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 paper, the authors define social identity as the identification of humans as "the classification of humans" with respect to social identity, which is central to all classification and knowledge.
Abstract: Categorization is central to all classification and knowledge. It is also central to sociology. With respect to social identity - the classification of humans - it is defined as the identification ...
406 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the historical study of borderlands has been unduly restricted by an emphasis on the legal, political, and geographical aspects of borders and by a state-centered approach and argued that borderland studies provide an indispensable corrective to historical narratives that accept the territoriality to which all modern states lay claim.
Abstract: The historical study of borderlands has been unduly restricted by an emphasis on the legal, political, and geographical aspects of borders and by a state-centered approach. Too often, the question has been how states have dealt with their borderlands rather than how borderlands have dealt with their states—culturally, economically, and politically. This article outlines a comparative approach to the social dynamics (struggles, adaptations, and cross-border alliances) in regions bisected by borders, and it argues that borderland studies provide an indispensable corrective to historical narratives that accept the territoriality to which all modern states lay claim.
405 citations
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01 Jan 2008TL;DR: Barkey as discussed by the authors examines the Ottoman Empire's social organization and mechanisms of rule at key moments of its history, emergence, imperial institutionalization, remodeling, and transition to nation state, revealing how the empire managed these moments, adapted, and averted crises and what changes made it transform dramatically.
Abstract: This book is a comparative study of imperial organization and longevity that assesses Ottoman successes as well as failures against those of other empires with similar characteristics. Barkey examines the Ottoman Empire's social organization and mechanisms of rule at key moments of its history, emergence, imperial institutionalization, remodeling, and transition to nation-state, revealing how the empire managed these moments, adapted, and averted crises and what changes made it transform dramatically. The flexible techniques by which the Ottomans maintained their legitimacy, the cooperation of their diverse elites both at the center and in the provinces, as well as their control over economic and human resources were responsible for the longevity of this particular 'negotiated empire'. Her analysis illuminates topics that include imperial governance, imperial institutions, imperial diversity and multiculturalism, the manner in which dissent is handled and/or internalized, and the nature of state society negotiations.
393 citations
TL;DR: The ethnicity literature within marketing has infrequently considered relevant subcultural norms in the derivation of hypotheses, the strength of ethnic identification in the grouping of subjects, and the....
Abstract: The ethnicity literature within marketing has infrequently considered relevant subcultural norms in the derivation of hypotheses, the strength of ethnic identification in the grouping of subjects, ...
381 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a hypothesis and evidence that humans process ethnic groups as if they were species because their surface similarities to species make them inputs to the livingkinds mental module that initially evolved to process specieslevel categories.
Abstract: If ethnic actors represent ethnic groups as essentialized natural groups despite the fact that ethnic essences do not exist, we must understand why. This article presents a hypothesis and evidence that humans process ethnic groups (and a few other related social categories) as if they were species because their surface similarities to species make them inputs to the livingkinds mental module that initially evolved to process specieslevel categories. The main similarities responsible are (1) categorybased endogamy and (2) descentbased membership. Evolution encouraged this because processing ethnic groups as speciesat least in the ancestral environmentsolved adaptive problems having to do with interactional discriminations and behavioral prediction. Coethnics (like conspecifics) share many strongly intercorrelated properties that are not obvious on first inspection. Since interaction with outgroup members is costly because of coordination failure due to different norms between ethnic groups, thinking of eth...
369 citations