Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference

doi:10.2307/588416

Journal Article•DOI•

Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference

01 Jun 1970-British Journal of Sociology-Vol. 21, Iss: 2, pp 231

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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Journal Article•DOI•

Ceramics and group identities: Towards a social archaeology in southern African Iron Age ceramic studies

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Innocent Pikirayi

01 Oct 2007-Journal of Social Archaeology

TL;DR: The authors argue that ceramics communicated social messages to their users, and thus archaeologists should borrow from communication theory to understand, for example, why pottery was decorated and obtain social meanings straddling across or beyond ethnic identities.

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Abstract: Southern African Iron Age archaeology has engaged with identity issues using ceramic evidence as the basis for culture group definition, chronology and determining origins and movements of people. Archaeological research should go beyond typologically defined ceramic styles to explore material culture meanings and group interactions. I argue that ceramics communicated social messages to their users, and thus archaeologists should borrow from communication theory to understand, for example, why pottery was decorated. It is from this decoration that archaeologists can obtain social meanings straddling across or beyond ethnic identities.

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35 citations

Dissertation•

Emerging Contemporary Bharatanatyam Choreoscape in Britain: the City, Hybridity and Technoculture

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Suparna Banerjee

01 Jan 2015

TL;DR: For instance, Anita Ratnam, a dance artist and the director of the Arangham Dance Company from Chennai, India, threw a set of provocative questions at the audience: "Can you abstract abhinaya [mimetic technique]?...I live and perform in India, so why do you ask this question?" as discussed by the authors.

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Abstract: ness as a fluid concept. So abstractness is promoted as a consumption of an imagined ‘pastʼ juxtaposed with the ideals of artistic autonomy and self-discovery. In various presentations during the day, many argued that it is difficult to present choreography as an abstract form because theatrical representations are its inseparable 18 Nritta in classical dance practices is defined as an item that is devoid of any mimetic element and abounds in rhythmic sequences. The root word is derived from Sanskrit ‘nrit’ which means ‘to dance’. (see Abhinayadarpanam verse number 15) (Ghosh, 1975). In Bharatanatyam, nritta is the delineation of measured, coordinated human movements that is rendered while holding a specific pose in a given unit of time (Vatsyayan, 1992: 14). Some nritta based items are: pushpanjali, alarippu, jathiswaram and tillana (Balasaraswati, 1978). A musical composition for the nritta is set either to swara (musical notes) or pata (syllables played on rhythmic instruments or recited verbally with or without music). 12 performative ingredient even today in India. For instance, Anita Ratnam, a dance artist and the director of the Arangham Dance Company from Chennai, India, threw a set of provocative questions at the audience: ‘can you abstract abhinaya [mimetic technique]?...I live and perform in India, so why do you ask this question?’ (Fieldnote, February 25, 2012). In spite of differing voices, this symposium marked the celebration of abstractness as a performative tool by using various mediums in different conceptual and stylistic approaches, which included performance, video art, installation, sculpture, and photography. From the symposiums, it is also inferred that the relationship between culture and geographical location is not a one-way process; rather it is mutually constituted. Some terminologies and aesthetic strategies gain currency; some become oblivious which make the choreoscape intrinsically stratified and differentiated. The emergence of new terminologies indicates the problems we equally grapple with either as scholars, dance artists, funding bodies or producers. Thus it is argued that this mobility of artistic genres and dance terminologies is constructing a fluid boundary of practice. Before proceeding further, I explicate a few autobiographical details to indicate my interest in this research.

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35 citations

Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."

...…For example, they have studied themes such as the binary of the insider and outsider (Nagata, 1979); the problem and the role of the boundaries in defining identity (Barth, 1969); the linguistic roots of the term ‘ethnicity’ and its relationship to the concepts of ‘nation’ (Sollors, 1986)....
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...9 For example, they have studied themes such as the binary of the insider and outsider (Nagata, 1979); the problem and the role of the boundaries in defining identity (Barth, 1969); the linguistic roots of the term ‘ethnicity’ and its relationship to the concepts of ‘nation’ (Sollors, 1986)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Female Genital Mutilation. Overview and Current Knowledge

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Armelle Andro¹, Marie Lesclingand, Madeleine Grieve, Paul Reeve•Institutions (1)

University of Paris¹

01 Jun 2016-Population

TL;DR: The prevalence of FGM and its variation over time in the different regions of the world is examined, and current knowledge of the determinants of the practice and its effects on health and sexuality is presented.

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Abstract: Female genital mutilation (FGM), which is any form of non-therapeutic intervention leading to the ablation or alteration of the female genital organs, has adverse health consequences. According to UNICEF, in 2016, more than 200 million women in the world have undergone FGM. This article examines the prevalence of FGM and its variation over time in the different regions of the world, and presents current knowledge of the determinants of the practice and its effects on health and sexuality. Recent public health studies have demonstrated the scale and diversity of the consequences of FGM, and specific medical services have been developed for the women concerned. Available data show that while FGM is well studied in Africa, it remains poorly documented in certain regions of the world. This is notably the case in countries where the practice is clandestine, and in those with immigrant populations from countries where women undergo FGM.

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35 citations

Dissertation•

A Landscape of Left-Overs : Changing Conceptions of Place and Environment among Mi'kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada

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Anne-Christine Hornborg

01 Jan 2001

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore historical changes in the lifeworld of the Mi'kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada and discuss the ecocosmology that has been formulated by modern reserve inhabitants and that could be labeled a “sacred ecology”.

