asking the internets, redux
15 May 2010 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouOkay, with comments and discussion in mind from the previous post, and trying very hard to get out from under nation-specific or culture-specific labeling systems, how about these series of questions, instead? non-US folks please lend me your eyeballs as well, and let me know if you think your answers would match up with the answers I'm trying to get...
ETA2: first draft is colored in green, and starts here ---->
1 what is your family ethnicity? ==> select all that apply from (OMG MASSIVE) list of ethnicities
for me, I'd be clicking on "scots, irish, french, dutch, and english"...
2 what is your nationality? ==> select one (two?) from list of countries
-------that would be citizenship, as in: the name of the country on your passport
3 were you born & raised where you currently live?
a) yes, always had the same nationality
b) no, immigrated in childhood
c) no, currently seeking new citizenship
d) no, on temporary assignment (less than 2yrs)
e) no, on longterm/open-ended assignment
-------trying to determine whether living in home culture, and if not, whether trying to integrate into new culture (ie citizenship) or only passing through (ie student/work/military)
3b if you were born & raised somewhere else... ==> select one from list of countries
4 are you white? // are you/your family visually similar to 'american white'? [AWK!]
a) yes, definitely white
b) yes, somewhat similar
c) not sure
d) no, not really similar
e) no, definitely not-white
-------is "person of color" an international term? or only a western term? here, trying to measure against the dominant global force of white-culture (US/UK) media/economy/etc... but is "do you look like a white american?" a question that makes sense to non-americans?
[note: yes, I'm aware this next one is VERY problematic for a variety of reasons, just so you know before you go further, and more discussion in post & in comments]
5 do you regularly suffer institutionalized discrimination of any of the following types? check all that apply
--> sex, gender, skin color, disability, size, age, sexuality, religion, ethnicity...
-------the problem is that all I want to be able to do is track whether a respondent's statements are made as a person of privilege, or if they're speaking as someone more dis-privileged... and since I can't measure for everything (or #5 will be here all day), at least in this context I'd prefer to narrow it down to just race/skin-color, because otherwise the variables are overwhelming.
----> first draft ends here & second version starts here ------>
1 same question as #1 above, about ethnicity
2 where do you currently reside? ----> list of countries
3 is this the same as your nationality / do you hold citizenship? ----> yes / no
4 if NO, select one:
a) short-term resident (student, assignment, work, travelling) and don't intend to stay here permanently
b) long-term resident / ex-patriate / not seeking citizenship
c) long-term resident seeking citizenship
that pretty much covers the possibilities for "living outside own nation", right?
5 also if NO, are you or have you attempted to integrate as much as possible into your adopted culture, ie 'going native'? --> yes/no
although it feels to me that 'going native' is an offensive term right there, so need less loaded version that carries same connotation of "fully adopting with intentions to eventually pass as belonging".
... so now we've got ethnicity, residence, and whether the person is native to that culture or not AND whether they have or are trying to become part of a non-native culture.
5 how westernized*/white do you look? // guh. can't I just say: "look, are you racially privileged, or not!?"
a) am white
b) somewhat look white
c) don't look white
* the problem with 'westernized' is that it's class and dress and other stuff, not just skin color -- someone could look completely, say, Cantonese and still be 'westernized' due to wearing Levis and listening to American music, from what I understand, so in this case 'westernized' indicates an attempt to affiliate with global privilege but doesn't indicate whether the person is part of the national privilege
...and there I come to a complete halt. Need more dirt!
-------> second draft ends here & now back to original post -------->
I am too cognizant of the fact that race is not the only way one can be discriminated against, but is it intuitively clear that "institutionalized" means "govt-supported policy" or is that too narrowing? how to best put it so the respondent will be saying, "yes, that sort of discrimination is cultural, transnational, broad, pervasive, govt-supported" -- as opposed to "oh, I got discriminated against because I have a Philly accent and I live in Atlanta" which on paper looks the same but is nowhere near the xenophobic discrimination given as an immigrant... help.
So at this point, I'll know: where the person resides currently, whether zie is citizen, immigrant, or traveller, the person's familial ethnicity (a more roundabout way of determining likeliest racial facets, at least in general), whether the person has enough dominant Anglo/north-Europe ethnicity to match with dominant global paradigm, and whether the person feels to have suffered discrimination.
