Definitional Boundaries of Discrimination

Definitional Boundaries of Discrimination

Dr. Katy Greenland - Cardiff University
Dr. Keon West - Goldsmiths, University of London

March 11, 2022
2:00 P.M.

Delivered on Zoom

Meeting ID: 919 8273 5659
Passcode: 949169

What ‘counts’ as discrimination? Do we know it when we see it? How people understand discrimination is increasingly becoming a feature of so-called culture wars. We present research on Definitional Boundaries of Discrimination (DBDs): the widely available, culturally situated rules that people deploy when making sense of discrimination. We present qualitative and quantitative data to explore the content of these rules, and demonstrate that they are (a) consequential for decision making and (b) deployed flexibly according to intergroup motivations.

Dr Katy Greenland is an applied social psychologist at the Cardiff School of
Social Sciences. She works on the boundaries between psychology and the
broader social sciences (sociology, ethnography, and social policy), and with
particular emphasis on constructions of discrimination and inequalities. She
uses both quantitative and qualitative methods as and when they are most
appropriate to the research question.

Dr Keon West is a Social Psychologist who specialises in prejudice and
intergroup relations. Born in Trinidad, raised in Jamaica and educated at
Macalester (MN, USA), the Sorbonne (Paris, France) and Oxford (Oxford, UK)
under a Rhodes Scholarship, he now works as a Reader (Associate
Professor) at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also the president of
the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, director of Equalab,
and the principal investigator on a European Research Council grant
(€750,000), investigating lay beliefs about sexual orientation. He’s
appeared many times on radio and television as a scientific expert including
on Channel 4’s “Is Dating Racist” and “Naked Beach”, and on the BBC’s “I
Can’t Be Racist” and “Across Jamaica’s Gay Divide.” He is really into Star
Trek.

Part of the Network for Economic and Social Trends Distinguished Speaker Series