Stratified societies employ social and spatial distance mechanisms to maintain status boundaries

Evidence

In 1960, van den Berghe published an influential paper in sociology on “Distance Mechanisms of Stratification,” in which he argued that all systems of stratification devise mechanisms to differentiate subordinates from dominants and to maintain status boundaries between them. Instead of depicting segregation as an intermediate step in the expression of intergroup hostility, he saw it as one of two possible types of distance mechanisms that would necessarily be employed by dominant groups to serve their unequal relations with subordinates. To create an impermeable status barrier between themselves and subordinates, he argued that dominants rely primarily on either social distance mechanisms that dictate group-specific social roles (e.g., restricting the occupations subordinates can pursue) and an intergroup etiquette of dominance and deference, or spatial distance mechanisms (such as de jure or de facto segregation) that separate the two groups in their use of physical space. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 654

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier Milgrom law-merchant reading on how status/institutions maintain order in stratified exchange — both analyze how social structures enforce boundaries without overt coercion. — connects to: Closed social systems drive excluded strivers to build parallel worlds of their own power — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 204
• DEFINE: Introduces the social vs. spatial distance mechanism distinction that frames the chapter’s whole argument about segregation.