It's that last one that really really bugs me, because it requires that the person assess, on own, whether or not there's been suffering from discrimination... and any time even in general fandom, you've probably seen the same idiocy I have, where some white guy (like whotshisface in the last hollywood debacle about it) insists that he suffers a type of discrimination because he's not female/PoC/whatever. It's that whole "diversity quotas make life hard for white guys!" thing, which is stupid but also human because we always believe (if only secretly) that we're speshul snowflakes who've gotten it the worst of anyone, cue the oppression olympics. Asking people to self-assess is just opening the door, I suspect, on a whole lot of oppression olympics -- as in a woman who's a size 10 who feels the social pressure of being smaller counts as "discrimination", because she's never known life as a size 20 or greater to realize just what social pressure is really like -- thus would honestly believe she's giving a true answer to say she's experienced sizeism, even if by any external/objective standard she hasn't got a freaking clue.
That kind of self-assessment danger means I really really do NOT want to ask outright, but need to come at it from an angle, to present it via an objective kind of standard. Hmmmm.
Would it make intuitive (that is, not requiring massively long explanation) sense to simply ask whether the respondent has the same skin color as the most privileged members of his/her culture? Or can anyone think of circumstances where the objective answer would be yes, but the cultural logic would prompt a different answer?
Again, I suspect the real meat of the discussion is going to be in the comments, what with you guys around to make sure I don't go whole hog US-centric and make a complete fool of myself. Err, I hope. You did get the checks from my mom, right? So you'll keep being helpful, right? Excellent!
ETA: Hmm, isn't the question really: how can you objectively identify the most privileged group in any given culture? What terms, descriptions, categories are universal for privilege -- as in, "the majority of people with political power" or "the people you see on domestically-produced television" or "the majority of your culture's pop stars and soap opera stars"... What kind of criteria is a universal way to identify the privileged class, such that the followup question then becomes: do you look like that? ...
Of course the drawback is that "no, I don't" could mean "my skin color is different" but it could also be the person's thinking, "no, because I'm a size-something" or "no, because I'm in a wheelchair" -- or even less literally, that if the respondent sees "look like that" to mean inside as well as outside, then I could see someone thinking, "no, because I'm an unmarried female in my thirties and thus am not 'like' all the women my age on television, who are all housewives".
Not to mention gender/sex enters into it, if someone feels their sexuality, frex, is external and part of how they "look" -- so someone transgender might say, "no, I don't look like the members of parliament even if someone else might think I do, because I don't have that extra something to make me appear (truly) male", perhaps? Or even a woman saying, "I don't look like a bunch of men..."
Which just points out the importance of making the language as clear and concise and objective as possible... but is it really right to assume it's a universal thing, in every culture everywhere (or at least the ones with internet access! and that's, uhm, pretty much everywhere by now) that lighter skin = more prized? Because I am really uncomfortable with the assumption hiding in there, that of course generic-you would measure yourself against white-skin (or at least that generic-culture does) and thus grades you as closer or farther from that standard. I don't like the implications of imperialism/dominance, the "well, of course you'd want to be white!" kind of moronic offensive unspoken assumption -- but setting aside whether or not anyone wants to be American-white, would it still be generally true that the majority of cultures do prize paler skin (even if the measure of 'pale' would be equal to PoC against American-white)? Is that a decent objective standard to use, or is there something else anyone can think of, that doesn't require excessive amounts of self-assessment on the part of someone replying?
Y'know, I think now would be a good time to go play in the dirt.
ETA2: first draft is colored in green, and starts here ---->
1 what is your family ethnicity? ==> select all that apply from (OMG MASSIVE) list of ethnicities
for me, I'd be clicking on "scots, irish, french, dutch, and english"...
2 what is your nationality? ==> select one (two?) from list of countries
-------that would be citizenship, as in: the name of the country on your passport
3 were you born & raised where you currently live?
a) yes, always had the same nationality
b) no, immigrated in childhood
c) no, currently seeking new citizenship
d) no, on temporary assignment (less than 2yrs)
e) no, on longterm/open-ended assignment
-------trying to determine whether living in home culture, and if not, whether trying to integrate into new culture (ie citizenship) or only passing through (ie student/work/military)
3b if you were born & raised somewhere else... ==> select one from list of countries
4 are you white? // are you/your family visually similar to 'american white'? [AWK!]
a) yes, definitely white
b) yes, somewhat similar
c) not sure
d) no, not really similar
e) no, definitely not-white
-------is "person of color" an international term? or only a western term? here, trying to measure against the dominant global force of white-culture (US/UK) media/economy/etc... but is "do you look like a white american?" a question that makes sense to non-americans?
