Towards an Analytical Architecture of Social Life: A Proposal Based on Dialectical Totality and Intersectionality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15517/rr.v107i1.00004Keywords:
Dialectical totality, Intersectionality, Matrix of domination, Social fields, Multiscalar inequalityAbstract
Introduction: Contemporary studies on inequality frequently fragment social life into isolated factors—economic, cultural, or identity-based—thereby hindering the comprehension of how inclusion/exclusion relations are produced in relational and multiscalar terms. This article addresses the problem of how to construct an analytical framework that articulates historical totality, power relations, and intersections without reducing reality to partial segments or losing the specificity of situated inequalities.
Method: Through a theoretical-conceptual design, three traditions are critically articulated: Mészáros's dialectical totality, which situates the tension between the reproduction of life and the reproduction of capital; Collins and Bilge's intersectionality, which specifies how power produces differential positions; and Bourdieu's field theory, which provides mediations for analyzing capitals, legitimation, and practices.
Results: An analytical architecture is proposed, organized across three levels—macro (social metabolic order and second-order mediations), meso (fields with rules and capital structures), and micro (habitus, trajectories, and repertoires)—traversed by four cross-cutting layers: the matrix of domination, intersectional axes, mechanisms of legitimation/capital convertibility, and spatiotemporal coordinates.
Conclusions: The proposal overcomes fragmented economistic and identitarian readings by offering conceptual coordinates for reconstructing how hierarchies, conflicts, and situated inequalities are configured. The architecture constitutes a heuristic tool for empirical research seeking to analyze inclusion/exclusion processes within specific historical contexts.
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