negative effects of stigmatization: 'Individual differences in personal, social, and economic resources [... ] shape the life circumstances of persons in stigmatized groups, thereby producing substantial variation within stigmatized groups in any outcome one might consider' (p. 380).20
Stigmatization is open-ended in another sense, as well: both dominant and subordinate groups can be stigmatized. While we often think of stigma as a burden carried only by those in subordinate positions, stigmatization can also be practiced against those in dominant positions. For example, Lamont (2000) shows how working-class men maintain their sense of moral worth by drawing boundaries against those they believe to be above and below them. These men view the upper-middle class as exploitative and dishonest. Similarly, following the recent recession, journalists, politicians and everyday citizens constructed a similar stigmatizing narrative against Wall Street bankers. These cases show that stigmatization can operate both ways, with potentially different impacts on the politics of recognition. Similarly, McCall (2013) documents via survey and media analysis why some 'undeserving rich' come to be viewed as illegitimate in the American context. Her findings add an important dimension to our understanding of the logic of stigmatization.
While some studies of stigmatization follow Goffman's emphasis on the analytic primacy of micro-settings (e.g. Kleinman, 2009), others have focused on meso-level institutional dynamics. For instance, Saguy (2013) analyses how obesity has become a top public health concern in the USA.21 Based on a content analysis of public and expert discourse, she shows how obesity has become framed in increasingly negative terms—both on an individual and collective level: being fat is now widely treated as a major health risk for individuals, while on a societal level, obesity gets constructed as a public health epidemic via concerted, government-sponsored efforts to reduce it. This leads to weight-based discrimination, as obesity gets constructed as a disease that people bring upon themselves (by making bad food and life-style choices). Hence, fatness becomes a social stigma—a sign of weak will and immorality. Yet, this stigmatization is not the making of any single group of social actors. Rather, it is the outcome of the actions (and interactions) of various social groups, including medical specialists, journalists, politicians, ordinary people on the street, as well as the stigmatized themselves. Furthermore, the stigmatization of fat is open-ended in that nothing predisposes obesity to be stigmatized per se, as demonstrated by the fact that it has been valued as a symbol of prosperity and high status in many societies throughout history.
This would most likely also apply to processes studied in Dimensions 1 and 2. 21On stigmatization processes, see also Schnoor (2006) and Edgell etal. (2006).
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Rationalization as a sociological concept is, of course, closely associated with the work of Weber (1978) who described it as a powerful historical force associated with the process of modernization—that is the rise of capitalism, the birth of the nation state and the development of modern science. At its core, rationalization entails the displacement of tradition and values as motivations for action by a means-end orientation. Weber saw in this 'rational' orientation to action the ideational foundation of Western capitalism (as detailed in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber, 2002) and a key defining characteristic of modernity more generally. For him, rationalization appears in many different domains of social life (economy, science, music, etc.), and in particular in the modern bureaucratic organization. In its ideal-typical form, this type of administrative structure is based on rational-legal authority and operates through the consistent application of universal and impersonal rules. Furthermore, it is designed according to rational principles that are intended to maximize efficiency. These are generally perceived as 'neutral' and 'fair' (based on merit), but often institutionalized from accumulated historical inequalities or resources, as argued inter alia by Foucault (1977) and Latour (1993). Thus, as routine sets in, it is often difficult to find a nefarious villain. Still inequality is reproduced via a rationalized process and is generally legitimized as a consequence.
Weber's analysis of bureaucracy is relevant for our argument here: processes such as standardization and evaluation can be described as sub-processes of rationalization and as such are closely tied to bureaucratic organizations in modern society. As we detail below, organizations are a context where cultural processes unfold and may result in inequality. For example, evaluation represents a basic operation of any bureaucratic organization. Office-holders in bureaucratic organizations constantly need to make evaluative j udgements and enable and constrain opportunities for action. At the same time, bureaucratic organizations can also be the central agents that shape the form of these cultural processes. The best illustration for this is the emergence of large bureaucratic organizations that dedicate all their resources to the further rationalization of already highly rationalized cultural processes such as evaluation or standardization, for example rating agencies or standards setting organizations such as the International Standard Organization. Below we describe two examples of rationalization processes and how they feed into inequality.