[note: yes, I'm aware this next one is VERY problematic for a variety of reasons, just so you know before you go further, and more discussion in post & in comments]
5 do you regularly suffer institutionalized discrimination of any of the following types? check all that apply
--> sex, gender, skin color, disability, size, age, sexuality, religion, ethnicity...
-------the problem is that all I want to be able to do is track whether a respondent's statements are made as a person of privilege, or if they're speaking as someone more dis-privileged... and since I can't measure for everything (or #5 will be here all day), at least in this context I'd prefer to narrow it down to just race/skin-color, because otherwise the variables are overwhelming.
----> first draft ends here & second version starts here ------>
1 same question as #1 above, about ethnicity
2 where do you currently reside? ----> list of countries
3 is this the same as your nationality / do you hold citizenship? ----> yes / no
4 if NO, select one:
a) short-term resident (student, assignment, work, travelling) and don't intend to stay here permanently
b) long-term resident / ex-patriate / not seeking citizenship
c) long-term resident seeking citizenship
that pretty much covers the possibilities for "living outside own nation", right?
5 also if NO, are you or have you attempted to integrate as much as possible into your adopted culture, ie 'going native'? --> yes/no
although it feels to me that 'going native' is an offensive term right there, so need less loaded version that carries same connotation of "fully adopting with intentions to eventually pass as belonging".
... so now we've got ethnicity, residence, and whether the person is native to that culture or not AND whether they have or are trying to become part of a non-native culture.
5 how westernized*/white do you look? // guh. can't I just say: "look, are you racially privileged, or not!?"
a) am white
b) somewhat look white
c) don't look white
* the problem with 'westernized' is that it's class and dress and other stuff, not just skin color -- someone could look completely, say, Cantonese and still be 'westernized' due to wearing Levis and listening to American music, from what I understand, so in this case 'westernized' indicates an attempt to affiliate with global privilege but doesn't indicate whether the person is part of the national privilege
...and there I come to a complete halt. Need more dirt!
-------> second draft ends here & now back to original post -------->
I am too cognizant of the fact that race is not the only way one can be discriminated against, but is it intuitively clear that "institutionalized" means "govt-supported policy" or is that too narrowing? how to best put it so the respondent will be saying, "yes, that sort of discrimination is cultural, transnational, broad, pervasive, govt-supported" -- as opposed to "oh, I got discriminated against because I have a Philly accent and I live in Atlanta" which on paper looks the same but is nowhere near the xenophobic discrimination given as an immigrant... help.
So at this point, I'll know: where the person resides currently, whether zie is citizen, immigrant, or traveller, the person's familial ethnicity (a more roundabout way of determining likeliest racial facets, at least in general), whether the person has enough dominant Anglo/north-Europe ethnicity to match with dominant global paradigm, and whether the person feels to have suffered discrimination.
It's that last one that really really bugs me, because it requires that the person assess, on own, whether or not there's been suffering from discrimination... and any time even in general fandom, you've probably seen the same idiocy I have, where some white guy (like whotshisface in the last hollywood debacle about it) insists that he suffers a type of discrimination because he's not female/PoC/whatever. It's that whole "diversity quotas make life hard for white guys!" thing, which is stupid but also human because we always believe (if only secretly) that we're speshul snowflakes who've gotten it the worst of anyone, cue the oppression olympics. Asking people to self-assess is just opening the door, I suspect, on a whole lot of oppression olympics -- as in a woman who's a size 10 who feels the social pressure of being smaller counts as "discrimination", because she's never known life as a size 20 or greater to realize just what social pressure is really like -- thus would honestly believe she's giving a true answer to say she's experienced sizeism, even if by any external/objective standard she hasn't got a freaking clue.
That kind of self-assessment danger means I really really do NOT want to ask outright, but need to come at it from an angle, to present it via an objective kind of standard. Hmmmm.
Would it make intuitive (that is, not requiring massively long explanation) sense to simply ask whether the respondent has the same skin color as the most privileged members of his/her culture? Or can anyone think of circumstances where the objective answer would be yes, but the cultural logic would prompt a different answer?
Again, I suspect the real meat of the discussion is going to be in the comments, what with you guys around to make sure I don't go whole hog US-centric and make a complete fool of myself. Err, I hope. You did get the checks from my mom, right? So you'll keep being helpful, right? Excellent!
ETA: Hmm, isn't the question really: how can you objectively identify the most privileged group in any given culture? What terms, descriptions, categories are universal for privilege -- as in, "the majority of people with political power" or "the people you see on domestically-produced television" or "the majority of your culture's pop stars and soap opera stars"... What kind of criteria is a universal way to identify the privileged class, such that the followup question then becomes: do you look like that? ...
