Social location can be defined as the position an individual occupies in the society, it takes in to account things such as race, gender, class and age. Power in the society is the measure of how influential an individual is, this is directly related to social change since the powerful ones are the ones who make the decisions for the whole society (Mahalingam, 2001). Different theories are there which gives a direct link between social location and power with social change.
One of the theories is the essentialist theory of power. This theory is sensitive to the interaction between social location and cognition. People in the society are divided into different social classes whereby some are thought to be more important and influential in the society than the others. A quite good example of this social location is portrayed in India where they think if the brain of a poor a poor man was to be transplanted to a rich man’s head it will not affect his activity whereas if the brain of a rich man is transplanted to a poor man’s head they would affect his actions. This clearly shows that only the rich people are considered superior in the society and every change the social live has to come from them. Some races within the society are considered more superior than others thus putting the race at a greater position of bringing about social change than the others (Mahalingam, 2001). Age as a factor of social location is another major factor of any social change; this is manifested in those communities where the young are not given position where they can influence for any social change.
Some communities don’t value the presence of certain gender groups in decision making processes; women some times are not given the chance to make any contributions towards the welfare of the community so all social change must come from men. Concluding, social location and power are the key causes of any social change in the society.
References
Mahalingam, R. (2001, May). Intersectionality: Understanding the interplay between social location.Paper presented at the conference, “Intersectionality: Race, class and gender,” Ann Arbor,Michigan.
