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: Little Italies were, to a considerable extent, the product of what Robert F. Harney termed the Italo-phobia of the English-speaking world as discussed by the authors, and their history of anti-Catholicism helped to create an ideological foundation for fixing foreignness upon urban spaces occupied by immigrants who seemed racially different from the earlier Anglo-Celtic and northern European settlers.
Abstract: Between 1870 and 1970 the migration of 26 million people from Italy produced an uneven geography of Little Italies worldwide. Migrants initially clustered residentially in many lands, and their festivals, businesses, monuments and practices of everyday life also attracted negative commentary everywhere. But neighbourhoods labelled as Little Italies came to exist almost exclusively in North America and Australia. Comparison of Italy's migrants in the three most important former ‘settler colonies’ of the British Empire (the USA, Canada, Australia) to other world regions suggests why this was the case. Little Italies were, to a considerable extent, the product of what Robert F. Harney termed the Italo-phobia of the English-speaking world. English-speakers’ understandings of race and their history of anti-Catholicism helped to create an ideological foundation for fixing foreignness upon urban spaces occupied by immigrants who seemed racially different from the earlier Anglo-Celtic and northern European settlers.
36 citations
Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."
...…social practices of an existing group, but rather a process of ‘othering’—the differentiation of self from others and insiders from outsiders (creating either ‘alterity’ or ‘ethnic boundaries’, depending on one’s theoretical perspective)—that defines ethnic, national and racial groups (Barth 1998)....
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26 Oct 2017TL;DR: In this paper, Trebilco explores the outsider designations that the early Christians used in the New Testament, including unbelievers, "outsiders", sinners, Gentiles, Jews, among others.
Abstract: What terms did early Christians use for outsiders? How did they refer to non-members? In this book-length investigation of these questions, Paul Trebilco explores the outsider designations that the early Christians used in the New Testament. He examines a range of terms, including unbelievers, 'outsiders', sinners, Gentiles, Jews, among others. Drawing on insights from social identity theory, sociolinguistics, and the sociology of deviance, he investigates the usage and development of these terms across the New Testament, and also examines how these outsider designations function in boundary construction across several texts. Trebilco's analysis leads to new conclusions about the identity and character of the early Christian movement, the range of relations between early Christians and outsiders, and the theology of particular New Testament authors.
36 citations
TL;DR: This study demonstrates that sympatric vocal clans do exist in the Atlantic, that they define a higher order level of social organization as they do in the Pacific, and suggests that cultural identity at the clan level is probably important in this species worldwide.
Abstract: Sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus ) are unusual in that there is good evidence for sympatric populations with distinct culturally determined behaviour, including potential acoustic markers of the population division. In the Pacific, socially segregated, vocal clans with distinct dialects coexist; by contrast, geographical variation in vocal repertoire in the Atlantic has been attributed to drift. We examine networks of acoustic repertoire similarity and social interactions for 11 social units in the Eastern Caribbean. We find the presence of two socially segregated, sympatric vocal clans whose dialects differ significantly both in terms of categorical coda types produced by each clan (Mantel test between clans: matrix correlation = 0.256; p ≤ 0.001) and when using classification-free similarity which ignores defined types (Mantel test between clans: matrix correlation = 0.180; p ≤ 0.001). The more common of the two clans makes a characteristic 1 + 1 + 3 coda, while the other less often sighted clan makes predominantly regular codas. Units were only observed associating with other units within their vocal clan. This study demonstrates that sympatric vocal clans do exist in the Atlantic, that they define a higher order level of social organization as they do in the Pacific, and suggests that cultural identity at the clan level is probably important in this species worldwide.
36 citations
01 Nov 2013
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use illegality as a theoretical lens to reexamine what constitute worthy subjects of research and standards for ethical and methodological practice in the field of border studies.
Abstract: Drawing from the scholarship on states and illegal practices and the author's fieldwork at the Mexico-Guatemala border, this article posits new directions in the study of legitimacy, legality, and morality in borderlands. By making illegality central, the article reveals the politics and power dynamics that shape how people differentially experience the law. The article uses illegality as a theoretical lens to reexamine what constitute worthy subjects of research and standards for ethical and methodological practice.
36 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify the ambiguity in contemporary projects of minority rights advocacy aimed at redressing the social and economic grievances of the Roma in Central Europe and show how activists in the articulation of their claims rely on essentialist assumptions of Romani identity.
Abstract: Activists who take up the cause of marginalized and discriminated cultural groups often find themselves in an ambiguous position in relation to the very people whose interests they seek to represent. Inspired by the ideas of multiculturalism, minority advocates turn the cultural identity of marginalized and discriminated minorities into the central focus of a political struggle for recognition. By so doing, however, they construct a particular sectional minority identity that not only fails to give full expression to individual identities, but is usually also “stigmatized” in the sense that it is popularly associated with standard stereotypical images and negative characteristics. This article identifies this ambiguity in contemporary projects of minority rights advocacy aimed at redressing the social and economic grievances of the Roma in Central Europe. It shows how activists in the articulation of their claims rely on essentialist assumptions of Romani identity. While these minority rights claims reson...
36 citations