4.2.1 Standardization Standardization is the process by which individuals, groups and institutions construct 'uniformities across time and space' through 'the generation of agreed-upon rules' (Timmermans and Epstein, 2010, p. 71). While the process implies intention ('agreed-upon rules') on the part of social actors, standardization as a process in everyday life frequently has unintended
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consequences. The construction of uniformities becomes habitual and taken for granted once the agreed-upon rules are set in place and codified into institutional and inter-subjective scripts (often formal, albeit sometimes also informal). In its industrial and post-industrial manifestations, the process of standardization is part and parcel of the rationalization and bureaucratization of society (Carruthers and Espeland, 1991; Olshan, 1993; Brunsson and Jacobsson, 2000; Timmermans and Epstein, 2010).
Unlike Dimension 1 and 2 processes, standardization works in invisible ways in its everyday unfolding. For example, we often take for granted the myriads procedural and technical standards that keep the flow of goods and services in our global economy running (see, e.g. Levinson, 2006 for an analysis of the role of international normed ship containers in global trade). These standards consistently operate as a set of background constraints that structure our action. Moreover, the effects of standardization on inequality are often unintended or indeterminate. Indeed, standards are often implemented with the intent of developing a common benchmark of success or competence and are frequently motivated by positive purposes (e.g. in the case of the adoption of pollution standards or teaching standards). Yet, once institutionalized, standards are often mobilized in the distribution of resources. In this process, in some cases, those who started out with standard-relevant resources may be advantaged (Buchmann et al, 2010). In this sense, the consequences of standardization for inequality can be unintentional, indirect and open-ended, as it can exacerbate or abate inequality. Whether they are is an empirical issue to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
One example of this interaction between standardization and social inequality is the use of standards in education as documented by Neckerman (2007). Among other things, her work analyses the rise of standardized and IQ testing in the 1920s in American education and local Chicago education policy. It shows how standardized test scores came to be used to determine admission to Chicago's best vocational schools, with the goal of imposing more universalist practices. Yet, in reality, the reform resulted in diminished access to the best schooling for the city's low-income African-American population.
Although standardization is a dominant feature of everyday social life in modern society, few scholars have considered it as a meaningful analytic concept for capturing how macro-level inequality develops and persists. In contrast, we view the explicit study of standardization—through a context-specific and micro-level analysis of practices of standardization as proposed by Timmermans and Epstein (2010, p. 74)—as critical to sociological inquiry into inequality. Such explicit attention to processes of standardization will shed light on the sorting processes which channel the distribution of material and non-material resources and thereby improve our understanding of the causal (often hidden) pathways through which inequality is created and perpetuated. Epstein (2008) provides a particularly
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persuasive demonstration of how this operates in the case of the salience of differences in the context of bio-medical research. His work illustrates how cultural processes feed directly into recognition as a dimension of inequality.
4.2.2 Evaluation Evaluation is a cultural process that—broadly denned—concerns the negotiation, definition and stabilization of value in social life (Beckert and Musselin, 2013). According to Lamont (2012, p. 206), this process involves several important sub-processes, most importantly categorization ('determining in which group the entity [...] under consideration belongs') and legitimation ('recognition by oneself and others of the value of an entity').22
In the empirical literature, we find several examples of how evaluation as a cultural process can contribute to inequality, many of which are drawn from sociological research on hiring, recruiting and promotion in labour markets. The bulk of these studies concern how evaluation practices of organizations favour or discriminate against certain groups of employees (see, e.g. Castilla and Benard, 2010) or applicants (see, e.g. Rivera, 2012). Yet, some scholars also examine evaluation processes in labour markets from a broader perspective, locating evaluation not only in hiring or promotion but also in entire occupational fields.
