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For my dissertation I will study the
cultural/symbolic dimension of casino industry
legitimation
as well as its on-the-ground operations and
effects in two contexts: in South Africa and on
Indian Lands
in California, both of which have legalized
gambling within the past five years. Several
broad similarities
between these two cases immediately arise. In
each casino legitimation has been tied to the
industry’s
capacity to benefit historically oppressed
ethnic groups (Africans and Indians,
respectively). And each of
these emerging industries is characterized by
partnerships between large Western gambling
firms and
local consortiums of these ethnic groups. Yet my
research so far has revealed significant and
unexpected
differences as well. In California, where—as in
the U.S. generally—the ideology of the free
market is
2 I use the term “Indian” rather than “Native
American” because it is the term used by most
individual tribes as well
as organizations representing the industry (such
as the National Indian Gaming Association).
3
doxic,3 casino gambling has been legitimated
through its potential for social (political and
cultural)
development, and operates so as to deny and/or
conceal the presence of large gambling
corporations.
While in South Africa—whose ruling ANC party has
historically advocated a statist, and often
even socialist, domestic economic policy—casino
gambling has been legitimated primarily through
reference to its strictly economic benefits,
while the presence and influence of Western
gambling
corporations is celebrated in all facets of
industrial structure and operations.
General theoretical perspective
The State, Capital, and “Vice”
The first step in a properly sociological
analysis of gambling is a break with commonsense
accounts of this activity as inherently immoral,
dangerous, addictive, etc.
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