Of course the drawback is that "no, I don't" could mean "my skin color is different" but it could also be the person's thinking, "no, because I'm a size-something" or "no, because I'm in a wheelchair" -- or even less literally, that if the respondent sees "look like that" to mean inside as well as outside, then I could see someone thinking, "no, because I'm an unmarried female in my thirties and thus am not 'like' all the women my age on television, who are all housewives".
Not to mention gender/sex enters into it, if someone feels their sexuality, frex, is external and part of how they "look" -- so someone transgender might say, "no, I don't look like the members of parliament even if someone else might think I do, because I don't have that extra something to make me appear (truly) male", perhaps? Or even a woman saying, "I don't look like a bunch of men..."
Which just points out the importance of making the language as clear and concise and objective as possible... but is it really right to assume it's a universal thing, in every culture everywhere (or at least the ones with internet access! and that's, uhm, pretty much everywhere by now) that lighter skin = more prized? Because I am really uncomfortable with the assumption hiding in there, that of course generic-you would measure yourself against white-skin (or at least that generic-culture does) and thus grades you as closer or farther from that standard. I don't like the implications of imperialism/dominance, the "well, of course you'd want to be white!" kind of moronic offensive unspoken assumption -- but setting aside whether or not anyone wants to be American-white, would it still be generally true that the majority of cultures do prize paler skin (even if the measure of 'pale' would be equal to PoC against American-white)? Is that a decent objective standard to use, or is there something else anyone can think of, that doesn't require excessive amounts of self-assessment on the part of someone replying?
Y'know, I think now would be a good time to go play in the dirt.
no subject
Date: 15 May 2010 07:04 pm (UTC)1. Is there an option for unknowns (since I'd check English, but the rest of my ancestry is unknown to me)?
2. Probably make an option for people with dual citizenships. Or maybe talk about the nation or nations of cultural identification.
3. Up to what age would you consider childhood? My mother's family immigrated when the children were between 10-14 years of age. Also, how would you classfy someone who came as an adult, but not on an assignment, but who isn't necessarily seeking citizenship? Also, for the citizenship question, are you looking for a question of permanent residence, or actual citizenship, which are different things. Or well, do you assume that all people who have permanent residence would choose to become citizens if the option were viable?
4. Not sure how to address this question, but it's valid. Maybe "visually, do others perceive you to be of western/northern European descent?"
5. This one completely bothers me. Hmm... who is your target for this study? Can you reasonably assume that they'll be aware of or agree with the concept of discrimination as a structural thing, even if you could make the idea of discrimination as being structured completely clear to respondents? Plus, how does one measure discrimination except through subjective reporting especially where it concerns internalized attitudes? What about discrimination that's not based on skin color? (I think that's what you were asking in question five, but unless you were willing to ask for similar questions for all facets of identity, not just race. And even then, there's still the global juggernaut of whiteness).
no subject
Date: 15 May 2010 07:18 pm (UTC)Yep -- I've got a list of ethnicities and nationalities and they're both pretty comprehensive (though I could see some quibbling with nationality because it's based on UN-recognized, since that's the most consistent over long period, and that does leave out non-recognized and/or newer nation-states but ANYWAY) -- one of the options is definitely "not sure/unknown".
As for #2, if we're going to get technical, the most possible is triple citizenship, IIRC -- two from parents, one from spouse. So the question would have to allow for multiple checks. I've known a whole lotta dual-citizenship folk in my life, so no intention of forgetting them!
...I was going with shorthand in the question, but I'd probably clarify "prior to adulthood/18 yrs old" -- since somewhere around 18-19 seems to be a somewhat universal understanding of adulthood, at least very early adulthood. Most countries, frex, measure obscenity and child-protection and criminal-statutes as ending/starting around the age of 17-19.
Also, how would you classfy someone who came as an adult, but not on an assignment, but who isn't necessarily seeking citizenship?
Long-term open-ended but not seeking citizenship. Wait, did I conflate the two in the draft answers? Serves me right for typing too fast...
Also, for the citizenship question, are you looking for a question of permanent residence, or actual citizenship, which are different things.
Basically what I'm looking for is: "are you attempting to acculturate/integrate into your current residential culture?" -- because people can live long-term in a foreign place and never make any attempt to integrate; they just remain expats living overseas and still fundamentally their own culture with no interest in 'going native'. And you don't have to gain/earn citizenship, really, to attempt that integration, though in most cases citizenship is a kind of graduation-cap on the process of cultural integration/adoption.
