Illegitimate Pain and Ideology: Building a Theoretical Model for Future Analyses

Authors: J. Scott Kenney

Abstract:

Not all pain is created equal. In recent decades, the concept of Illegitimate pain has begun to shed light on the phenomena of emotional and physical pain that is misunderstood, neglected, or stigmatized, broadly conceptualized along dimensions of relative legitimation and physicality. Yet, beyond a pioneering study of the suffering of closeted LGBTQ + individuals, along with an analysis of the pains experienced by students at a religious boarding school, there has been insufficient attention to what lies behind such marginalized suffering beyond the original claim that it relates to broad interpretive standards and structured power relations, mediated through interaction in various groups/settings. This paper seeks to delve theoretically into this underdeveloped terrain. Building on earlier work, it takes direct aim at the definitional aspect that lies analytically prior to such matters, theoretically unpacking the role of ideology. Following a general introduction focused on theoretical relationships between social structure, power, and ideas, the paper reviews a range of sociological literature on relevant matters. After condensing the insights from these various literatures into a series of theoretical statements, the paper analytically engages with these to articulate a series of theoretical and methodological elaborations intended to practically assist researchers in empirically examining such matters in today's complex social environment.

Keywords: Deviance, ideology, illegitimate pain, social theory, victimization.

References:

[1] J.S. Kenney, and A. Craig, Illegitimate pain: introducing a concept and a research agenda. Presented at the Qualitative Analysis Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick, May 17, 2007.
[2] J.S. Kenney, and J. Slowey, “Illegitimate pain: dimensions, dynamics, and implications,” in Deviant Behavior, 31(6) 2010, at pp. 477 520.
[3] J.S. Kenney, and A. Craig, “Illegitimate pain: introducing a concept and a research agenda” In Emotions Matter: A Relational Approach to Emotions, D. Spencer, K. Walby, and A. Hunt, Eds.. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012, pp. 86-101.
[4] A.R. Hochschild, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press), 1983.
[5] A.R. Hochschild, “Ideology and emotion management: A perspective and path for future research.” In Research Agendas in the Sociology of Emotions. Ed. T. Kemper. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 117-142.
[6] P.A. Thoits, “Emotional deviance: research agendas.” In Research Agendas in the Sociology of Emotions. Ed. T. Kemper. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, pp. 180-203.
[7] C. Clarke, “Sympathy biography and sympathy margin.” American Journal of Sociology (93(2): 290-321, 1987.
[8] N.K. Denzin, “A note on emotionality, self, and interaction.” American Journal of Sociology 89: 402-9, 1983.
[9] N.K. Denzin, On Understanding Emotion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984.
[10] N.K. Denzin, “Emotion as lived experience,” Symbolic Interaction 8(2): 223-40, 1985.
[11] N.K. Denzin, “On understanding emotion: The interpretive-cultural agenda.” In Research Agendas in the Sociology of Emotions. Ed. T. Kemper. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1990, pp.85-116.
[12] P. Freund, “Social performances and their discontents: The biopsychosocial aspects of dramaturgical stress.” In Emotions in Social Life. Ed. G. Bendelow and S.J. Williams. London and New York: Routledge, 1988, pp.265-290.
[13] J.S. Kenney, “Metaphors of loss: murder, bereavement, gender, and the presentation of the ‘victimized’ self.” International Review of Victimology 9: 219-251, 2002.
[14] J.N. Clarke, Health, Illness, and Medicine in Canada 6th Ed. Oxford University Press, 2011.
[15] L.H. White, “What economics can and cannot say about egalitarian redistribution.” Social Philosophy and Policy 34 (1) Summer 2017: pp. 56-78.
[16] H.M. Goldstein, and R. Meisenbach, “Reproducing whiteness through diversity: a critical discourse analysis of the pro-affirmative action amicus briefs in the Fisher case. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 10(2), 162-180, 2017.
[17] J.J Fernández, and A.M Jaime-Castillo; “The institutional foundation of social class differences in pro-redistribution attitudes: a cross-national analysis,” 1985–2010, Social Forces, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sox068
[18] J. Lingenfelter, W. Block, and L. Englehart, “Income equalization does not confer net social benefits. Wroclaw Economic Review 22(4): 9-23, 2017.
[19] N.K. Cole, “The definition of ideology and the theories behind it.” ThoughtCo https://www.thoughtco.com/ideology-definition-3026356, 2017.
[20] K. Marx, and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vols 1-2. Moscow, 1958.
[21] K. Marx, and F. Engels, The German Ideology. London: Lawrence Wishart, 1965.
[22] E. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Collier Books, 1961/1912.
[23] E. Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society. London: The Free Press, 1964.
[24] E. Durkheim, Suicide, A Study in Sociology. J. A. Spaulding, & G. Simpson, Trans, 1951.
[25] M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Scribners, 1958.
[26] M. Weber, Economy and Society. New York: Bedminster Press, 1968.
[27] A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971.
[28] L. Althusser, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses': Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 121–76, 1971.
[29] K. Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia: Collected Works of Karl Mannheim, Vol. 1. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1936.
[30] P. Bourdieu, “Structures, habitus, practices.” In P. Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990, pp. 52-79.
