{
  "id": "second-class-citizens.lesser",
  "term": "second-class citizens",
  "sense": "lesser",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 17,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "Members a collective self reads as inside its boundary for the walls it sets on them and outside it for the walls it keeps for them.",
  "folk_gloss": "members of a society who are denied rights or standing that other members have",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "collective-self.shared",
      "boundary.limit",
      "member.social",
      "set.fix",
      "keep.maintenance",
      "in-group.inside",
      "out-group.outside",
      "read.information",
      "inside.spatial",
      "wall.range-end",
      "outside.spatial"
    ],
    "interaction": "Two boundaries run at once: the group's power reaches these members as members, while its maintenance stops at them as though they were outside.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "inside for duty and outside for protection",
      "two edges in one membership"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "From 1950, South Africa's Population Registration Act sorted residents by race, and the rights the state kept for each followed that sorting.",
      "domain": "history"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "real-people.narrowed",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "real people reads the others as outside altogether; second class citizens keeps them inside for duties"
    },
    {
      "id": "citizens-first.ranked",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "citizens first ranks non-members lower; second class citizens ranks members lower"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "second class citizen",
    "second class citizens",
    "second class citizenship"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-29",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-second-class-citizens.lesser"
}