Notes On Social Classification

At first sight, the process of clustering in almost every acts, events, objects, and traits encountered us seems like a natural or normal phenomena. Binary views as a process of differentiation exist in our everyday life. So do grouping based on the sameness and similarities of particular characteristics. Hence, it is not surprising when we see people, for example, we are very fluent to make a quick snap categorization between the “strangers” and “acquaintances”, “men” and “women”, “big” and “small”, etc. In fact, the ability to classify or categorize involves a mental process. This mental process is going continuously referring to what Eviatar Zerubavel calls “the islands of meaning”.

In the study of the social construction of difference and similarity, a sociologist Zerubavel simply terms the sociological typology of this cognitive process into “lumping” and “splitting”. Lumping is a process of classifying based on seemingly homogeneous mental niches to lump things together. Whereas splitting is a process of carving seemingly discrete categories. Both could always possibly occur at the same time. Very often in our daily life we act as if we are part of a certain group in which have something in common, but at the same time we differentiate ourselves with another groups with seemingly different characteristics.

Even though we could say that the process of lumping and splitting takes place in a cognitive realm, the way we make that process happen is not isolated from the process of socialization internalized to us, relating to the way in which we see the world. It is still, the way we participate to lump or split, undoubtedly socially constructed. As Zerubavel says:

“We often threat the mental gaps separating “different” islands of meaning from one another as if they were part of nature… Yet such mental divides are purely conventional. Reality is continuous, and if we envision distinct clusters separated from one another by actual gaps it is because we have been socialize to “see” them. In other words, it is social convention that transforms actual oceans into archipelagos.”

It is important to note that the social world introduced to us has already been shaped into “archipelagos”, meaning that there exists different islands of meaning. The tendency of individuals or groups to lump or split is part of continual process. But once again, as it is social convention, we should consider the existence of a certain “community of thought” determines the way we get involved in the processes.

It is obviously crucial when we study social classification to avoid ethnocentric point of view with respect to understand the social process of why some people are lumping into similarities, at the same time splitting into differentiations. Going beyond a narrow–minded view by creating comparative perspective is important for social scientists. A comparative approach to understand the process of social classification can highlight cognitive diversity among members of society. Acknowledging the fact that we live in the diversity of “community of thought” is a good starting point before we jump into the ocean of social classification.

Sumber aciknadzirah.blogspot.com

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