Eriksen Chapter 1
What is Ethnicity?
→ Growing interest for ethnicity and nationalism (political sciences, history, cultural
studies, sociology and cultural anthropology)
Since 1960s: ethnicity has been a major peroccupation for social anthropologists:

Anthropology can generate first-hand knowledge of social life at the level of
everyday interaction → this is the locus were ethnicity is created and re-created
 Anthropological approaches enable us to explore the ways in which ethnic relations
are being defined and perseived by people
 Anthropology is capable of providing a nuanced and complex vision of ethnicity in
the contemporary world
Important reason for current academic interest for ethnicity and nationalism: these
phenomena have become so visible in many societies that it has become impossible to
ignore them
Weber (beginning 20th century): ethnicity and nationalism as primordial phenomena →
they would eventually decrease in importance and eventuallt vanish as a result of
modernization, industrialization and individualism → wrong!
1. In many parts of the world, nation-building (the creation and consolidation of
political cohesion and national identity in former colonies or imperial provinces) is
high on the political agenda
2. Ethnic and national identities have become fields of contestation following the
continuous influx of labour migrants and refugees to Europe and North America,
which has led to the establishment of new, permanent ethnic minorites in these
areas
3. The political dynamics within Europe has move issueas of ethnic and national
identities to the forefront of political life (like: the split of the SU or in contrary the
unification of Europe in the EU)
Origins of the word Ethnicity:
Ethnos (Greek) → heathen or Pagan; English use (14th-19th century): referring to racial
characteristics → around WWII in the USA: Ethnicity was a polite term referring to Jews,
Italians, Irish etc. (people considered inferior to the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants)
→ The first anthropologists (Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown etc.): ethnicity was not
considered particularly relevant → it entered the field of cultural/social anthropology in the
1960s, meaning aspects of relationships between groups which consider themselves, and are
regarded by others, as being culturally distinctive
Race (not a scientific term!) ↔ Ethnicity
↓
1. There has always been much interbreeding between human populations that it
would be meaningless to talk of fixed boundaries between races
2. The distribution of hereditary physical traits does not follow clear boundaries
3. No serious scholar today believes that hereditary characteristics explain cultural
variations
Race = relevant, because it is a social construct → personality is somehow linked with
hereditary characteristics which differ systematically between races, and in this way race
may assume sociological importance even if it has no objective existence
Banton (1967) → race (negative characterization of people, more oriented to the
categorization of them) ↔ ethnicity (positive group identification, more concerned with
identification of us)
→ But: ethnicity can take many forms and the boundaries between race and ethnicity tend
to be blurred, since ethnic groups have a common myth of origin, which relates ethnicity to
descent → so the relation = complex
→ Ethnicity can arguably exist without acompanying notions of race (for instance: German,
Italian or Irish identities in the USA)
→ Final point: discrimination based on presumed inborn and immutable characteristics
tends to be stronger and more inflexible than ethnic discrimination which is not based on
racial differences
Ethnicity (relationships between groups whose members consider themselves distinctive,
and these groups are often ranked hierarchically within a society) ↔ Nationalism (stresses
the cultural similarity of its adherents and, by implication, it draws boundaries vis-à-vis
others, who thereby become outsiders → Relationship to the State = important)
Ethnicity ↔ Social Class:
2 main definitions of classes:
1. Marxist View:
→ To do with economic aspects
Three main classes:
1. Bourgeoisie (who own the means of production and buy other people’s labour
power)
2. Petit-bourgeoisie (who own mean of production but do not employ others)
3. Working class; most numerous; depend on selling their labour-power
Class struggle + Property = important in this view!
2. Weberian View:
→ combines several criteria in delineating classes (like income, education and political
influence) → preferred status groups rather than classes
So: social class (always refers to systems of social ranking and distribtution of power) ↔
Ethnicity (does not necessarily refer to rank; may well be egalitarian) → however: there can
be a correlation between ethnicity and class (which means that there is a high likelihood
that persons belonging to specific ethnic groups also belong to specific social classes)
Two main causes for the shift from structure and culture to ethnicity and ethnic group
within Anthropology:
1. Increased contact between groups, through migration and urbanization (when a
group is brought into contact with people with other customs, languages and
identities, they try to maintain their old values and practices, creating a new form of
self awareness)
2. A change within Anthropological insights: where ethnicity was first being seen as
being primordial (Weber), this idea changed into the idea that ethnic organization
and identity are frequently reactions to processes of modernization → so the
terminology changed from societies and cultures to flux and progress, ambiguity and
complexity
→ group identities must always be defined in relation to what they are not !
