Comparative Inequality & Inclusion Cluster and Social Exclusion and Inclusion Seminar (Zoom)
Date and Time
Location
"The Return of Inequality"
Attend this event via Zoom (advance registration required)
Author:
Mike Savage, Martin White Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics.
Discussants:
Leslie McCall, Associate Director, Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality; Presidential Professor of Sociology and Political Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).
Branko Milanovic, Visiting Presidential Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).
Miguel Centeno, Musgrave Professor of Sociology; Vice-Dean, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
Contact:
inequalitycluster@wcfia.harvard.edu
Organized by the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion and the Seminar on Social Exclusion and Inclusion at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES)
This event is online only. Please click the "Read More" link for full instructions on how to attend this seminar.
Co-chairs:
Jonathan Mijs, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Boston University.
Michèle Lamont, Faculty Associate; Chair, Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion. Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies; Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies, Departments of Sociology and African and African American Studies, Harvard University.
Remote Access Information:
To join by computer:
https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3h3kBqvDRTe38URc7fYtNQ
Please note: This event requires registration in advance in order to receive the meeting link and password.
Abstract:
In The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past, sociologist Mike Savage argues that time and history have to be taken more seriously by scholars of social inequality. Understanding 21st century inequality needs to go beyond considering the differential relationships between people and acknowledge the balance of present-day actions against the weight of past forces. Contemporary capitalism is not new, dynamic and turbo-charged; it is marked by the entrenchment of inherited privilege, and the renewal of empire in a post-colonial world.
The inequality turn has led to a ready spatialization of concepts and measurement, whether through Bourdieu’s conception of fields, or relational approaches more broadly, but have not sufficiently understood how inequality and especially the return of capital and wealth is part of a renewal of past forces. He therefore offers an altogether bleaker and more disturbing view which questions the contemporary fixation with novelty and innovation.