For instance, Beljean (2013b) studied standards of evaluation in the cultural industry of stand-up comedy. Drawing on interviews with comedians and their employers as well as ethnographic fieldwork, he finds that even though the work of stand-up comedians is highly uniform in that they all try to make people laugh, there is considerable variation in how comedians are evaluated across different levels of stratification of the comedy industry. Thus, for example, newcomer comedians and star performers are judged against different standards: while the former must be highly adaptable to the taste of different audiences and owners of comedy clubs, the latter are primarily judged by their ability to nurture their fan-base and to sell out shows. Even though this difference does not necessarily translate into more inequality among comedians, it tends to have negative effects on the career prospects of newcomer comedians. Due to mechanisms of cumulative advantage, and because both audiences and bookers tend to be conservative in their judgement, it is easier for more established comedians to maintain their status than for newcomers to build up a reputation. As a result, a few star comedians get to enjoy a disproportionally large share of fame and monetary rewards, while a large majority of comedians remain anonymous and marginalized.
The cultural process of evaluation undergirds the everyday functioning of workplaces, schools and numerous other social institutions. In the workplace, hiring decisions require evaluative procedures regarding who is of worth or who has
For analytical purposes, Beljean (2013a) further distinguishes between (a) practices of evaluation, (b) technologies of evaluation and (c) criteria of evaluation.
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competence. At the same time, other cultural processes such as racialization and stigmatization also play a role in the evaluative process for the job market (Kirschenman and Neckerman, 1991; Pager, 2003). However, even in the absence of racial categorization, evaluation is a process that results in winners and losers, for example through rankings, or the differential allocation of desirable resources (Lamont, 2012). The particular instantiations of the process depend upon routine practices and scripts that organizations and individuals deploy to assign value to various types or groups of people and objects.
We argue that there is much to be gained by focusing on the processes themselves, as opposed to their specific areas of application (such as hiring). Indeed, by zooming in on a fundamental cultural process, we are better able to generalize from each specific case to other instances where evaluation feeds into inequality, and to work on identifying similarities and differences across cases. Such comparison is likely to reveal details that would go unnoticed otherwise, and may lead to theoretical development. For example, in their study of urban high-school policy debate, Asad and Bell (2014) interrogate how conflicted cultural meanings about the perceived purpose of the activity—what they term 'evaluative frames'— shape how debate judges evaluate competitors in this disadvantaged context as compared with 'mainstream' debating teams. Similarly, Lamont (2009) considers how academic evaluators distinguish between types of academic work and factor formal and informal criteria in their decision-making. Both studies underline the need to compare how universal principles or formal criteria of evaluation are combined across cases, as well as to how cultural frames (whether universalistic or particularistic, e.g. Heimer 1992) direct evaluation and the distribution of resources.
Last but not the least, while cultural processes operate in micro-level interactions between actors through the application of meso-level scripts and frames, they are also instantiated at the meso-level through the practices of organizations, firms and institutions who are actors themselves. For example, Smith (2010) reveals how low-income Blacks decide to share or withhold job information from their peers. She finds that jobholders are frequently reluctant to share information with their job-seeking peers because they fear that these peers lack appropriate workplace behaviour, which would reflect badly on them. Thus, opportunities are foreclosed without any intentional intervention by a dominant group. The micro-level actions are thus shaping meso-level labour market outcomes (and reinforce widely shared stereotypes). As Smith (2010, p. 4) notes, 'the centrality of interpersonal dynamics highlights the role that micro-level processes play in the reproduction of inequality, essentially cementing the disadvantage initiated by larger macro- and meso-level forces'. Furthermore, the shared evaluative beliefs not only have implications for individuals' labour market outcomes but also dampen neighbourhood collective efficacy and propagate pervasive distrust (Smith, 2010). In this
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way, evaluative processes also have profound implications for social processes falling under the third dimension of inequality.