Tribe (used in earlier decades; containesd an Eurocentric bias, introducing a sharp,
qualitative distinction between us and them (modern ↔ primitive)) ↔ Ethnic group (in
this type of terminology this distinction is harder to maintain)
Problem in defining ethnicity: where ar the boundaries of the group? → Moerman (1965):
emic category of ascription (someone belongs to an ethnic group by virtue of believing and
calling him or herself by the name of that ethnic group and of acting in ways that validate
him or herself being a part of that ethnic group)
→ the existence of cultural differences between two groups is not the decisive feature of
ethnicity → ethnicity is an essential aspect of a relationship: only in so far as cultural
differences are perceived as being important, and are made socially relevant, do social
relationships have an ethnic element → it can thus be defined as a social identity
→ the substantial social contexts of ethnicity differ enormously, and ethnic identities and
ethnic organizations may have highly variable importance in different societies, for different
individuals and in different situations → vb. Blz. 18/19/20
Final problem: how to articulate the relationship between (a) anthropological theory, (b)
native theory and (c) social organization? → in a sense, ethnicity is created by the analyst
when he or she goes out in the field and raises questions about ethnicity → but: on the
other hand, individuals or informants who live in the societies in question may themselves
be concerned with issues relating to ethnicity, and as such the the phenomenon clearly does
exist outside of the mind of the observer
Eriksen Chapter 2
Ethnic Classification: Us and Them
Ethnicity: constituted trough social contact (= the application of systematic distinctions
between insiders (us) ↔ outsiders (them))
1920s/1930s: Chicago School (main person: Robert Park): concerned with continuity and
change in ethnic relations → acculturation: the adaption of immigrants to their new cultural
context
the city:
1. was being seen as kind of ecological system with its own internal dynamic, creating
diverse opportunities and constraints for different individuals and groups
2. contained several distinct social worlds based on class, race or national origin
(corresponding to distinctive physical neighborhoods, divided by unequal access and
ethnic differences)
→ in the city, economic, political and cultural resources were to a great extent pooled
within each ethnic subsystem so that the individual could achieve many of his or her goals
through ethnic networks! → so acculturation (the adapting of the white, English-speaking
majority’s way of life) assured mobility
Park also introduced the notion of the melting-pot: every society is a more or less successful
melting-pot, where diverse populations are merged, acculturated and eventually
assimilated, at different rates and in different ways, depending on their place in the
economic and the political system
Critics of the melting-pot idea: the diverse ethnic groups never merged; the differences
between them seem to have been accentuated
But:
-
Park did stress that the social mobility of any ethnic group would lead to tension in
relation to the other groups
Park was also aware of the fluid character of ethnic categorizations (as an individual
moves through urban life, the relative importance of his or her ethnic membership
changes)
Critics of the Chicago School (3 myths of the Chicago School (Cohen 1985)):
1. The myth of simplicity (the idea that rural societies were by default simpler than
urban ones)
2. The myth of egalitarianism (also assumed to be typical of rural societies)
3. The myth of inevitable conformity (in rural societies)
However, the Chicago school has proved to have lasting value:
-
-
They showed that ethnic relations are fluid and negotiable
- They showed that their importance varies situationally
They showed that ethnic relations can be conciously manipulated and invested in
economic competition in modern societies
→ Chicago School as initiators for Symbolic Interactionism
Intergroup contacts (which constitute ethnicity may be caused by a variety of factors:
- Population growth
- Establishment of new communication technologies facilitating trade
- Inclusion of new groups in a capitalist system of production/exchange
- Political change incorporating new groups in a single political system
- Migration
Overcommunication of Group Membership (ethnicity = deliberately shown off → blz. 28
Kalela Dance) ↔ Undercommunication of Group Membership (actors tried to play
ethnicity down and don’t try to make it an important aspect of the definition of a situation)
Stereotyping: refers to the creation and consistent application of standardized notions on
the cultural distinctiveness of a group → they often (but not always!) tend to be more or
less pejorative (often mentioned in connection with racism/discrimination)
Stereotypes: need to refer to a social reality + they do not necessarily give accurate hints of
what people actually do
Functions of stereotypes:
-
Helping the individual to create order in an otherwise excruciatingly complicated
social universe
- Justifying privileges and differences in access to a society’s resources
- Defining the boundaries of one’s own group
Stereotypes: can often function as self-fulfilling prophecies + they can be morally ambiguous
and contested by different parties
Mitchell (1974): Various degrees of social classification( not just: us ↔ them) →
perceptions of social distance (for instance: matrilineal peoples from the north would rank
other matrilineal peoples from the north as those closest to themselves)
Ethnicity: entails the establishment of both Us ↔ Them differences (this is called
contrasting (through stereotyping)) and a shared fielf for interethnic discourse and
interaction (this is called matching (there must be some mutual recognition inherent in the
process of communicating cultural differences, otherwhise the ethnic identity of at least one
of the parties will necessarily be neglected and undercommunicated in a situation of
interaction))
→ many interethnic relations are highly assymetrical (hierarchical) → this may lead to
ethnic stigmatization of one group by the other and eventually lead to the
undercommunication of the ethnic identity of a group
→ so: ethnicity and social identities in general are relative and to some extent situational →
the We category may expand and contract according to the situation → in other words:
individuals may have statuses and many possible identities, and it is an empirical question
when and how ethnic identities become the most relevant ones → the point here =
ethnicity can be a fluid and ambiguous aspect of social life, and can be manipulated by the
agents themselves (blz. 37/38 vb.)
→ for ethnic membership to have a personal importance, it must provide the individual with
something he or she considers valuabe → however: sometimes ethnic identities are
imposed from the outside by dominant groups
General problem of criteria for what is and what is not ethnicity: where should we draw
the boundary between ethnic groups and other groups, such as social classes?
