Construction of Hegemonic Identities

A broader topic I am planning to work on in my podcast is the construction of hegemonic identities. To understand people’s relationships to their social world, it is critical to use hegemonic identities since many people in hegemonic positions often do not dominate others directly and feel powerful. The creation of hegemonic identities involves maintaining domination social positions through direct coercion that are more basic rather than less obvious. A list of ideas that fit within this topic includes language, power, and gender identity. The issue of language is significantly related to the construction of hegemonic identities since the links between language, cultural models and the immediate interactional stances of individuals are significant for the functioning of hegemonic discourses (Kiesling, 2001). Also, power plays a significant role in the construction of hegemonic identities especially for people in the dominant social positions. For gender identity, men have mastered different ways such as race modeled stance making and marking others that enables them to create their hegemonic identities in the society.

Marking is a technique that places an individual as a member of a dominant, controlling social group by constructing a relegated group that is created by characterizing and explicitly categorizing the subordinate group members (Kiesling, 2001). From the reading’s excerpt. Marking of racial categorization of others is evident to index a person’s racial position. For instance, Ram uses a model that conflates class and race. In this case, euphemism is equated to nonwhite categories including the minorities and ethnic groups, and white is equated to upper-class (Lecture Series 2). The focus on language and power bears new insights concerning how hegemonic status is created. In the first episode of Nice White Parents, white people are seen as powerful and better at everything compared to the other groups. There is a corollary belief that BIPOC families, children, schools, and cultures have nothing to offer and that white students and families make everything better (NPR, 2020). This is clear at the gala when Barbara does not value the cultural and linguistic knowledge that Imee as a Puerto Rican woman possesses. Just because Imee is a female and from a minority cultural group, Barbara does not acknowledge her knowledge of the language. This shows how hegemonic positions are constructed through language and power.

References

Kiesling, S. (2001). Stances of whiteness and hegemony in fraternity men’s discourse. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 11(1), 101-115. https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2001.11.1.101

Lecture Series 2. Indexing Whiteness.

NPR. (2020, October 12). NPR Cookie Consent and Choices. Npr.Org. https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2020/10/12/922092481/podcast-examines-how-nice-white-parents-become-obstacles-in-integrated-schools