But no, I've known too many people who have no intention nor interest in (and some quite arrogantly dismissive of!) the whole 'going native' thing, so I've no illusions that permanent residence automatically means "I'd get citizenship if I could" -- some people never will, and some can't, for various other reasons, and thus would say "no, I don't want citizenship" because that's easier than saying, "I could never get citizenship for X or Y reasons".
The bottom line is basically: are you a long-term (since birth) member of the culture in which you now live, and if not pick one from the reasons (temp, expat, immigrant, etc), and if newcomer (to any degree) have you or are you working towards integrating into your adopted culture?
...and even then I could see people saying "no," to the last one, if, say, language struggles in new country are such that they've given up, and see that as meaning they're not "really" becoming part of their new culture -- when in fact, in all the other ways that count, maybe they are.
The problem with self-assessment type questions is that in a lot of ways, people aren't literal enough, are often too literal, and are almost always way too hard on themselves while at the same time more likely than not are also going to see themselves as an exception to any rule.
Maybe I could just tell people to upload a PICTURE. /snark
no subject
Date: 15 May 2010 07:58 pm (UTC)Yeah, and also the people who immigrate, but who are automatically subsumed into the acculturated whole (despite maybe wanting to preserve their heritage) because their look and language are part of the dominant culture. So that might be a "no" too, but that doesn't imply that they didn't acculturate.
The problem with self-assessment type questions is that in a lot of ways, people aren't literal enough, are often too literal, and are almost always way too hard on themselves while at the same time more likely than not are also going to see themselves as an exception to any rule.
Yeah. There's no way ever to take something as nebulous as discrimination, and turn it into a question that no one is ever going to misinterpret. Nor is there a way, as an outsider, of judging effectively whether anyone has suffered 'legitimate discrimination' without the subject talking about their experiences. (Hypothetically, if my mother complained about being discriminated against because she's white, that would be one thing. But if she complained about being discriminated against as an immigrant, that's another, even if an observer wouldn't have any way of telling just through a casual meeting that she's not from around here)
no subject
Date: 16 May 2010 08:49 am (UTC)He got into trouble returning here after a trip to the States about ten years back, because he had never sorted out his citizenship (despite both parents having lived here for decades, as well as him), but tried again a week later using the Irish passport, got in, and said to us all he was sorting out the Kiwi citizenship ASAP.
Assuming he did so (and he's travelled out of the country since, I think, so it seems likely), he's got three passports. Doubtless he could get another if he married the right person!
no subject
Date: 16 May 2010 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 May 2010 04:20 pm (UTC)It's certainly far from common! Birth and marriage aren't the only ways, either. Used to be (not sure if it still is) that you could earn temporary citizenship in certain countries (Britain being one of them) if you'd been working & living in the country for a certain length of time. I think it was mostly related to "you've been paying taxes while you live here, so you should get some of the benefits, too" -- and having earned that quasi-citizenship, you could then travel through the EU as a Brit citizen. A'course, it was also something you were expected to immediately surrender upon returning to the US (though I don't know if all countries require that).
Then again, the US is notorious at being very stringent when it comes to multiple citizenships. What they don't know, they'll often let pass, but once they do know... or so I've been told.
And then you have situations like Japan, which refuses to recognize dual citizenship. If you have duality with Japan, you're required to either declare your citizenship by the age of, hm, 22, I think, or you lose it altogether. Thing is, when I checked, this really only means you tell the Japanese govt that you're ditching your other citizenships, and that's the extent of it. The US policy is that as long as you were not required -- in the course of 'ditching' -- to then, and I quote, "swear an oath against the United States and its territories", you have not forfeited your US citizenship. So you could still walk your ass into an embassy and get a passport... it's just that as far as Japan is concerned, you're a citizen only of Japan, while the US will have you down as US-and-Japan.
Every government has its own idiosyncrasies. It's actually a pretty fascinating field, and too bad I only learned this stuff in the past few years, because this is the kind of law I would've really enjoyed practicing.
no subject
Date: 16 May 2010 11:10 pm (UTC)Yes. My aunt had to officially give up her NZ citizenship when she moved to live in Sri Lanka with her husband. When they decided they wanted to come back to NZ again, she asked our bureaucrats if it was possible to get it back, but they laughed and explained that it didn't matter what she said to Sri Lanka, she actually *couldn't* give up her NZ citizenship that way, because we wouldn't recognise it.