Eriksen Chapter 4
Ethnic identification and Ideology
Study of personal identity was for a long time neglected by anthropologists: social
anthropology dealt with processes taking place between people, and the idea was that
identity existed inside each individual → but: what was formerly considered private and
fixed is now increasingly held to be public and negotiable
→ in anthropological discourse the term identity means 2 extreme different poles:
-
Being the same as oneself
- Being different
Classification = a kind of native theory whereby the infinite complexity of the experienced
world is reduced to a finite number of categories → social classification often has to do with
power assymetries
Ethnic Classifications = a practical way of creating order in the social universe (social and
cultural products related to the requirements of the classifier; they serve to order the social
world and to create standardized cognitive maps over categories of relevant others)
→ Creation of loyalty to nations: similar logic (people are being categorized according to
their country borders) → if such an ideology is succesful, the compass of one’s community
thereby increases many times
→ So: systems of social classification and principles of inclusion and exclusion always create
order, but the kind of order created = related to aspects of the wider social system
→ Every social community = exclusive (always constituted in relation to others) →
boundaries of ethnic groups are relative and they can vary, however: in some situation it
may be difficult to ascribe a definite ethnic identity to an individual → Turner (1967): ethnic
anomalities (can be considered as neither-not or both-and depending on the situation and
the wider context)
2 options for ethnic anomalities (for instance 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants in Europe):
-
- Assimilation (adapting to the dominant group)
Ethnic incorporation: 2 options ( (1) the anomalous group may declare itself an
ethnic category or (2) may continue to be loyal to their grandparents’ ethnic
category)
→ Problem with ethnic incorporation: problem of Gatekeeping: if one is simultaneously a
member of two groups which are partly defined through mutual contrasting, difficult
situations are inevitable
Discussion about social identity:
Voluntarily, chosen and strategically? (criticism= multicultural ideology virtually forces
people to take on an ethnic identity, even if they would have preferred not to have this
aspect of their personal identity highlighted) ↔ Product of culture and society? (criticism=
often, individuals who fall between acknowledged categories, exploit their ambiguity to
their own advantage; entrepreneurs or cultural brokers)
→ Ethnic identities = flexible to a highly varying degree!
Analog multi-ethnic environments (environments where some people are perceived as
almost like ourselves and other people are perceived as extremely different from us by the
dominant group) ↔ Digital multi-ethnic environments (when systems of classification
operate on an unambiguous inclusion/exclusion basis, where boundaries are fixed and all
outsiders of certain kinds are regarded as more or less the same)
Jean-Paul Sartre (1943):
We-hood (being inegrated because of shared activities within the collectivity) ↔ Us-hood
(people are loyal and socially integrated chiefly in relation to the other)
→ Ethnicity is a phenomenon of us-hood, however: the ethnic category or group must
aditionally have an element of we-hood (like shared language or religion) to create
interdependence → these cultural similarities may be perceived as threatening (regarded as
inalienable possessions)
Ethnic symbolism (referring to ancient language, religion, kinship system or way of life) =
crucial for the maintainance of ethnic identity through periods of change → social identity
becomes most important when it is being threatened!
Forms of boundary maintaince = important, when boundaries are under pressure (can be
psychologically reassuring; assuring the continuity with the past → Religion may, but
doesn’t always, play a role here)
Ethnic identities = expressions of metaphoric kinship (notions of shared descent) →
formation of new ethnic categories follow one of two possible paths:
1. It may come about through an extension of existing identifications (like: tracing
descent back to Adam and Eve)
2. Fission: reducing the size of the group with presumed shared ancestry (like: tracing
descent back not to Adam and Eve, but to one of their offsprings)
→ This notion of ancestry is in itself ambiguous (for instance: with how many generations
do we draw the line?) → No simple relationship between ideology and social practices
→ the criterion of shared origins seriously reduces the possible number of ethnic categories
there can be made in any society
Anthropologists: history is not a product of the past but a response to requirements of the
present → Levi-Strauss (1962): there is always an element of creativity in history writing and
identity always has an important element of subjective identity
→ So: since it’s not objective culture that shapes ethnicity, it makes sense that ethnic
identities can be maintained despite cultural change → but this is paradoxical: ethnic
ideologies stress the continuity of that very cultural content as a justification for the
continued exitence and cohesion of the group
→ since ethnicity is related to kinship as a form of metaphorical or even literal, extended
kinship, research into faily origins can have important implications for ethnicity → DNA tests
tend to reveal mixed origins, and can thus be interpreted in different ways and can thus
shed a new light on ethnicity
→ many scholars have regarded utility as the master variable in accounting for the
maintainance of ethnic identity → however: notions of utility are in itself cultural creations,
and so the boundary between meaningful and useful remains blurred
Example European Union (blz. 89/90/91/92) → important note with this example =
European identity is not necessarily incompatible with national or ethnic identities! → E.
