WEEK 3

This wrap is called Pangi. For me this is ultimately recognizable for the culture of the family of my mothers side. It is a traditional cloth which is worn as a wrapping cloth. This can be worn on a daily basis at home or special ones for family parties or special occasions. The pangi is originative from the Marrons where it is used ceremonial which has the same name. This is a celebration of a girl becoming a grown up woman. I also had this ceremony and have been to many of them from my cousins.

This dress was made by my mom when she was in her late teens. It was meant to be a costume and she saved it in her wardrobe. When I was little I used to wear this dress as a princess dress all the time. It was way to big for me, but my mom altered it so I could wear it. It was superflashy with red and gold and an embroidered fabric. After me my little sisters also wore it and we got into fights about it aswell, because it was easily adjusted. Now that we are all not little children anymore I honestly don't know what happend to it. I think it broke down because of us wearing it so many times and now it's gone.

The example Rivzi gives is one that for me personally is very recognizable. At one point even when there were “skin”colors available to me which came close to mine, I would choose the pink/peach toned one, because it felt more appropriate or better to use. Realizing at one point that you are not the norm is hard and always made me feel like the odd one out. Especially growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood. For me there were more events that gave me this feeling. Like travelling to a bigger city to get products for my hair, because they did not sell this at the local shops, walking around with a pale face in high school because there was not a proper range of foundations available to fit my skin colors right. From the inside I felt alienated, but I always tried to not make a big deal out of it from the outside and just go with it. This was the case till my 20’s which then came the realization that I didn’t want to deal with this anymore and I was done with feeling like this. This image of white always being the norm has always been very present in my life and affected me deeply as a person. I always tried hard to fit in, scared of people not liking me before knowing me. I tried to look, act, sound a certain way, just to get acceptation.

We do often feel trapped. Always thinking about everything that is wrong. This also happens with the problems I see environmentally or in the fashion industry. It is bigger that you and you feel at first like you can not change anything. But now I realize I can make a difference. I want more representation in fashion so I will make sure that happens on my side. I always share my thoughts with other people and try to make them understand that a lot of change is needed. Especially as a designer there is this responsibility you carry with you when you face diversity, sustainability and the whole system that it is in. I also have more understanding in how things are wired in this society and try to inspire others to also do so. When I keep myself educated and I am open to it, I can use this knowledge to put it to good use and to do it differently and better then it was before. To stand up for myself, for the people with the same history as me, for the people who don’t, but are also experiencing the disconvience of their being. And help them embrace themselves and try to change this system together and hopefully break through this system.

The whole thing with the schoolsystem as it is now, is that it is designed to maintain the systematic society that we live in right now. So small things like the public bathrooms should change. But also the hetronormativity that is in the books the kids read, the toys they are supposed to play with, but also the ways they have been thought is the right way to live by. The whole system focuses on how great capitalism is and how white people made this happen and gave us so much wealth and happiness. You will learn the norm and a very formal way of what you would need to survive this society. While in the real world you would also need to learn the emotional sides of everything. How to maintain healthy relationships, how to take care of your body and mind, how to treat another person, how to take care of your surrounding and embrace them, respecting people and different cultures etc. etc. So I think Rizvi has a very valid point here.

REACTION UZMA RIZVI'S QUOTES

This is one of the most important points. There are so many people who do not realize their or acknowledge their privilege. It is already a privilege to not experience the feeling of being marginalized. The thing with people with privileges is that they have a hard time looking at themselves and they need someone to make them aware of their privileges. Even then a lot of them do not see it. The problem with this is that they don’t want to see it, because that would mean they might have to give this up to create an equality. And they think they want this equality, but not if that would downgrade them. Also if you acknowledge your privilege it means you have to do the work to use your advantage for other people and be selfless in this act. Which is very hard, because it is easier to do something that really benefits yourself. Especially when there are no personal consequences for it. For example, I was visiting a photography expo about the life on the streets of Brooklyn. It was photographed by a black artist and the pictures had captions about the people in the photo’s. A lot of them said people died /got killed shortly after their picture was taken. There was a white older wife and husband also looking at the expo and the lady told her husband that she thought the photographer was brave for photographing these people and that she was shocked they all died so young. This is her privilege talking. Because she didn’t even realize stuff like this happens all the time in a lot of parts of the world. And she is unaware, because she doesn’t have to think about it, because she can not relate. I also imagine her only being a little shocked at that moment. But she let’s go of it as soon as she leaves the exposition.

