Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference
About: This article is published in British Journal of Sociology.The article was published on 1970-06-01. It has received 4205 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Social organization & Ethnic group.
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TL;DR: This article proposed to treat nations like complex systems whose form emerges from below and focus research on four central aspects of complexity: emergence, feedback loops, tipping points and distributed knowledge, which illuminates how national identity can be reproduced by popular activities rather than the state.
Abstract: Classic theories of nationalism, whether modernist or ethnosymbolist, emphasise the role of elites and spread of a common imagined community from centre to periphery. Recent work across a range of disciplines challenges this account by stressing the role of horizontal, peer-to-peer, dynamics alongside top-down flows. Complexity theory, which has recently been applied to the social sciences, expands our understanding of horizontal national dynamics. It draws together contemporary critiques, suggesting that researchers focus on the network properties of nations and nationalism. It stresses that order may emerge from chaos, hence 'national' behaviour may appear without an imagined community. Treating nations like complex systems whose form emerges from below should focus research on four central aspects of complexity: emergence, feedback loops, tipping points and distributed knowledge, or 'the wisdom of crowds'. This illuminates how national identity can be reproduced by popular activities rather than the state; why nationalist ideas may gestate in small circles for long periods, then suddenly spread; why secession is often contagious; and why wide local variation in the content of national identity strengthens rather than weakens the nation’s power to mobilise.
37 citations
Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."
...Elite construction and dissemination play a relatively limited role (Barth [1969] Barth 1998: 21)....
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Dissertation•
27 Feb 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the mechanism related to the logic of citizenship that dismisses political agency of those who do not count as political subjects and makes them into what they refer to as "citizen outsiders".
Abstract: Conventionally citizenship has been understood as membership in nation states requiring certain rights and providing certain entitlements. Over the last twenty years, critical perspectives asserted that citizenship is not merely membership, let alone membership of a state. It is now argued that historically and theoretically citizenship involves a distinction between an outside and inside and often its boundaries become the sites of social struggle. Critical perspectives on citizenship invite us to think of citizenship as processes by which political subjectivity, understood as the right to make claims to rights, can be recognised and enacted. As these perspectives allow us to think critically about citizenship beyond membership and the nation state, in this thesis I focus first on the mechanism related to the logic of citizenship that dismisses political agency of those who do not count as political subjects and makes them into what I refer to as ‘citizen outsiders’. Second, I draw on critical perspectives on citizenship and ethnographic methods to examine how Romanian Roma in an East London borough, who are discursively constituted as lacking capacities to act as citizens, contest the ways they are problematised. By focusing on their everyday life struggles as acts of citizenship, I argue that Roma in London do make claims to rights and, in doing so, enact themselves as citizens. Finally I draw conclusions about the ways Roma are problematised and how Roma disrupt these positioning with various acts of citizenship.
37 citations
Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."
...Besides notions of space and boundaries (see Barth, 1969), binary oppositions also probe citizenship’s universal applicability....
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01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an autobiographical statement of the author. But they do not discuss the relationship between the author and the author's family................................................................................................................................. 338 Autobiographical Statement
Abstract: ................................................................................................................................ 338 Autobiographical Statement................................................................................................. 340
37 citations
TL;DR: The authors see cosmopolitan identity formation as an individual endeavour of developing a stance of openness, and transcending discourses of national and other cultural identities, and see it as a personal endeavor.
Abstract: Current literature tends to see cosmopolitan identity formation as an individual endeavour of developing a stance of openness, and transcending discourses of national and other cultural identities....
36 citations
Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."
...…internal definition and external differentiation drawing on shared cultural resources to define ‘us’ as having something in common vis-a-vis Others (Barth, 1969; Baumann, 1999; Jenkins, 2008, 2014): International people are more open to things, more open to change and more open to anything…...
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...It also has to be established through discursive acts of internal definition and external differentiation drawing on shared cultural resources to define ‘us’ as having something in common vis-a-vis Others (Barth, 1969; Baumann, 1999; Jenkins, 2008, 2014): International people are more open to things, more open to change and more open to anything basically....
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...These Others can include, for instance, ‘traditional expats’....
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...The difference that makes a difference is that the Others ‘stick with their own way’ rather than adapting in the mutual cosmopolitan performance of being open, flexible and ‘neutralizing’....
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...People actively construct cultural identity and belonging in relation to a range of Others drawing on collectively established discursive and symbolic resources (Barth, 1969; Cohen, 1985; Eriksen, 2010; Jenkins, 2008, 2014; Ybema et al., 2009)....
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TL;DR: This paper present a seleccion de enfoques del campo mencionado, desde la pragmatica comparada e intercultural, sociolinguistica interaccional, etnografia de la comunicacion, etno-nometodologia and analisis del discurso.
Abstract: Muchos trabajos en comunicacion intercultural en el campo de la linguistica comparten el supuesto de que la influencia de la cultura sobre la interaccion social se manifestara en los intercambios comunicativos, e igualmente que una mirada academica a esos intercambios sera base suficiente para una adecuada descripcion de como se supone que sea la comunicacion intercultural. La teoria linguistica misma, careciendo de lugares para integrar a la cultura como un factor en sus conceptos, urge a los academicos a pedir prestadas operacionalizaciones de la cultura desde disciplinas vecinas, como diferentes corrientes de la psicologia, sociologia o antropologia. Como una consecuencia, los enfoques que resultan de esta orientacion transdisciplinar, comparten supuestos muy divergentes sobre como, en que momento en un proceso comunicativo, y con que efectos, la cultura afecta la interaccion social. Mientras que muchas investigaciones desde tendencias similares distinguen entre los enfoques primordiales y construccionistas, una mirada mas cercana a diferentes corrientes de investigacion linguistica empirica puede revelar distinciones aun mas exactas y detalladas acerca de como pensarse y enmarcar a la cultura. Este articulo presentara y analizara una seleccion de enfoques del campo mencionado, por ejemplo desde la pragmatica comparada e intercultural, sociolinguistica interaccional, etnografia de la comunicacion, etnometodologia y analisis del discurso. En cada caso se revelaran las nociones subyacentes de cultura y se contrastaran. Ademas, este analisis de ejemplos mostrara que, a lo largo del tiempo, la mayoria de las escuelas empiricas mencionadas siguen y adoptan nociones cambiantes de cultura de la teoria social.
URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901508
36 citations