Evans-Pritchard (segmentary societies) → However: for the European identity, or any other
more encompassing group to exist, it must be socially relevant (must have some goods to
deliver and those goods must be perceived as valuable by the target group)
To conclude: identity processes are fundamentally dual and comprise aspects of meaning as
well as as politics in a wide sense; functionalist or actor-centered accounts of ethnicity may
provide good analyses of ethnic incorporation at the level of interaction and group
competition, but they usually decline to ask why it is that ethnic identities are so pervasive
and fundamental to people!
Eriksen Chapter 5
Ethnicity in History
Process of Ethnogenesis: the emergence of ethnic relations and ethnic identities (from the
perspective of historical change)
Barth (1969): what is needed to make ethnic distinctions emerge in an area? (An historical
perspective on ethnicity) → Occupational specialization, and the development of some form
of group complementarity, will gradually encourage the creation and enactment of
distinguishing signs and, eventually, the emergence of distinctive groups, with separate
genealogies, each of which considers the others to be culturally distinctive from themselves
Ethnicity: must by definition arise either from (1) a process of social differentiation within a
population, which eventually leads to the division of that population into two distinctive
groups, (2) through migration, or (3) by an expansion of system boundaries bringing
formerly discrete groups into contact with eachother
Eric Wolf (1982): interconnectedness between societies important from AD 1400, whereas
anthropologists like Malinowski and Levi-Strauss (Hot (modern) ↔ Cold (slowly changing)
societies) didn’t assume this → however: intensity + range of the contacts increased greatly
with the great discoveries and European colonialism
4 aspects of processes of change:
1. The consequences of slavery and capitalism for the development of ethnic relations
in the New World
2. The importance of labour migrants
3. The importance of naming and semantics for the formation of ethnic identities in
Africa
4. The consequences of social changes for identity formation and group organization
Ethnicity (the social organization of communicated cultural differences) appeared together
with capitalism (and thus colonialism) in many parts of the world → ethnicity must
therefore be understood in relation to the colonial division of labour
Race and Ethnicity: personal traits and cultural distinctiveness are in many societies still
attributed to people on the basis of race, and it is in this way that race overlaps with, and
sometimes becomes, ethnic categorization
Black Ethnic identity = relative to social context (between local tribes in Africa, this is not
important, but for African slaves in the New World they were stigmatized according to their
race)
→ A group which is powerless undercommunicates its distinctiveness, however: when the
same group is suddenly in a superior position, its members will overcommunicate it (vb.
Zwarten ↔ Indianen blz. 101/102)
→ Ethnicity as it can be identified in colonial and post-colonial societies with a capitalist
mode of production must necessarily be very different from the kinds of categorizations
which existed in pre-colonial times:
-
- The goals pursuead by individuals are different
The relevant means of their achievement are different
- The encompassing social system is different
→ Following the integration of traditional people into nation states, cultures become shared
→ in this way a lot of different people become a people (with an abstract sense of
community and a presumed shared history)
→ Contemporary ethnicity (or tribalism) = not something of the past and it doesn’t
necessarily lie in the difference in culture; it is a product of modernization processes leading
up to the present (different ways of integrating into a capitalist society) → blz. 105/106
→ it has often been remarked that tribes had no empirical existence outside of the mind of
the anthropologist → in pre-colonial times many groups were politically organized through
kinship and personal loyalties and they didn’t require categorizing → so ethnicity then took
on a verry different form from which it does today
Fardon, Southall and Ardener: concerned with the semantics of ethnicity → the
establishment of clear labels for large categories of people may have a conceptually, but
also socially reifying effect on groups, as they become official names and their members
start using them in their self-identification
Technology: can be essential in generating opportunities and constraints for culture and
social organization → mass education plays an important role: standardized mass
education can be a extremely powerful machine for the creation of abstract identifications
Anderson (1983): communities beyond the size of a closed village are abstractly imagined
by their members, but the style of immagination differs → modern imagined communities:
unique, because they have arisen in the age of print-capitalism
Leach: ethnic identities are creations → ethnic identities based on assumptions of shared
culture may thus appear as accident of history and little more → so: any ethnic identity is
imaginable, regardless of actual cultural variation or proveable distinctive origins
→ So within anthropology: discussion:
Traditionally strong bias towards the present (dealing with ethnicity = dealing with a
present-day construction of the past) ↔ Some anthropologists (Wolf and Worsley) stress
the need to understand the past in order to understand the present (economic, political
and cultural histories of peoples may certainly shed light on the origins of contemporary
ethnicity, and should not be seen merely as aspects of the present)
Two main concerns in the anthropological study of ethnic identity and organization:
