Imagine giving away your child to strangers. Deviance? Suppose the strangers were a bunch of men living in a closed community surrounded by rituals and religious beliefs? Or suppose the adults were people who moved around a lot, didn't speak the language that your mainstream community spoke, and lived apart from the rest of society as strangers? In the past week I've been reading and viewing things that deal with each of these kinds of situations, as I think about the topic of "deviance and social control" for my sociology class. I wasn't looking for these various cases, but they all seemed to come together in the events of the week, and they seem to illustrate things in interesting ways.
Several cases in the news, for example, have suddenly appeared about children in at least two parts of Europe who have been suspected as being "given away" to (maybe kidnapped by) people identified as "Roma." In one case, a Roma family in Ireland had their young daughter taken from her until DNA tests concluded that the blonde-haired child was in fact the biological child of the dark-haired couple who said they were her parents. The second instance of the week--which occurred in Greece--has not yet been resolved.
During the same week there was a re-showing on PBS of a special, "Unmistaken Child," that documented the search for a "reincarnation" of a Tibetan Monk; the reincarnation search led to a young (2 yr old) child, who was subsequently 'verified' (by the Dahli Lama) as the unmistakable reincarnation. The child was then given by his parents to the monastery where he will live for the rest of his life.
In one instance, a group of stigmatized members of society (the Roma) are treated with suspicion and pre-judgment, and the whole question of the safety of a child is colored by a long-term, historical understanding of the supposed character of the Roma people. In the other instance, a long-term social acceptance of a group (Buddhist monks and their monastic way of life) creates quite the opposite of stigmatization, instead making it something of the highest (sacred) honor for the parents to "give away" their young child.
A third element in my reading this week lends another contrasting tone to these comparisons. On Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, I have regularly run into discussions and comments that reflect criticism of religion-- criticism that ranges from mild rejection, to criticism that accuses religion and religious people as being not only wrong in their supposed "irrational beliefs," but even more so of being the cause of much that is wrong with the world. In this context of discussions, the whole idea of giving a child to a community of men who believe in a religious world-view might be seen by some as nearly as wrong (if not worse than) "giving your kid to the Roma."
Who says what is "deviance"? Who determines what is sacred, and what is awful? And in the process, what happens to the people who don't happen to be the ones doing the defining?
Sociology is about the study of people in groups-- groups that are constantly defining themselves, their boundaries and rules, their expectations of the world. Those who don't follow the rules, or for some reason who are identified as not fully "belonging" (due to appearance, behavior, beliefs, association with others outside of the main-stream) are reminded routinely of the boundaries and rules. They are judged (if not pre-judged) according to social perceptions about how well they may "fit" with the boundaries and expectations of society.
So the Roma, for example, are seen as not fitting in to the social norm of the various places they live throughout Europe. They are often pre-judged as untrustworthy, sneaky, living by their own rules. The prejudgment has a long history, and leaves a legacy of language that embeds the prejudgment deep in people's perceptions of the world. I recall my Irish grandmother telling us as children that if we didn't behave she'd be sending us to the Gypsies; it was also not uncommon to be called--again when we misbehaved--"little tinkers," which we learned in our later life referred to the roaming "gypsies" of Ireland. And in all of this-- we learned as well to be wary of people who try to "gyp" us! (Never mind that Roma, Tinkers, and Gypsies refer in fact to different groups of people!)
Imagine if I lived in Europe and had a choice-- give my child to "the Gypsies," send her/him off to "the Monks" as a sacred reincarnation....or maybe even to boarding school... or a foster home.... What is deviance? Says who? Who sets the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable? Are they always as clear cut as we imagine? More discussion to follow!
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