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: In this article, the authors examine reciprocal relations among Wolof small farmers in Senegal after the emergence of rural weekly markets ( loumas ) and the implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1980s.
Abstract: This article examines reciprocal relations among Wolof small farmers in Senegal after the emergence of rural weekly markets ( loumas ) and the implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1980s. Contrary to the notion that markets are a force of social dissolution, new trading practices and free market policies have not weakened community relations among small farmer neighbours and kin. Rather, the spatial and temporal patterning of loumas has served to strengthen intra-community bonds. Farmers have, since the formation of loumas , limited their travel beyond their home zones. While at loumas they interact avidly with extralocal merchants, they have not allowed outsiders to settle permanently in local villages. Furthermore, because loumas occur only once a week, farmers continue to benefit from daily, multiplex interactions with one another. After analysing the spatial and temporal organisation of loumas , this article looks at specific examples of small farmers augmenting their economic security during a period of economic restructuration by innovating new modes of reciprocal exchange with one another.
29 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine Uighur-Han Chinese relations in contemporary Xinjiang and probe conditions that facilitate interethnic violence, and examine in detail how the rigid intergroup boundary between the Uighurs and Han Chinese has been constructed and strengthened in Xinjiang.
Abstract: The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region has been afflicted by Uighur political activism and ethnic violence for the past few decades. Interethnic relations between the Uighurs and Han Chinese have been extremely tense. Why is Xinjiang so vulnerable to interethnic violence? Why are intergroup dynamics between the Uighurs and Han Chinese so volatile? This paper examines Uighur–Han Chinese relations in contemporary Xinjiang and probes conditions that facilitate interethnic violence. Utilizing Fredrik Barth’s approach to ethnicity that emphasizes boundaries, this paper examines in detail how the rigid interethnic boundary between the Uighurs and Han Chinese has been constructed and strengthened in Xinjiang. Perceived differences have generated mutual distrust and discrimination between the two groups that make intergroup communication and understanding difficult and therefore very limited. In situations such as that in Xinjiang, where a rigid intergroup boundary is in place and civic engagements across groups are lacking, intergroup conflict is extremely hard to avoid.
29 citations
01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe a life cycle of a MIGRANT, a CONSEQUENT SETTLER, and a MARIAGE MARRIAGRANT, and conclude:
Abstract: ...................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. LIFESTYLE MIGRANT, CONSEQUENT SETTLER AND MARRIAGE MIGRANT ............................................................................................. 7 1.
29 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored a conception of culture that emphasizes continuous variation, or clines, rather than boundaries, using data from four localities in peripheral areas of the British Isles, where participants were asked to judge on a 5-point scale whether the practices were characteristic of their location.
Abstract: Using data from four localities in peripheral areas of the British Isles, this article explores a conception of culture that emphasizes continuous variation, or clines, rather than boundaries. These localities are sites for the performance of cultural practices, many of which may be shared across socially constructed boundaries such as those of nation, ethnic group, and class. Consensus analysis provides a tool for exploring areas of greater or lesser sharing of cultural models indicated by responses to 21 brief narratives of everyday cultural practices. Informants were asked to judge on a 5-point scale whether the practices were characteristic of their location. With a high consensus in each site about typical practices, it was possible to compare the culturally correct profiles of responses between each of the sites, revealing incremental changes, or clines, from site to site. Edges, or the conjunction of clines, might be mapped using consensus analysis.
29 citations
TL;DR: This research problematises the concept of culture as it is engaged by clinicians (by excluding their own) and promotes reflection on an anthropologically informed clinical practice.
Abstract: Contemporary urban diversity combined with increasing specialisation in tertiary care, technological innovations, and complexity of pathologies, render patient–physician relations challenging for both patients and practitioners. Based on ongoing research in a university paediatric hospital in Montreal, this paper examines how patient–physician relations are played out in the space of the clinic in which a set of social, cultural, structural and asymmetrical relations intertwine. Through an ethnographic approach, which includes the observation of multi-disciplinary clinical settings as well as interviews with clinicians and families (migrants and non-migrants), the paper examines how the ‘images’ of both the patient (his family) and the physician play an active role in the clinical encounter. Interpretations of parental attitudes by practitioners are linked to their perceived background within the local and institutional configuration of norms and values, including the notion of a ‘good parent’. This resea...
29 citations