1. To reveal ethnohistory as ideology fashioned to satisfy contemporary needs (chapter
4)
2. To point out that there is no necessary fit between ethnic discontinuities and
discontinuities of objective culture, respectively (this chapter)
Eriksen Chapter 6
Nationalism
Nationalism (the ideology of the modern nation-state): relatively recent topic for
anthropology
Ernest Gellner: nationalism = a political principle → nationalism as a theory of political
legitimacy, which requires that ethnic boundaries should not cut across political ones →
nationalisms = ethnic ideologies, which hold that their group should dominate a state
Benedict Anderson: the nation = an imagined political community → people who define
themselves as members of a nation will never know most of their fellowmembers, meet
them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion
Anderson and Gellner have largely compatible views: both stress that nations are
ideological constructions seeking to forge a link between cultural group and state, and that
they create abstract communities of a different order from those dynastic states or kinshipbased communities which pre-dated them
Anderson: anomaly of nationalism → Weber and Marx predicted an eventual end of
nationalism and ethnicity, but this didn’t happen
→ Ethnic identities tend to attain their greatest importance in situations of flux, change,
resource competition and threats against boundaries
Within Anthropology: Turner (showed that ritual symbols are multivocal and that they have
an instrumental and a sensory pole); in a remarkably parallel way, Anderson argues that
nationalism derives its force from its combination of political legitimation and emotional
power)
Gellner + Anderson: both emphasize that although nations tend to imagine themselves as
old, they are modern (developed in Europe, after the French Revolution)
Tradition ↔ Traditionalism (glorifying and re-codifying an ostensibly ancient tradition
shared by the ancestors of the members of the nation, bus it does not thereby recreate that
tradition)
Nationalism (often traditionalistic): stresses solidarity between poor and rich, between
propertyless and capitalistic → the principle of in- and exclusion follows the boundaries of
the nation
→ banal nationalism (like sports) continuously strengthens and reproduces people’s sense
of national belonging
Vernacularization = an important aspect of many nationalist movements, since a shared
language can be a powerful symbol of cultural unity as well as a convenient tool in the
administration of a nation state + the use of presumedly typical ethnic symbols = intended
to stimulate reflection on one’s own cultural distinctiveness and thereby to create a feeling
of nationhood
→ Gellner, Grillo and others (1980): nationalist ideology emerged as a reaction to
industrialization and the uprooting of people from their local communities
↓
Industrialization required many workers with t he same skills and capabilities → there was
need for cultural homogenization (standardization of skills) → mass education =
instrumental in this proces
Nationalism = able to create cohesion and loyalty among individuals participating in social
systems on a huge scale → able to direct people’s loyalty towards the State and the
legislative system rather than towards members of their kin group or village
→ however: the drive to homogenization also creates stigmatized others → there is no
inclusion without exclusion !
Conditions for nationalist ideology to be viable: (1) political effectiveness (it must refer to a
antion which can be embodied in a nation-state and effectively ruled) and (2) popular
support ( it must have belief or mass appeal → in most cases nationalism starts as an urban
elite phenomenon)
Nationalist ideology offers security and perceived stability at a time when life-worlds are
fragmented and people are beign uprooted
Important difference between nations and other kinds of community = scale ! (nation
state ↔ kinship networks and face to face interaction)
A third condition for nationalist ideology = the technological condition (communications
technology facilitating the standardization of knowledge or representations):
1. media = important in the reproduction and strengthening of nationalist sentiments
2. internet = important (research has shown that the Internet has not contributed to a
global cultural homogenization)
3. modern means of transportation = has important indirect effects at the level of
conciousness in making people feel that they are members of the nation
map = a very concise and potent symbol of the nation (demarcating country borders +
putting for instance Europe at the center of the world, which geographically isn’t valid)
Anderson: Nationalism = an ideology which proclaims that the Gemeinschaft threatened by
mass society can survive through a concern with roots and cultural continuity → In general:
nationalism appropriates symbols and meanings from cultural contexts which are important
in people’s everyday experience
→ nationalism = a form of metaphoric kinship (vb. Blz. 130) → nationalism appeared, and
continues to appear, in periods when the social and cultural vacuum in human lives in so far
as kinship loses importance
Differences between the Nation State and other social structures, studied by
anthropologists:
-
- political boundaries = cultural boundaries
- double monopoly: on violence (1) and taxation (2)
bureaucratic administration + written legislation (which encompasses all citizens) +
uniform educational system + shared labour market (which again encompasses all
citizens)
- almost every nation state has a shared, national language
→ concentration of power = peculiar to the nation state
Cultural egalitarianism (as preached by nationalism): can inspire counter-reactions (where a
segment of the population does not consider itself to be a part of the nation) → vb. Blz.
