Contrary to ascribed statuses, which remain unaltered as seen above, achieved statuses can be lost or taken away. Meira Kumar had to resign from the Ministership to which she was sworn in only a few days ago in order to be a candidate for the position of Speaker. A political party, likewise, may also cancel the membership of a leader on the grounds of defection or disobedience. A medical practitioner can lose his/her licence to practice if found indulging in unethical practices.13
Also, some of the achieved statuses can be time-bound. One remains and retains an NRI—Non-Resident Indian—status only so long as one lives abroad. Upon his/her final return to India, he/she loses that status; of course he/she might earn the status of a former NRI—an ex-NRI.
The significance of this aspect of status (namely former status) has recently been recognized and is conceptualized as Role Exit or Status Exit. Attention to this feature was first drawn by Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh in 1988, in her book Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit.14 Ebaugh developed this concept based on her personal experience and supplemented it with a series of 185 interviews. Ebaugh left the life of a Catholic nun to become a wife, mother and a professor of sociology. As an ‘ex’ Nun, she experienced difficulties in creating a new identity of her own as her past continued to overwhelm later statuses.
She conducted an enquiry to find out whether what she personally experienced was common to other instances of role exit. Drawing on interviews with ex-convicts, ex-alcoholics, divorced people, mothers without custody of their children, ex-doctors, ex-cops, retirees, ex-nuns, and even transsexuals, she came out with an inventory of role changes involved in the process of a voluntary exit from a particular ‘role’ (we would substitute ‘status’ for it). The status exit process involves disillusionment with a particular identity, search for an alternative status, turning points that trigger a final decision to exit, and finally creation of an identity as an Ex.
We had earlier mentioned that people carry status–the master status—even after they retire. A retired Colonel or Brigadier is always addressed as Col. Sahib or Brigadier Sahib even after his retirement.15 A Professor is addressed as Professor after his exit from the university campus—after retirement or after taking a new assignment in the government or the corporate sector. In this sense, a status exit—which Ebaugh would call a Role Exit—does not always mean an end of that status. With the prefix ‘Ex’ (whether used as term of address or not), the vacated status continues to be a part of the status-set of an individual, of course as a past referent.
Ebaugh has argued that the experience of becoming an ex is common to most people in modern society. Unlike individuals in earlier cultures–who usually spent their entire lives in one marriage, one career, one religion, one geographic locality—people living in today‘s world tend to move in and out of many statuses. These are important ‘passages‘ or ‘turning points‘ in a person’s life, and they need to be studied sociologically. It could be a good subject matter of study among the senior citizens, whose numbers are going to go up in the coming years.16
A Status Exit is thus a process that begins while the person occupies a particular status. An exit is caused when a person is not happy or is disillusioned with that position, or when the norms of the organization necessitate the departure of the status occupant. A student enrolled in a school prepares for his exit when he/she is in the final year of the school; an employee begins preparing for his/her exit around the age of retirement; or a person begins to worry about his exit when the system throws him/her out for one reason or the other—the extreme case will be of a criminal who is condemned to death and awaits his hanging.
The circumstances leading towards an exit may vary, as do the feelings of the exiting status occupant in the first stage. The second stage is what Ebaugh calls, search for the alternatives. Again, this is guided by the circumstances that induce the process of exit. Departure from the system—that is, leaving the status—is another crucial stage both for the person exiting and the social system from which one exits. Farewell parties or exit rituals as well as features associated with dislocation and relocation are important parts of the social interaction process at this stage. The creation of a new identity, or entering a new role, is the final phase, which also differs from case to case depending on the type of exit. A bachelor getting married faces a different kind of crisis of adjustment than, say, a Nun choosing to give up her nun-hood and entering into the lifestyle of a commoner as a wife, and a mother—the Ebaugh story. In the latter case, a person may be regarded as a deviant and therefore, may invite abnormal attention and social scrutiny or disapprobation.
A person undergoing this process encounters problems of relocation in the social space, creation of a new identity, and reviewing the range of alternatives. It should also be mentioned that the use of the prefix ‘former’ or ‘ex’ not only alters status, but also provides a hint to participants in a situation of interaction about the kind of treatment expected by that occupant. A retired IAS official visiting a government department does receive special treatment. So do retired professors, ministers and other status holders in various situations of interaction. That is the reason why a retired person mentions his former Master status after his name in his visiting card.
Status exit is also associated with rise in the hierarchy, or as the next step in the life cycle. Lecturers becoming Readers, or Readers becoming Professors shed their previous designations—they are never called ex-lecturer or ex-reader. But a Professor taking the role of a Dean or a Vice Chancellor continues to be called a Professor. This dignified term is a public status—in the sense that the common man in the street does not distinguish between a lecturer and a reader or a professor and addresses all teachers in a college or a university as professors. Thus, lecturer and reader in the context of a college or a university are private statuses—statuses used internally.
MASTER STATUS
While any person occupies several statuses at any given point in time, he or she is publicly known by one of the statuses. Such a status is usually derived from one‘s occupational status–a teacher or professor, a Director of a Company, a political leader, a Minister, a clerk, etc. In childhood, a person is identified with the status of the father or the mother, while other statuses are disregarded. Master statuses can also change with time. In India, a lecturer is publicly addressed as professor, but soon upon getting a Ph.D. degree, his status changes and people begin addressing him/her as ‘Doctor Sahib’,17 although he remains a lecturer.
As mentioned above, it is necessary to make a distinction between public and private status. By private status is meant a specific status within an organization; public status is the generalized status as perceived by the people outside the organization. For example, University teachers are stratified in terms of their status as Tutors, Lecturers/Assistant Professors, Readers/Associate Professors and Professors. But outside the system, a university teacher is deferentially referred to as ‘professor’, internal ranking notwithstanding.
Similarly, Cabinet ministers, Ministers of State with independent charge, and Ministers of State in the Indian cabinet are all addressed as ‘Ministers’ by the public, and even by the media. The detailed nomenclature of their position is an internal matter.
In many situations of interaction, one of the ascribed statuses of an individual assumes the character of Master Status. A queue meant for women or for senior citizens invokes the status of a person as a “Woman” or a ‘Senior Citizen‘ (aged 60 and above); all other statuses of the incumbent in that context become subsidiary. The status of ‘disabled‘ is yet another example; at times it signifies bias against people with disabilities, as reflected in the choice of a spouse or while giving a job. In India, occupational castes undertaking menial jobs—including scavenging—were placed at the lower levels of the hierarchy and treated as ‘untouchables’ (denying social interaction with proximity). In their cases, their caste gave them the master status, ignoring their achieved statuses as skilled craftsmen or graduates. On this ground, the reservation policy followed by the Indian government is built and continually supported; the past of these castes is highlighted to justify their status as dalits (oppressed), notwithstanding the change in the status of many in those castes due to education, income and a new occupational status. Similarly, racism prevailed on the basis of a master status determined by the colour of the skin.
In the modern sector, it is status in the employment or business sector that serves as a master status.
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