Friends walking through campus
Other members from organizations I participate in (SMOOTH, LSA, My resident Hall)
1. Describe the way power is balanced in each relationship you experience or observe.
Power is balanced in each relationship that I experience/observe because each individual has a different level of power based on the relationship that we have. For example, my professors have more power over me than my peers. My professor is responsible for educating me, but this responsibility also comes with power. They are able to discipline me if necessary and receive a certain level of respect. My peers on the other hand share a pretty equal amount of power. I like to look at the relationships I have with my classmates as a team effort. We are a team who share the same goal; to Learn! although my peers and I share the same level of power, I would say that there is some flexibility. In some cases, one person may take the responsibility of being a leader which would make them somewhat more “powerful” than the rest of us.
2. How is power organized? Can you see the intersections of age, gender, income, race, religion, sexuality, or citizenship?
Power in my relationships are often organized by age. In the interactions that I have, I feel like the older a person is, the more knowledgeable they may be. I look at Knowledge as power because If you know more than me, You have an advantage. In my relationships/interactions specifically, My professors are at the very top of this chain. working down the list, I would say that my roommate is the next one and then of course my peers. I feel like for each relationship, the power is mostly determined by age. Upperclassmen tend to have more respect then underclassman.Â
3. What political negotiations are present in these relationships?
I would say that on a political level, the only real political negotiations present in the relationships I have are between myself and the professors. I would say that there are political negotiations in this relationship because their main purpose is to educate me and not to push their personal beliefs on me. I would tie this back to political negotiations because they may follow politics and have a strong opinion of one specific group but they cannot enforce that upon the students.
4. Consider how these power dynamics were established and how they might be changed.
The power dynamics might be changed if I had more power. This is really unlikely, but in the case that I did, it would definitely change the relationships that I have. I feel like it would specifically change the relationships that I have with my professors because right now the norm is that the professor usually has more power than the student. So to flip that would probably be an adjustment for both parties. However, like mentioned earlier, that is extremely unlikely. So the chances of the power dynamics changing is probably rare.Â
5. To deepen your understanding of the power of the state, make a list of all the ways you encounter the state in a given day. These may be at home, at school, in the office, or on the street. Representations of the state on television and radio, as well as in newspapers or movies, all contribute to the construction of the state as concrete, real, and powerful.
laws regarding what you can do based on your age (21+)
 rules regarding driving (no license, no driving)
general rules of the road
rules regarding speech (limited)
rules regarding weapons (limited)
6. How do these representations of the state reinforce the conception of the state as the primary institutional form through which social relations are experienced?
These representations of the state reinforces the conception of the state as a primary institutional form through which social relations are experienced because the rules are somewhat flexible depending on who you are. For example, some police officers might take advantage of their power and not follow the rules of the road. In another case, someone who is wealthy might not follow the rules that are set for them because they can easily buy their way out of things like a speeding ticket or in some cases can afford very good lawyers. I encounter State every day and choose to follow the rules that are set, but for others, they might not follow these rules and regulations because they can afford not to with their power.
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