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The crosscurrents of ethnicity and class in the construction of public policy
Author(s) -
Lipuma Edward,
Meltzoff Sarah Keene
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1997.24.1.114
Subject(s) - ethnic group , class (philosophy) , intersection (aeronautics) , embodied cognition , function (biology) , power (physics) , sociology , politics , plan (archaeology) , political science , geography , computer science , anthropology , law , artificial intelligence , cartography , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , evolutionary biology , biology
In this study we analyze the creation of a land‐use plan in south Florida to demonstrate the crosscurrents of ethnicity and class that underlie the plan's design and implementation, and that are unrecognized as such by the participants. We argue that the main determinants of “rational management” are the hidden relations of economic and symbolic power embodied in the intersection of class and ethnicity, and how these forms of power enable agents in the public political sphere. In this case, science has a legitimizing rather than analytical function, implicating it in the construction of misrecognition.