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: For example, this paper pointed out that although minorities have often entered into full citizenship through long and arduous struggle, this procedure has sometimes been both shortened and sweetened when they have made up their minds to enter laughing-using the more delightful aspects of ethnic-generated humor to win friends, acceptance, and material success.
Abstract: ETHNIC HUMOR HAS ALWAYS FORMED A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD OF American folklore and culture, partly because it provides pleasure, and partly because of its connection with mythical concepts of aggression, struggle, and our national passion play and ritual, "Americanization. "1 Humor, moreover, is absolutely central to our conception of the world. Despite this fact, we tend to become suddenly solemn when we begin to write, particularly for scholarly journals and books. To be funny indicates a lack of seriousness. Perhaps for this reason, histories and studies of ethnicity, assimilation, and ethnic literature have frequently ignored a vital aspect of their subject; for although minorities have often entered into full citizenship through long and arduous struggle, this procedure has sometimes been both shortened and sweetened when they have made up their minds to enter laughing-using the more delightful aspects of ethnic-generated humor to win friends, acceptance, and material success. This happens in spite of, and in reaction to, the darker, better-known side of ethnic humor: jokes directed against the out-group by the in-group, or by one out-group against another, or "self-deprecating" jokes told by members of the group itself.
66 citations
TL;DR: A detailed examination of commonalities between folk religion beliefs and practices of African American and European American ethnic groups raises intriguing issues as discussed by the authors, including the general dynamics of ethnic group boundedness, how material culture communicates such ethnic identities, and how conjuration practices support or subvert ethnic group boundaries.
Abstract: A detailed examination of commonalities between folk religion beliefs and practices of African American and European American ethnic groups raises intriguing issues. Interpretations concerning the ethnic group association of conjuration artifacts uncovered at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sites in the mid-Atlantic region must be based on a clearer articulation of the interplay of three issues: the general dynamics of ethnic group boundedness; how material culture communicates such ethnic identities; and how conjuration practices support or subvert ethnic group boundaries. A variety of protective and malevolent conjuration practices likely functioned in different ways in intergroup and intragroup settings.
66 citations
TL;DR: This article presented an overview of ethnicity, ethnic strife, and its consequences, as seen from the perspective of the disciplines of economics, political science, social anthropology, and sociology, and discussed the role of interdisciplinarity in helping to understand ethnicity and ethnic strife.
65 citations
Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."
...That is, it is the result of broader organizing techniques that employ tools such as census categories to organize populations (Anderson, 1991; Barth, 1969; Hirschman, 1987)....
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...Sociological and anthropological approaches to ethnicity have, particularly since the work of Barth (1969), begun with the assumption that ethnic groups exist in relation to other groups....
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TL;DR: The authors found that both public and private forms of identification with the majority increase across generations, and minority identities tend to become less salient, although there are differences in underlying levels and patterns of identity, reflecting variation in contexts of reception and migration.
Abstract: Ethnic and religious minority identity is a subject of intense public debate and academic scrutiny. While assimilation theories anticipate convergence of identity across the generations, discussions of reactive ethnicity, transnational identification and religious revival suggest that there may be a deepening or shifting of minority identity in the second generation. Yet the empirical evidence in support of these different perspectives is far from conclusive. Drawing on a rich data source for the UK, this paper addresses the question of whether minority ethnic groups in Britain show identity assimilation in the second generation. It concludes that both public and private forms of identification with the majority increase across generations, and minority identities tend to become less salient. This is true across ethnic groups, although there are differences in underlying levels and patterns of identity, reflecting variation in contexts of reception and migration.
65 citations
Cites background from "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The S..."
...Ethnic identification may be a strategic response to circumstances; it may have an instrumental role (Barth 1969) but it is critically shaped by the context facing individuals from specific groups....
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03 Jun 2019
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the treatment of indigenous minorities alongside migrant communities, and they show that Hall's 'fateful triangle' of ethnicity-race-nation requires a fourth pillar, namely the state.
Abstract: that living with difference would be the problem of the twenty-first century. Instances all across the world provide evidence of this and this insightful book, centred on the Nordic countries, adds powerfully to a body of critical scholarship on race and ethnicity that shows how entangled they are within repressed histories of internal and external colonisation and imagined nationhood. By considering the treatment of indigenous minorities alongside migrant communities, the editors and contributors impressively advance understandings of theways in which difference is imagined and represented. Moreover the essays in this book skilfully analyse the peculiarity of claimed ethnic homogeneity. By linking the role of this myth to the influential model of the social democratic welfare state, they show that Hall’s ‘fateful triangle’ of ethnicity-race-nation requires a fourth pillar, namely the state. Here is a book that may seem to be mainly of relevance to Nordic scholars but will I hope be read well beyond there and by all those interested in ethnicity, migration and the state, for its critical, engaged and engaging, unmasking of assumed homogeneity as well as its search for the possibilities of solidarity across difference.” —KarimMurji, Co-editor ofCurrent Sociology, University of West London, UK
65 citations