[31] H. Marcuse, “Repressive tolerance.” In: Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore, jr. and Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965, pp. 95-137.
[32] J. Whitebook, The Marriage of Marx and Freud: Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis. Cambridge Companions Online. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
[33] G.H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.
[34] D. Haraway, “Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective.” Feminist Studies Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 575-599.
[35] A. Schutz, “On multiple realities.” In Collected Papers. Vol.1. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1962.
[36] P. Berger, and T. Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Doubleday, 1966.
[37] H. Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomehodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967.
[38] A. Fontana, “Introduction: existential sociology and the self.” In The Existential Self in Society. Ed J.A. Kotarba and A. Fontana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
[39] S. Pfohl, Images of Deviance and Social Control New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.
[40] I. M. Gomme, The Shadow Line: Deviance and Crime in Canada. 4th Ed, Toronto: Nelson, 2006.
[41] P. Conrad, and J. Schneider, Deviance and Medicalization: From Badness to Sickness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980.
[42] H. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: The Free Pres, 1963).
[43] M. Spector, Malcolm and J. Kitsuse. Constructing Social Problems. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings, 1977.
[44] W.I. Thomas, and D.S. Thomas, The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs. New York: Knopf, 1928.
[45] R. Quinney, The Social Reality of Crime. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1970.
[46] J. Galtung, Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3), 167-191, 1969.
[47] R. Elias, “Transcending our social reality of victimization: toward a victimology of human rights.” Victimology, 1-4, pp. 6-25, 1985.
[48] H.J. Schneider, “Victimological developments in the world during the past three decades (I): a study of comparative victimology.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 45(4), 2001 449-468, 2001.
[49] R. Quinney, “Who is the victim?” Criminology 10 (3): 314-323, 1972.
[50] M. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide. New York: John Wiley, 1958.
[51] M.J. Hindelang, J. Gottfredson, and J. Garofalo, Victims of Personal Crime: An Empirical Foundation for a Theory of Personal Victimization. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Pub. Co., 1978.
[52] L.E. Cohen, and M. Felson, “Social change and crime rate trends: a routine activity approach.” American Sociological Review, 44, 588-608, 1979.
[53] L.E. Cohen, J.R. Kluegel, and K.C. “Land. social inequality and predatory victimization: an exposition and test of a formal theory.” American Sociological. Review. 46:505–24, 1981.
[54] J.J.M. van Dijk, and C.H.D. Steinmetz, The Burden of Crime on Dutch society, 1973-1979. The Hague, Netherlands: Netherlands Ministerie van Justice, 1980.
[55] E.A. Fattah, Understanding Criminal Victimization. Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada, 1991.
[56] L. Wolhuter, N. Olley, and D. Denham, Victimisation and Victims' Rights. Oxford: Routledge-Cavendish. pp.23-26, 2009.
[57] S. Walklate, 'Researching victims', in R. King and E. Wincup, Eds. Doing Research on Crime and Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
[58] J. Young, “Risk of crime and the fear of crime: a realist critique of survey based assumptions.” In M. Maguire & J. Pointing, Eds., Victims of crime: A new deal? Milton Keynes: Open University Press, pp. 164–176, 1988.
[59] E.C. Viano, “Victimology today: major issues in research and public policy.” In E.C. Viano Ed. Crime and Its Victims: International Research and Public Policy Issues New York: Hemisphere, pp.3-14, 1989.
[60] J.A. Holstein, and G. Miller, “Rethinking victimization: an interactional approach to victimology Symbolic Interaction 13(1): 103-122, 1990.
[61] M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon, 1972.
[62] E. Tylor, Edward, Primitive Culture, Vol II. New York: Harper and Row, 1958/1873.
[63] M. Yinger, The Scientific Study of Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1970.
[64] C. Geertz, “Religion as a cultural system.” In M.Banton Ed. Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. London: Tavistock, pp.1-46, 1966.
[65] K.A. Roberts, and D. Yamane, Religion in Sociological Perspective. 5th ed. London: Sage, 2012.
[66] P. Berger, The Sacred Canopy. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1967.
[67] T. Dineen, Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People. Pasadena, CA: R. Davies Publishing, 1996.
[68] G. Lundsknow, The Sociology of Religion: A Substantive and Transdisciplinary Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2008.
[69] R. Bellah, “Civil religion in America.” Dædalus, Vol. 96, No. 1, pp. 1 21, 1967.
[70] T. Luckmann, The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: MacMillan, 1967.
[71] Pew Research Center, “Religious ‘nones’ in America: who they are and what they believe” (January 24, 2024). https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-nones-in-america-who-they-are-and-what-they-believe/
[72] D. Read, The Burning Times. National Film Board of Canada, 1990.
[73] K. Erikson, Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966.
[74] R. Antonio, “After postmodernism: reactionary tribalism.” American Journal of Sociology 106(1) July: 40-87, 2000.
[75] Pew Research Center “Americans’ dismal views of the nation’s politics. (September 19, 2023). https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/americans-dismal-views-of-the-nations-politics/