Bodies, non-human matter and the micropolitical production of sociomaterial dis/advantage

This article sets out a more-than-human framework within which to explore the contribution of non-human matter to social inequality. Applying an approach based in Deleuzian ethology, we extend three invitations: to address the multiplicity and fluidity of dis/advantage, to explore its production in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of sociology (Melbourne, Vic.) Vic.), 2022-12, Vol.58 (4), p.499-516
Main Authors: Fox, Nick J, Alldred, Pam
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advantages
Equality
Ethology
Historiography
Humans
Materialism
Methodology
Social aspects
Social classes
Social inequality
Social reproduction
Sociology
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Summary:This article sets out a more-than-human framework within which to explore the contribution of non-human matter to social inequality. Applying an approach based in Deleuzian ethology, we extend three invitations: to address the multiplicity and fluidity of dis/advantage, to explore its production in everyday interactions, and to acknowledge non-human as well as human matter in the emergence of dis/advantage. The article examines how the interactions between human and non-human matter produce and reproduce context-specific bodily capacities and incapacities, and consequently 'a thousand tiny dis/advantages'. These dis/advantages may accumulate to produce substantive inequalities and social divisions. An illustrative re-reading of Paul Willis's 1970s study of the cultural reproduction of social inequality Learning to Labour reveals the complex ways in which daily encounters between human and non-human matter produce both transient and lasting dis/advantage. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this more-than-human perspective for the sociological study of inequality.
ISSN:1440-7833
1741-2978
DOI:10.1177/14407833211002641