132/133
→ national identities: constituted in relation to others → metaphoric war between nationstates (sports may be the best example) → vb. Blz. 134/135/146
(blz. 136/137/138/139/140): the problem with identity boundaries is being shown, taking
Germany as example (considered as the dominant national identity in Europe)
(blz. 140/141/142143/144): Mauritius as an example of the discussion if it is possible to
have nationalism without ethnicity
→ Nations are not necessarily more static than ethnic groups → polyethnic nations may be
effectively redefined historically, in order to accommodate rights claims from groups who
have felt excluded from the core of the nation
Theoretical distinction between nationalism and ethnicity = simple → a nationalist
ideology is an ethnic ideology which demands a state on behalf of the ethnic group
However:
1. (the Mauritian case): nationalism may sometimes express a polyethnic or supraethnic ideology which stresses shared civil rights rather than shared cultural roots
2. Certain categories of people may find themselves in a grey zone between full
membership in the nation and ethnic minority
3. In the mass media and in casual conversation the two terms are not used
consistently
Duality of nationalism (the Janus Face of Nationalism): a conflict between a dominating and
a dominated ethnic group within the framework of a modern nation-state
Eriksen Chapter 7
Minorities and the State
Ethnic minority = a group which is numerically inferior to the rest of the population in a
society, which is politically non-dominant and which is being reproduced as an ethnic
category or group
Terms minorities/majorities are relative:
-
As soon as minorities become majorities due to redefinitions of system boundaries,
new minorities tend to appear
Groups which constitute majorities in one area of the country, for example, may be
minorities elsewhere
→ diversity is often defined by dominant groups as a problem → downright genocide and
enforced displacements are (brutal) examples of methods employed by sates in their
dealings with minorities
States have three main strategies in their dealings with minorities:
1. Assimilation → often believed to help their target groups to achieve equal rights and
to improve their social standing, but: they often inflict suffering and loss of dignity to
the minorities, who are thus taught that their own tradition is of no value →
successful assimilation may lead to the disappearance of the minority
2. Domination → implies segregation: referring to the presumed cultural inferiority of
the minority
3. Multiculturalism → citizenship and full civil rights are compatible with several ethnic
or religious identities
Three principal ways for minorities to respond (A. Hirschmann (1970)):
1. Exit → ethnic communities favoring secession and full independence
2. Voice → letting their voices be heard, protests through assimilation
3. Loyalty → trying to coexist peacefully with the nation state
→ note: assimilation is not always willing ! (vb. Black slaves blz. 150)
3 strategies are ideal types: often a compromise between the three is chosen →
integration: the minority’s simultaneous participation in the shared institutions of society
and its reproduction of group identity and ethnic boundaries
Indigenous people: a non-dominant and a non-state (!) group in a delineated territory, with
a more or less acknowledged claim to aboriginality → not necessarily new comers! → they
are vulnerable to modernization and the state
Since 1970s: these groups have become politically organized (to promote their interests visà-vis the dominant, encompassing majority)
Most common conflict (State ↔ indigenous groups) = territorial rights
→ interethnic brokers: are crucial for indigenous groups, because they can represent their
interests in greater society and because they can complementarize with the authorities and
with world opinion
Two general points:
1. No necessary contradiction Modernization ↔ Retention of Ethnic Identity (on the
contrary, in many cases certain aspects of modernization are required for identity
maintenance to be successful)
2. A Minority ↔ Majority involves, most of the time, also other agents who play an
important part (Like: international support + interethnic brokers)
Literacy = an important point in the ethnic revitalization of indigenous peoples → paradox
of ethnopolitics: the emphasis on literacy and negotiations with the state in ethnic survival
seems to imply that in order to save a culture, one must first lose it !
→ potential conflicts (indigenous groups ↔ State) = activated when the majority wishes to
control resources in the territory of the indigenous population → ethnopolitical movements
= directed against what they see as attempts to violate their territorial rights and their rights
to define their own way of life
→ nation state: attempts to force indigenous groups to become sedentary and literate →
put nomadic groups in a difficult situation:
1. All territories belong to someone (State, companies, individuals) in a modern country
2. The administration and surveillance of itinerant minorities present great problems
(like property rights and taxation systems)
Indigenous people: trapped: Isolation (in order to maintain their tradition; this seems
impossible) ↔ Pursuing their political interest (therefore they must first go through a
process of cultural adaption)
→ Anthropologists: tend not to see the moral obligations of indigenous people as
contributing to the preservation of an ancient way of life, but rather in helping the people to
make a transition to modernity on their own terms
Migrants ↔ Indigenous peoples:
1. Migrants often lack citizenship in the host country
2. Migrants were often members of the majorities in their country of origin
3. In many cases, migrants are only temporarily settled in the host country
4. Labor migrants tend to be totally integrated in the capitalist system of production
and consumption
Examples of immigrant minority studies → blz. 160/161
Sandra Wallman (1986; figure 7.1 blz. 162): the salience of ethnicity varies and this variation
can be investigated by looking at who does what with whom and for which purposes →
investigating the importance of ethnicity in people’s lives
Economic activity among migrants: their economic survival depends on using ethnic
networks and, perhaps, cultural skills (the goals people trey to achieve are contextually or
culturally defined, and in complex multi-ethnic societies members of different groups may
pursue different goals) → the informal economy, where illegal immigrants form the
backbone of the labor force = probably very considerable in many rich countries
Transnational micro-economies: have become very widespread during the last decades →
migration = a transnational venture, rather than a one-way process
Second- or third-generation immigrants become anomalies (they fail to fit into the
dominant categories of social classification in society) → the children of immigrants, while
rarely fully assimilated, generally identify themselves more strongly with the values of the
majority than their parents did
Example: ethnicity in the US (blz. 168/169/170/171)
Eriksen Chapter 8
Identity politics, culture and rights
Since 1980s:
-
- The field of anthropological study is highly politicized
