When Increasing Social Distance Breeds Dehumanization
July 3rd, 2009 by SocProf and tagged Global Cities, Human Rights, Migration, Population, Poverty, Public Policy, Social Exclusion, Social Inequalities, social marginality, Social Privileges, Structural Violence, Urban Ecology
One of the quotes that I noted as important in The Spirit Level was the following:
"Inequality increases the social distance between different groups of people, making us less willing to see them as "us" rather than "them". (62)
Social distance can be created in different ways: physically through patterns of urban development that segregate different areas of a city based on social class, or through gated communities or other modes of geographical segregation. But social distance can also be created through stereotypes and ideas about "these people" (whoever they happen to be) and reinforced through the media so that contacts between groups will be limited not by physical barriers but by social ones (physical barriers may then follow as one would not want to live near "these people" or let them move in the neighborhood).
I was reminded of these points when I read this article in Le Monde:
For the non-French readers, the article deals with the apartment-cages in Hong-Kong, occupied mostly by immigrants trying to make it there, available for rent for € 150.00 per month:
One can easily imagine the living conditions in these cages. But one stroke me in particular was the fact that the authorities in Hong-Kong tried to get rid of this type of housing by starting a program of low-income housing development. Under Tung Chee Hwa, the plan was to build 50,000 units a year between 1997 and 2004.
Then, the increasingly wealthy, property-owning class got scared of this social initiative and in effect killed it. There is no more low-income housing being built because the wealthy classes were afraid that it would drive down the value of their property. So, who cares if some people have to live in cages as long as property value is maintained.
The majority of cave-dwellers / renters are recent immigrants from continental China. They are "these people", those that wealthier property owners want to keep at bay, at distance, and whose value is irrelevant compared to the value of prime real estate.
Social distance breeds dehumanization.
Posted in Global Cities, Human Rights, Migration, Population, Poverty, Public Policy, Social Exclusion, Social Inequalities, Social Privilege, Structural Violence, Urban Ecology, social marginality | No Comments »