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Abstract: This dissertation seeks to explore historical changes in the lifeworld of the Mi’kmaq Indians of Eastern Canada. The Mi’kmaq culture hero Kluskap here serves as a key persona in discussing issues such as traditions, changing conceptions of land, and human-environmental relations. In order not to depict Mi’kmaq culture as timeless, two important periods in its history are examined. The first study reviews historical evidence of the ontology, epistemology, and ethics – jointly labeled animism – that stem from a premodern Mi’kmaq hunting subsistence. This evidence dates from the period between 1850 and 1930, which is also the period when the Mi’kmaq were gradually being forced to settle in the reserves. The second study situates the culture hero in the modern world of the 1990s, when allusions to Mi’kmaq tradition and to Kluskap played an important role in the struggle against a planned superquarry on Cape Breton. This study discusses the ecocosmology that has been formulated by modern reserve inhabitants and that could be labeled a “sacred ecology”. If the premodern ecocosmologies have been favorably treated by Westerners, the modern Natives’ attempt to create a “sacred ecology” has been received with ambivalence. It has been welcomed by some as an alternative to Western ways of treating nature, which threaten our global survival. But it has also been criticized as a modern construction designed by Natives to gain benefits from Canadian society. In the example of the Mi’kmaq struggle against the superquarry, this critique is discussed, with a focus on how the Mi’kmaq are rebuilding their traditions and environmental relations in interaction with modern society. In this process, environmental groups, pan-Indianism, and education play an important role, but so does reserve life. By anchoring their engagement in reserve life the Mi’kmaq traditionalists have to a large extent been able to confront both external and internal doubts about their authenticity.

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35 citations

Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."

...Barth(42), H. McGee (1974) wrote a survey of Mi’kmaq history and of how the tribe during the 1970s shaped their ethnic identity. The social anthropologist T. Larsen carried out his fieldwork on the island of Cape Breton and published a paper entitled “Negotiating Identity: The Micmac of Nova Scotia.”, in Tanner (1983). In this text he discusses how a Mi’kmaq identity is generated in a special context and how, in the meeting with mainstream society, it becomes a constant object for negotiation: to be accepted or to be rejected. D. Moore (1983) also writes about ethnic groups and the multicultural politics in Canada. H. Prins did his fieldwork among the Mi’kmaq in northern Maine and describes his experiences in The Mi’kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation and Cultural Survival (1996). Prins says that the Mi’kmaq, in spite of hard pressure from the colonial power, have kept their status as a group: “It seems a miracle that the Mi’kmaq should survive this long-term apocalypse, but survive they did....
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...Barth(42), H. McGee (1974) wrote a survey of Mi’kmaq history and of how the tribe during the 1970s shaped their ethnic identity. The social anthropologist T. Larsen carried out his fieldwork on the island of Cape Breton and published a paper entitled “Negotiating Identity: The Micmac of Nova Scotia.”, in Tanner (1983). In this text he discusses how a Mi’kmaq identity is generated in a special context and how, in the meeting with mainstream society, it becomes a constant object for negotiation: to be accepted or to be rejected. D. Moore (1983) also writes about ethnic groups and the multicultural politics in Canada....
[...]
...Barth(42), H. McGee (1974) wrote a survey of Mi’kmaq history and of how the tribe during the 1970s shaped their ethnic identity. The social anthropologist T. Larsen carried out his fieldwork on the island of Cape Breton and published a paper entitled “Negotiating Identity: The Micmac of Nova Scotia.”, in Tanner (1983). In this text he discusses how a Mi’kmaq identity is generated in a special context and how, in the meeting with mainstream society, it becomes a constant object for negotiation: to be accepted or to be rejected....
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...When the Swedish pulp mill company Stora Kopparberg had large forest areas in Nova Scotia sprayed with pesticides, this 42 Barth 1969....
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...Barth(42), H. McGee (1974) wrote a survey of Mi’kmaq history and of how the tribe during the 1970s shaped their ethnic identity....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Transboundary political ecology in Amazonia: history, culture, and conflicts of the borderland Asháninka

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David S. Salisbury¹, José Borgo López, Jorge Vela Alvarado•Institutions (1)

University of Richmond¹

11 Mar 2011-Journal of Cultural Geography

TL;DR: This article used a case study from the Peruvian and Brazilian border and the Ucayali and Jurua watersheds to understand the political ecology of a border process from contact to 2004, demonstrating how global resource demand and ecological gradients drove boundary formation and the relocation of indigenous labor to the borderlands.

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Abstract: International boundaries in the lowland Amazon forest were historically drawn according to the scramble for natural resources. This paper uses a case study from the Peruvian and Brazilian border and the Ucayali and Jurua watersheds to understand the political ecology of a border process from contact to 2004. Results demonstrate how global resource demand and ecological gradients drove boundary formation and the relocation of indigenous labor to the borderlands. Forgotten in the forest after the fall of rubber prices, the borderland Ashaninka emerged to challenge loggers incited by the global demand for high grade timber. The transboundary impacts of this resource boom highlight discrepancies between the Brazilian and Peruvian Ashaninka's ability to mobilize power. A transboundary political ecology framework is necessary to grasp the heterogeneity and dynamism of natural resource management along boundaries and borderlands forged and tempered by historical resource booms.

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35 citations

Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."

...Borderlands rely on a boundary line axis: an artificial, mutable, and humanly constructed razor’s edge dividing diverse cultures, political systems, and economies (Barth 1969)....
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Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference

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Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."

Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."

Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."

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