Categories, Narratives and Hierarchical Orders: Notes for the Study of Hierarchical Processes

Abstract

This paper makes a conceptual contribution to think hierarchical processes in contemporary societies. Based on multiple studies—both from the sociological and anthropological tradition—that allow us to think about the notion of hierarchy, the paper develops three key concepts for the study of hierarchical processes: 1) hierarchical categories: it analyzes the relationship between cognitive and epistemological processes that, in social terms, underlie all forms of classification and categorization that place individuals and groups in positions of superiority and subalternity; 2) hierarchical narratives: as a discursive plot that gives meaning, organizes and justifies a certain state of relationships in which beings and objects are unequally linked in a stratified social space; and 3) hierarchical order: it emphasizes the practical dimension, based on current disputes and on various forms of sedimentation and institutionalization of historical relationships.