5.   Discussion and conclusion
From our analysis, we have attempted to show the various, often subtle, ways in which cultural processes contribute to the persistence of social inequality. Social inequality does not result merely from discrete, intentional actions of the dominant. Nor does it result merely from ecological effects (whether emerging from neighbourhoods). Inequality is also shaped by taken-for-granted and routine processes that manifest themselves in our individual lives and in the functioning of organizations, institutions and the state. Cultural processes of identification and rationalization can both constrain and enable opportunities of individuals categorized into different groups, based upon ascribed and achieved characteristics. The opening and closing of opportunities, in turn, has real consequences for access to material and non-material resources.
Clearly, this amounts to a more complex causal pathway to macro-level inequality than the pathway(s) hypothesized in the literature on cognitive processes and social inequality. Also, paying attention to cultural processes also leads to a more complex picture than the one drawn by the traditional sociological literature on inequality (Dimensions 1 through 3). To clarify our position, Figure 1 maps out how we envision the relation between cultural processes and cognitive processes, as well as the relation between cultural processes and other processes conventionally considered in the inequality literature. It depicts cultural processes as operating at an intermediate meso-level. Such processes constitute the missing link between micro-level cognition and macro-level outcomes. Furthermore, we hypothesize that cultural processes can feed into material, symbolic and place-based inequality both directly or indirectly, via other social processes such as social closure, symbolic violence or segregation.
The existing literature on inequality has not ignored such causal pathways altogether. In fact, this paper suggests that empirical work on them is well underway. What has been missing is an attempt to compare these cultural processes in a systematic way and consider in tandem how they contribute to inequality. There is a clear advantage to comparing different types of processes, especially given the abundance of similar formulations in the literature which has hampered theoretical progress. Systematization is an important step towards a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics at work and a more cumulative approach to theory building.23
See Snow et al. (2003) for a particularly useful explanation of how theory building can result from detailed comparisons. A research programme that is centered on social processes is likely to produce similar theoretical refinement.
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But how should we study cultural processes? We have already suggested that a focus on the situated practices that are connected to cultural processes would be generative [in line with Lamont (2012) on evaluation, Gross (2009) on habits and Brubaker (2001) on assimilation]. For even if we give processes abstract labels, such as 'evaluation', they are always the product of concrete 'doings'. They are either something that one is doing to oneself (e.g. identifying oneself racially) or something that is being done to one (e.g. being racialized). Hence, a necessary condition for understanding cultural processes is to focus on the micro-level practices that constitute them. These can be studied through observation or interviews (see Lamont and Swidler, 2014).
Yet, despite our emphasis on practices and 'following the actor' (a la Actor Network Theory), the study of cultural processes should not be confined to the micro-level of analysis. Rather, to develop a full understanding of their ramifications, we also have to study how they are enabled and constrained at the meso-level, through institutional and cultural forces; for instance, how they solidify into policies through the formalization of rules and how they are represented or debated in various arenas (public discourse and scholarly research for instance).24
To carry out such analysis, sociologists could borrow from political scientists who use macro- and meso-level 'systematic process tracing' as a method (as described in Hall, 2006). This analytic approach has been developed for drawing (and evaluating) causal inferences in small-n case studies. It consists in the systematic and disciplined examination of the causal processes that are producing a given outcome of interest. As such, it requires a careful and close-up analysis of sequences (and conjunctures) of specific events and actions.25 In this literature, authors have focused on the role of'processes' such as 'learning', 'competition' (Pierson, 2004), 'institutional conversion' and 'institutional layering' (Thelen, 2004). Others have focused on path-dependent processes (Mahoney, 2000) and critical junctures (Collier and Collier, 1991). Sociologists could develop theorizing on cultural processes by considering how such conceptual tools may be applied, adapted or extended to the cases at hand, and whether they are suggestive of new tools.