The anthropologist carries out research in his/her own society → problem: there is a
normative dimension to research on multicultural issues which is often absent from
research in foreign countries
Paradox of multiculturalism: decisive variable = power → the majority has the power to
define when minorities should become like themselves (in this case minority members may
feel that their cultural distinctiveness = not being respected) or when they should be
defined as being different (minority members may end up feeling that they are being
actively discriminated against)
→ ethnic minorities are no more homogenous than other categories of people ! →
negotiations over the situational legitimacy of ethnic boundaries:
Optimistically (negotiations over meaning involving different, culturally conditioned
interpretations of social reality) ↔ Pessimistically (encounters between incommensurable
language games (Wittgenstein))
Multiculturalism: not a simple term with a well-defined meaning → most theories of
multicultural societies and state policies in the Western world try to strike a balance
between extremes:
On the one hand (too great diversity makes solidarity and democratic participation difficult
to achieve) ↔ On the other hand (total cultural homogeneity is an impossible goal to
achieve (even in ethnically homogenous societies!); there will always be minorities
demanding their right to be equal but different (like: religious sects and sexual minorities))
Communitarianism (belonging to a community is a primary feature of personhood;
downside = over-emphasizes the social integrity and cultural cohesion of ethnic groups) ↔
Liberalism (argue the primacy of the individual; downside = disregards the variability of
individual cultural identities) → more explained on blz. 178/179
→ debate is ongoing in the field of political philosophy and social theory (much theorists
search for the coveted middle ground) → this debate recalls similar, long-standing debates
within anthropology (namely: Particularism ↔ Universalism)
Notable theoretical contributions to the debate (more discussed at blz. 180/181): Charles
Taylor (1992), Will Kymlicka (1995), Bikhu Parekh (2000) → main problem for all the three:
when a liberal society is confronted with anti-liberal views, it will reveal that liberalism is but
one of several possible perspective
Anthropologists dealing with the discussion of multiculturalism:
Terence Turner (1993) → critical multiculturalism (which aims at extending democratic
rights by engaging in critical dialogue across boundaries and within groups) ↔ difference
multiculturalism (a relativist position which celebrates difference, essentializes culture and
renders dialogue, compromise and even translation difficult)
Gerd Bauman (1996) → two kinds of discourses: dominant discourse (reproduced chiefly
through the media and in the public sector; tends to equate ethnicity with community and
culture) ↔ demotic discourse (more flexible and complex; it recognizes the situational and
multifaceted character of individual identification, and contests some of the terms in which
the dominant discourse is framed)
Diaspora (the primary identity of an ethnic group connects them to their ancestral country,
even I they may have lived their entire lives elsewhere; a diasporic identity implies an
emphasis on conservation and re-creation of the ancestral culture) ↔ Hybridity (entails
cultural mixing and the emergence of impure, ambiguous identities which reject
essentialism and rigid boundaries)
Anderson (1992): Long-distance nationalism: people live in one country and are politically
involved in another → adds a new dimension to the theoretical understanding of social
identification → contemporary migration is often an ongoing process (likely to go on for
generations) → example: Americans of Irish descent often provide support for the IRA + the
Indian Hindutva Movement (blz. 192/193/194)
Three social features which seem to be nearly universal:
1. Competition over scarce resources: successful mobilization on the basis of collective
identities presupposes a widespread belief that resources are unequally distributed
along group lines
2. Modernization actualizes differences and triggers conflict: with the integration of
formerly discrete groups into shared economic and political systems, inequalities are
made visible, as comparison between the groups becomes possible
3. The groups are largely self-recruiting: kinship remains an important organizing
principle for most societies in the world
Five cognitive features which seem to be nearly universal:
1. Cultural similarity overrules social equality: internal differences in ethnic groups are
undercommunicated and equality values are discarded for ostensible cultural
reasons
2. Images of past suffering and injustice are invoked: referring to past sufferings,
invasions, subordinations etc.; framing their own cause as a legitimate revenge
3. The political symbolism and rhetoric evokes personal experiences: perhaps the
most important ideological feature of identity politics in general (!); using myths,
cultural symbols and kinship terminology in addressing their supporters, promoters
of identity politics try to downplay the difference between personal experiences and
group history
4. First-comers are contrasted with invaders: by no means universal in identity politics,
but it tends to be invoked whenever possible, and in the process, historical facts are
frequently stretched
5. The social complexity in society is reduced to a set of simple contrasts: crosscutting ties reduce the chances of violent conflict, so the collective identity must be
based on relatively unambiguous criteria → again, internal differences are
undercommunicated in the act of delineating boundaries in relation to the
demonized other
Eriksen Chapter 9
The Non-Ethnic
Globalization: makes people more and more similar; but the more similar we become, the
more different we try to be → however: the more different we try to be, the more similar
we become, since ethnic movements everywhere draw on the same grammar of uniqueness
(end chapter 8)
Globalization = dual and operates through dialectical negation:
-
Shrinking (of the world by facilitating fast contact across former boundaries) ↔
Expanding (of the world by creating an awareness of difference)
- Homogenization (of human lives by imposing a set of common denominators) ↔
Heterogenization (through the new forms of diversity emerging from the intensified
contact)
- Centripetal (it connects people worldwide) ↔ Centrifugal (it inspires a heightened
awareness of local awareness)
- Cosmopolitanism (it reminds us that we are all on the same boat and have to live
together in spite of our mutual differences) ↔ Fundamentalism (global integration
leads to a sense of alienation, threatening identities and notions of political
sovereignty)
Disembedding = important ! → objects no longer belong to a particular locality → yet: it is
never total, always counteracted by re-embedding (appearing as manifestations of
ethnicity)
Giddens (1985): the nation-state is the pre-eminent power-container of the modern era →
over the last years, this assumption has been questioned: the world has changed in such a
way that the nation-state is no longer an appropriate synonym for greater society (vb. Blz.
