ESPM 50 - Unit I some key terms

Environmental history: Social and environmental change over time.

Site: A physical location. A way of understanding a place that classifies it in terms of
environmental qualities.
Situation: The relative socioeconomic advantages of a place compared to other places. A way
of understanding a place that classifies it in terms of social and cultural qualities.
Power (Max Weber): "By power is meant that opportunity existing within a social relationship
which permits one to carry out one's own will even against resistance and regardless of the basis
on which this opportunity rests."
Hegemonic power (Antonio Gramsci - paraphrased): The processes by which dominant culture
maintains its dominant position, not only through political and economic control, but through the
ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world so that those who are
subordinated by it accept it as 'common sense' and 'natural.'
Racial formation: the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited,
transformed, and destroyed.
Racial project: Racial formation is a process of historically situated projects in which human
bodies and social structures are represented and organized.
Hegemony: The means through which those with power maintain their dominant position in
society by projecting their worldview in popular culture and politics, so that those subordinated
by it accept it as 'common sense' and 'natural.' This is often accomplished through hegemonic
narratives such as the American Dream.
Frame of reference: A set of ideas, conditions, or assumptions that determine how something
will be approached, perceived, or understood.
Structural racism: Racially coded disparities in access to positions of power, resources, and
opportunity within a system of social institutions.
Ideological racism: Racism as an ideology of bigotry. A system of ideas that pose a social and
moral hierarchy grounded in an ideology of perceived biological difference.
Marginality: A condition of systemic exclusion from power & resources.
Property: Rights and obligations to things that are enforceable by custom, convention, or law.
Not the things themselves.
Tenure system: The system of rules (laws, custom) for allocating property rights.
Sovereignty: Supreme political authority within a territory or among a group of people.

Private property: Property rights held by a private party who may be an individual, a married
couple, a group of people, or a corporate body (fictive individual) such as a commercial entity or
non-profit organization.
State property: Private property rights assigned to a public sector authority.
Common property: Property rights held collectively by a community that guarantee individual
community members rights of non-exclusion.
Usufruct property: Property rights held by individuals or groups that allow use without private,
state or common ownership of that which is used, and which do not include the right to alienate
or degrade the things to which the rights inhere.
Exclusion rights: The right to exclude another from use of a thing.
Non-exclusion: The right not to be excluded from the use of a thing.
Control rights: Rights to make decisions concerning how and by whom a thing may be used.
Use rights: Rights to use a thing in ways specified by the holder of control rights.
Transfer (alienation) rights: Rights to sell or mortgage a thing, or to reallocate use and control
rights.
Collective claims: The assertion of private, state or common claims to property as part of a
collective interest.
Formal property rights: De jure rights explicitly acknowledged by the state or other authority,
which are protected under law.
Informal property rights: De facto or contested rights that lack official recognition and legal
protection, and may be held in direct contradiction to the law.
Social contract: A philosophical and political concept proposed by John Locke (and others),
holding that individuals willingly agree to form a state and submit to its laws in order to escape
the state of nature. The governing state, in turn, maintains its own legitimacy by protecting civil
rights to life, liberty and property.
Assimilation: Incorporation into the mainstream American social, economic and political
institutions and civic life. As the term is used in this class, it does not necessarily refer to
cultural incorporation.
Acculturation: Cultural incorporation through adoption of dominant American cultural values
and forms (including language).