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Creole
Refers to the assemblage of social institutions that create the backdrop for a particular life or culture. To understand Southern Louisiana’s social terrain through its institutional context, in Part Two of her book Hochschild focuses on four institutions: the media, the church, the state, and the oil industry.
Social Terrain Quotes in Strangers in Their Own Land
The Strangers in Their Own Land quotes below are all either spoken by Social Terrain or refer to Social Terrain. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 8
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Churches typically ask parishioners to tithe—to give 10 percent of their income. For many this is a large sum, but it is considered an honor to give it. They pay taxes, but they give at church.
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Chapter 16
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Louisianans are sacrificial lambs to the entire American industrial system. Left or right, we all happily use plastic combs, toothbrushes, cell phones, and cars, but we don't all pay for it with high pollution. As research for this book shows, red states pay for it more—partly through their own votes for easier regulation and partly through their exposure to a social terrain of politics, industry, television channels, and a pulpit that invites them to do so. In one way, people in blue states have their cake and cat it too, while many in red states have neither. Paradoxically, politicians on the right appeal to this sense of victimhood, even when policies such as those of former governor Jindal exacerbate the problem.
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Afterword
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The history of the United States has been the history of whites cutting ahead of blacks, first of all through slavery, and later through Jim Crow laws and then through New Deal legislation and the post-World War II GI Bill, which offered help to millions of Americans with the exception of those in farm and domestic work, occupations in which blacks were overrepresented. And racial discrimination continues today.
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Social Terrain Term Timeline in Strangers in Their Own Land
The timeline below shows where the term Social Terrain appears in Strangers in Their Own Land. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8 – The Pulpit and the Press: “The Topic Doesn’t Come Up”
Hochschild has “explored industry and the state” as key institutions in the “ social terrain ” of Louisiana, but she still has to look at the church and the press....
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...“feel sorry for, or responsible for, the fate of the child.” Hochschild notes that “the social terrain ” of southern Louisiana encourages people to refocus away from the needs of people like...
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Chapter 16 – “They Say There Are Beautiful Trees”
...And this happens largely because Southerners vote against government regulation and live in a “ social terrain of politics, industry, television channels, and a pulpit that invites them to do so.”
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