The Hierarchical Polarization Paradigm
The Hierarchical Polarization Paradigm is an economic and social paradigm that creates imbalances, inequality, and a lack of individual freedom. The paradigm polarizes universal dualisms -- masculine/feminine, white/black, man/nature, rich/poor -- into extreme and rigidly opposed, mutually exclusive categories, and assigns people to them. It places one category above the other, and creates relationships of domination and subordination between them, which are viewed as inevitable and God-given. The current, Transformative Moment, can be understood as involving the breakdown of the hierarchical polarization paradigm -- and the economic relationships built upon it -- as well as the emergence of a new paradigm of social life, including new forms of economics which are being called the solidarity economy.
Listent to a student rap about HPP
The Transformative Processes
Julie Matthaei and Barbara Brandt have identified seven distinct transformative processes which are midwifing the shift from the hierarchical polarization paradigm to the solidarity paradigm in the U.S. (read more here). These seven transformative processes are at work in the nation's feminist, ecology, civil rights, worker, and other movements, as well as within our individual struggles for healing. Similar processes are at work all over the world at this time. Click here for examples of feminist transformative processes across the world.
The processes include:
- Questioning/Envisioning
- Equal Opportunity
- Valuing the Devalued
- Integrating
- Discernment
- Combining
- Globalizing/Localizing
Transformative Processes in the Context of India: An Econ 243 student research project
Transformative Music: An Econ 243 student midterm project
This website on the transformative processes was created by the students of the Political Economy of Gender, Race and Class (Econ 243) at Wellesley College, with their Professor, Julie Matthaei, in the Spring and Fall semesters of 2010. Julie's Feminist Economics (Econ 343) students have created another website.