Nicolas Duvoux and Guy Priver: Subjective Inequality

Culture and Social Analysis Workshop  presentation by Nicolas Duvoux, University Paris 8 and Guy Priver, Harvard University.

Jointly with theWCFIA Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion

Guy Priver (Harvard University)

“Urban Planning and the Erasure of Difference: Religion, Law, and Expertise in a Contested City”

Abstract: In recent decades, Jerusalem has undergone radical state-led and privately coordinated “urban renewal” aimed both at Judaizing the city, provoking recurrent legal objections from religious minority communities seeking to preserve their heritage and sacred spaces. Drawing on court materials including archival records and expert submissions, and our own engagement and interviews with communities contesting development projects, we examine three emblematic cases: opposition to the construction of a museum on top of an old Muslim cemetery; the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate’s effort to block transfers of properties to a Jewish National Fund subsidiary; and the Karaite community’s objection to a gondola route over its cemetery. Focusing on the role of court-admitted expertise on religion, culture, and urban planning, we trace how religious claims are translated into technocratic and legal-rational frameworks that produce fungibility, flattening minority cultural values and creating distorted equivalences between incommensurable commitments. We argue that this process systematically disadvantages minority communities and reveals the limits of legal recourse, which promises recognition, under a planning regime that privileges state and nationalist objectives while presenting itself as guided by neutral and dispassionate expertise. This paper forms part of a larger work in progress with Prof. Erica Lynn Weiss.

Nicolas Duvoux (University Paris 8)

“Time and Subjective Inequality: Bridging the Gap between Economy and Sociology”

Abstract: Subjective inequality often refers to self-perceptions shaped by reference groups. Economists and sociologists have shown that such perceptions frequently diverge from objective socio-economic realities, sometimes providing a distorted picture of society and individuals’ positions within it. In this presentation, I take a different route by challenging the common assumption in social science that incorporating subjectivity conflicts with approaches grounded in the material conditions of existence. I argue instead that subjective perceptions of one’s future can illuminate class and inequality, revealing how material conditions—such as wealth, income, and power—are expressed through subjective indicators.

To grasp the full extent of social inequality, we must consider how economic opportunities feel. Subjectivity, understood as temporally situated and intertwined with material life conditions, becomes a key lens for apprehending social constraints. In the post-Piketty era of inequality research, this perspective allows us to approach inequality multidimensionally, redefining economic structures through the prism of subjective anticipations and future orientations. Drawing on three empirical case studies that combine qualitative and quantitative methods, the presentation revisits and expands upon arguments in Bourdieu’s early, lesser-known works. It demonstrates how feelings of security and insecurity function as critical markers of class inequality.