What are the other benefits of the approach developed here? The study of cultural processes could become a valuable shared reference point for scholars working in different substantive areas of research and facilitate dialogue between
For instance, Steensland (2006) shows how debates surrounding the guaranteed annual income policy involved the moral evaluation and framing of low-income populations. Together with Guetzkow (2010) study of congressional discourse on poverty, Steensland's paper stands out as an excellent example of the type of detailed process tracing we are advocating. Both Guetzkow and Steensland reconstruct the words and action of individual actors involved in the creation of policies and thus demonstrate how specific types of social changes take place, organized this time around evaluation processes.
25For a 'how-to' approach to process tracing, see Collier (2011).
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scholars. As such, it could also help strengthen the integration of different lines of research. For instance, evaluation is a fundamental cultural process that is not only of relevance in the study of labour markets, but also of higher education, law, public policy, the arts, etc. Hence, a focus on evaluation as a generic cultural process (rather than a focus on specific settings or populations) could fruitfully connect substantive research in each of these subfields (compare Lamont, 2012, Chong, 2011; Beljean, 2013a). More theory development could emerge from a systematic comparison across cases to determine whether new phenomena are under consideration or not.
One could also envisage systematic exchange among groups of scholars who are oriented towards the study of processes and mechanisms—not only AS but also historical sociologists (Abbott, 2001; Glaeser, 2005) and social psychologists who have recently made similar pleas for a more pro cess-centred sociology (see, e.g. MacLeod, 2013).26 A systematic comparison between the study of'generic processes' (Schwalbe et al., 2000) and our framework is likely to be particularly fruitful. We should also compare the framework offered here with other frameworks explicitly concerned with linking micro and macro by the way of inter-subjectively produced and reproduced cultural meaning (e.g. Berger and Luckmann, 1964; Collins, 2005; Tavory and Eliasoph, 2013).
We conclude with a few directions for further exploration, which would be the necessary extension of the ideas developed here. First, we need to consider how different cultural processes intersect (e.g. racialization and standardization) in order to better theorize how inequality is produced and reproduced through the conjuncture of different fundamental processes. While a few studies consider such questions (e.g. Espeland and Sauder, 2007; Epstein, 2008), we are advocating locating such important projects within a broader theoretical framework oriented towards the systematic study of cultural processes. Secondly, future work should assess whether some pathways are more prevalent or universal than others in the production of inequality. For instance, while stigmatization may more likely result in inequality, standardization may more often be implemented with the intention of equalizing outcomes (e.g. in schooling), and only sometimes result in resource hoarding through the rewards and sanctions to which standards are typically linked. Thirdly, in linking these processes with inequality, we should consider the role of institutions and cultural repertoires in fostering social resilience by providing buffers and scaffolds against the effect of inequality (Hall and Lamont, 2013). Carter (2012) considers how high schools in South Africa and the USA validate
It would also be useful to explore the frontier between cultural and social psychology along the lines developed by DiMaggio and Markus (2010) and Fiske and Markus (2012) so as to highlight the work of the most cultural of the social psychologists, as well as the most cultural of the analytical sociologists (e.g. Zuckerman, 2012).
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(or miss to validate) the cultural identities of their students of colour. In other words, she studies institutional conditions that foster recognition. Fourthly, we should systematically compare cultural processes to demographic, economic and structural processes, which, although they involve meaning-making, can be described without necessarily foregrounding the latter. Fifthly, we should provide parallel descriptions of the effects of these processes from the perspective of both inequality and social change, especially regarding social and symbolic boundaries. Finally, we should go beyond the processes discussed here to compare the cultural side of processes such as exploitation, domination, discrimination, industrialization and modernization (all directly implicated in inequality), as well as other less immediately political processes, such as differentiation or homogenization. It is our view that most of social life organized around cultural processes, and as such, systematically comparing these processes will prove to be a particularly generative and illuminating analytical wedge.
6.   CODA: social processes, mechanisms and AS
The cultural processes discussed here have some surface resemblance to 'social mechanisms', and we find it necessary to briefly position ourselves in relation to the relevant literatures. These short remarks are meant to open a dialogue between approaches.