202/203/204)
→ be this as it may, there is little doubt that social identities in many parts of the world, in
the post-Cold War era, seem to be more open to negotiation than they were in the decades
following the Second World War, However: as the emphasis on primordial, ethnic or
national identities is stronger than it used to be
On the one hand (we witness powerful centripetal waves of cultural homogenization,
tighter economic integration etc.) ↔ On the other hand (we have seen new localisms or
particularisms continue to emerge and to assert their demands vis-à-vis the centres)
Nation-state = too small to solve the problems facing humanity and too big to give the
people a sense of community → necessity for new frameworks
Globalization (Robertson 1994): the world as a processual, fluid and complex network of
networks
→ reaction by anthropologists: glocalization (the creative fusions of local and non-local
elements) → Clifford Geertz + Marshall Sahlins (indigenization of modernity)
→ in our post-traditional world individuals are faced with more options and fewer scripts
than before:
1. Purist identities: preserving and reproducing tradition
2. Hyphenated identities: living in two worlds; juxtaposing their ancestral identity with
that of the host society
3. Hybrid or Creole identities: acknowledging irreducible mixing as a fact of life
Jonathan Friedman (1987, 1990, 1991): five major strategies (life-strategies) for satisfying
the structures of desire that emerge in the different niches of the global system:
1. Modernist strategies: society can be governed effectively on moral and sensible
principles; self, society and the world can develop according to presently
conventional criteria
2. Postmodern strategies: (1) a cynical distancing from all identification, but an acute
awareness of the lack of identity and (2) a narcissistic dependence on consumption
as a means for the presentation of self
3. Traditionalist strategies: caused by an experienced need among individuals in
modern societies to engage in a larger project in which identity is concrete and fixed
despite mobility, success and other external changes in social conditions
4. Third world strategies: developed in order to attract wealth and power through
clientship
5. Fourth World strategies: strategy of the formation of politically autonomous
communities which aim at re-establishing a formerly repressed identity and lifestyle
→ these five life-strategies are not mutually exclusive, but they do suggest (1) great
qualitative variations within the global system and (2) that there is a global system which
one has to relate to
Evance-Pritchard: Segmentary Societies: conflicting loyalties may reduce tensions and
prevent conflicts between lineages → these multiple or conflicting loyalties do not only
operate on the basis of kinship (also age-groups, trade or personal friendship)
Modern society: Multiple loyalties of minorities may be a potential conflict within nationstates (because nation-state remains hegemonic) → migrants, refugees, transnational
families: obvious examples
→ also multiple social identities along several other lines: employees or transnational
companies are trained to be loyal to their companies, not to their countries, for example
internet: provides opportunities for the expression of shared identity across borders
multiple identities (diverse and flexible) ↔ segmentary identities (Evans-Pritchard;
concentric circles and orderly)
non-ethnic identities can also be highly important → Gender identity: of great importance
in every human society, although gender-based political organizations are comparatively
rare → Gender as a cultural construction, whose legitimacy is justified through references
to biology
Sexual Stereotyping: to do with ethnicity (often used to describe ethnic groups as a whole)
Similarities: women in some societies ↔ some indigenous groups → muted categories
with little formal power:
-
Both are compelled to use the language of the dominators in order to be able to
express their interests
Both groups are taught that their specific social identity is immutable and biological;
as a consequence their subordination is natural
Both groups may be told that their contribution to society is negligible and that they
should therefore remain subordinated
Also: Fundamental differences: physical segregation among gender lines = much more
difficult to achieve than segregation among ethnic lines
Sport = interesting for an investigation of the dynamics between group loyalties and gender
(sports is often male dominated, and brings out a rich symbolism which has so far not been
properly analyzed in relation to nationalism, violence and sexuality)
A one-side focus on ethnicity may prevent a researcher from seeing social systems in
other ways which may also be relevant:
-
The existence of ethnic anomalies or liminal categories should serve as a reminder
that group boundaries are not unproblematic
Non-ethnic criteria for group membership are situationally relevant in every society,
and in modern societies they proliferate and can be identified as multiple identities
Ethnicity ↔ Social identity ? (cultural complexity combined with group differentiation is
not necessarily linked with ethnicity)
Problem around concept of ethnicity: seems to imply that there exists an ethnic
phenomenon in the world which requires a single explanation – which has biological or
other shared and objective origins
Thinking about ethnicity and boundaries: Digital (tends to regard groups as mutually
exclusive) ↔ Analogue (people may be a bit of this and a bit of that)
A final point: not everyone can take part in a given community ! → all categorizations of
group membership must have boundaries; they depend on others in order to make sense
Vb. Mauritania → blz. 215/216/217/218