DOCUMENTED OBJECT: PANGI

DOCUMENTED FORGOTTEN OBJECT: MY MOMS SELFMADE DRESSCOSTUME

SUPERSTRUCTURE

Everything that is important to society and which forms society but more as supportive, like a foundation of the modes of production. And this happend as a way of coping/handling the modes of production



IN SOCIETY TODAY

You can tell that the rich or as in this theory called the bourgeoisie still have the upperhand. in ruling whatever happens in the world. Especially if you are looking at the bigger conglomerate companies like shell, McDonalds, apple, amazon, Facebook. The superstructure is what gives color and meaning to life and makes you feel like you matter in a society like this.


MODES OF PRODUCTION

It’s the combination of the technical, scientifically, material parts of the economy which is owned by the capitalists and the working class in what kind of work they do, for what they earn and how much profit they make by doing this.


IN SOCIETY TODAY

The worst thing within the modes of production I can think of right now is for example the fashion industry. In which the working class is being exploited in the making of fast fashion clothes for a very low wage and the big company like primair taking advantage of their workers for putting it on the market for cheap and not paying them enough and making large profits because of that


FORCES OF PRODUCTION

The materials, resources, buildings, tools, technology etc, owned by someone (that makes them capitalists) to be used by the working class to make labor happen.


IN SOCIETY TODAY

The owner of apple who came with an original idea, now tries to be first within technical developments and it being made by the working class. With the resources of the capitalists


RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION

Specifies the difference of the people whom produce without the resources being from them. They can only work with. They produce for world population and not in particularly for themselves. The people they work for decides what. Happens with the goods and receives the money for which it gives them profit.


IN SOCIETY TODAY

This is what happens now almost everywhere when someone would work for a big company. You offer work for wage (so not for whatever it is really worth) and you produce in this work and you receive the agreed amount of money for that work. The company decides what to do with the money and profit.


MEANS OF PRODUCTION

The materials you need to use in order to work and produce goods. All of the physical stuff from the land to stand on, working materials, machinery, tools. The one who controls this in difference which it leads to exploitation in capitalism in form of wage labor.


IN SOCIETY TODAY

Again this is what happens now with all the sweatshops, where the big companies own everything and they exploit workers who would work for less which creates a big gap of wealth in between them and in exchange the capitalist makes a lot of money because of it.


HEGEMONY

The things that seem normal In society, but were taken upon without asking questions. Which made it dominant. This caused the capitalists to stay in power very effectively.


IN SOCIETY TODAY

Social media and the use of smart phones. Everyone uses them and takes them for granted it is now integrated as part of society. Which keeps the owners of the social media platforms very rich.


CONFLICT THEORIES

Looking at the different power dynamics and analyzing the ways power struggles, which triggers the society to change and all the groups of people want resources being available. So there is a lot of injustice and conflict between classes which triggers a revolution


IN SOCIETY TODAY

For example the BLM movement


What is the difference between a manifest and a latent function of things that society develops to keep it going? (such as institutions)

Manifest functions is what is intended to it’s purpose to keep the society moving forward. You have different kind of institutions which carry different roles to support this. The latent function has unintended consequences from the manifest functions.

What are important institutions in your life today?

I find this a very hard question, because in the society as it is constructed right now, I think everything is in some certain way important. But if I look at what I personally find important now, is school, a doctor and politics




What are social facts?

These are rules or more or less a way of living that needs to be contained. What is generally good and what is bad. These are objects which have a lot of life impact on an individual, but you can not really change as an individual.You do not really notice them until you go in against it.

The differences between the three perspectives are at first that the two first ones are on a society (macro view) and the last one on the individual (micro). The last one is more based on what kind of experiences someone goes through and how they are infected by the people closest to them in the beginning stages of their lives and by their experiences in life later on. The first one is based on creating big gaps between the higher and the lower of people in society. Where in the higher rules and the lower works for them. The second one is more based on the functionality of a society and how this would fit together as a puzzle, but also would collapse if one piece of the puzzle would miss.

The theory I thought I connected best with was the last one of the symbolic interactionism. I feel like it is good to look at people as individuals and what they would need. Everyone goes to different things and are raised in a different way. Also I think the environment that you grew up in and are surrounded by have a big impact on your life and beliefs.




The other two seem a little more outdated for me because it doesn’t acknowledge the fact that people have different interests or to even question a certain system that is brought upon society. Also how would that explain to have people who climb up to the higher class when they started out as being lower class.




Last on this topic I wanted to add that the theories seem to mostly apply to the western society and how they forced this way of seeing the world upon the rest of the world. I believe structures of society used to be very different in parts of Africa and also for example for indigenous people, where they are much more focused on living with mother nature and having a spiritual connection with the earth. There are people who would survive as individuals if you would open up to live together with nature and respecting it and learning how to live within instead of centering yourself as being the highest living creature of the world.

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