Abstract

GUZMAN, Virginia; BAROZET, Emmanuelle  and  MENDEZ, María Luisa. Legitimation and critique of inequality: a pragmatic approach. Convergencia [online]. 2017, vol.24, n.73, pp.87-112. ISSN 2448-5799.

Addressing a pragmatic sociology perspective, this article presents the results of a study carried out in Chile in a context characterized by growing public debate about social inequalities and increasing criticisms from ordinary people. Using a methodology based on a classificatory card game, we seek to understand how people describe society, its hierarchies, and the groups that compose it, as well as the arguments used to justify or criticize inequalities. We analyze the principles and values that organize the representations of Chilean society and focus on the dynamics of class and gender that feed those classifications. This exercise helps show that social critique and legitimation of inequality can operate simultaneously but at different levels.

Keywords : inequality; critique; legitimation; pragmatic sociology; injustice..

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