Many scholars use the terms 'processes' and 'mechanisms' interchangeably, even though some have tried to separate them analytically (e.g. Tilly, 2008). Following Demetriou (2012), we view the meaning of both concepts as arbitrary and ultimately depending on convention and habit. Nevertheless, we distinguish between processes and mechanisms because we understand them to perform different functions in explanatory accounts: mechanisms are usually treated as a chain of events that mediates between a cause and effect. To identify or formulate a mechanism means to explain what links a certain initial condition (X) to a certain outcome (Y).27 In contrast, processes can be studied without presuming any set cause or outcome. Here, analytic priority is given to describing the properties of a generative process or chain of events rather than to explaining an observed association between two variables.
Our emphasis on the generic nature of cultural processes and the value of cumulative theory building puts our approach into some proximity with another recent approach: AS, which focuses on the study of social mechanisms. AS is associated with a heterogeneous group of scholars, only loosely connected by a common label. However, a few core proponents have tried to formulate and promote a unified research agenda (e.g. Hedstrom and Swedberg, 1998; Hedstrom and
We are grateful to Curtis Chan and Bart Bonikowski for this insight.
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Bearman, 2009). They argue that the main focus of empirical sociological research should be the study of generic social mechanisms rather than specific populations or settings and that these mechanisms should constitute the basic building blocks of sociological theory. The focus on mechanisms aims to overcome the fragmentation of the discipline (see Manzo, 2010, for more background).
While we share AS's focus on basic building blocks, there are more differences than similarities in our approaches. Most importantly, analytical sociologists typically draw on a version of methodological individualism (which they term 'structural individualism', e.g. Hedstrom and Bearman, 2009), which cannot be conciliated with our approach, as our approach focuses on social actors or groups as embedded within the relational, the inter-subjective and the institutional. While particular instantiations of cultural processes often require actions by a number of discrete actors when they are initially implemented (e.g. Timmermans and Epstein, 2010 on the introduction of new standards as discussed below), they can take on a life of their own and are no longer dependent on any specific stakeholders or agents, particularly as they become institutionalized (e.g. Meyer, 1986). Moreover, some key proponents of AS focus on the desires, beliefs and opportunities of the individual social actor (e.g. Hedstrom, 2005). In contrast, in our perspective, cultural processes do not necessarily depend on individual social actors acting in an intentional, or 'rational', way. Rather, they are often a function of deeply engrained organizational and bureaucratic routines that are, at least ostensibly, far removed from individuals' desires and beliefs.28 Finally, like the pragmatic approach to mechanisms (Gross, 2009), we put habits at the centre of our conceptualization—including not only behavioural habits, but also cognitive-affective and collectively enacted habits.
Acknowledgements
This paper has benefitted from the input of the members of the Successful Societies Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, as well as from insights and reactions from the reading group on social processes and racialization, which met in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University during AY 2012-13. We also benefitted from presenting our work to the colloquia of the Departments of Sociology at the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University. We thank the following colleagues for commenting on an earlier draft of this paper: Asad Asad, Ellen Berrey, Jason Beckfield, Bart Bonikowski, Larissa Buchholz. Frank Dobbin, Wendy Espeland, Margaret Frye, Neil Gross, David Grusky, Peter
See for instance the tight interweaving between individual meaning-making and macro-level social processes of the state in the form of 'political epistemics', as described by Glaeser (2011). Also, Timmermans and Epstein (2010) reveal how stakeholders have motivations for creating standards.
Page 28 of 36    M. Lamont etal.
A. Hall, David Harding, Carly Knight, Leslie McCall, Devah Pager, Cecilia Ridge-way, Lauren Rivera, Wendy Roth, Robert Sampson, William Sewell, Jr., William Julius Wilson and Christopher Winship. We also thank Gregory Jackson and the editors of SER who commented on our text. We particularly thank Steven Epstein and Nicolas Duvoux for fruitful conversations around our topic. The third author acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, while the first author acknowledges support of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Last but not the least, we thank Hunter Taylor for his unfailing technical assistance.
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