Ethnicial groups and boundaries

Reading "The social organization of cultural difference" by Fredrik Barth

This article examines the following issues:

1. Ethnic groups are categories of ascription and identification by the actors within. have the characteristic of organizing interaction between people;
2. The different process that involve in generating and maintaining ethnic groups;
3. The internal constitution and history of separate groups to ethnic boundaries and maintenance.

Ethnic group defined: (Ideal type definition)

- largely biological self-perpetuating
- shares fundamental cultural values, realized in overt unity in cultural forms;
- makes up a field of communication and interaction
- has a membership which identified itself, and is identified by others.

Ethnic groups as cultural-bearing units

That implies that classification of persons and local groups as members as an ethnic groups must depend on their exhibiting the particular traits of the culture. This is something that can be judged objectively by the ethnographic observe.

The overt cultural forms which can be itemized as traits exhibit the effects of ecology, which means that the external circumstances to which actors must accommodate themselves, and adaptive strategies an ethnic groups must be applied.

When facing different opportunities offered in different environments, the same ethnic groups, though with the same cultural values ideas, will pursue different patterns of life and institutionalize different forms of behaviors. Likewise, we expect to find that one ethnic group, spread over a territory with varying ecologic circumstances, will exhibit regional diversities of overt institutionalized behavior to reflect differences in cultural orientation.

How should they then be classified if overt institutional forms are different?

The example of Pathan local social system.

South Pathan is so different from North Pathan. But the closer examination found that under those circumstances South Pathan would have indeed acted the same with as their North Pathan groups.

It is thus inadequate to regard overt institutional forms as constituting the cultural features which at any time distinguish an ethnic group,these overt forms are determined by ecology as well as by transmitted culture.

There are well documented cases of one ethnic group, also at a relatively simple level of economic organization, occupying several different ecologic niches and retaining the basic cultural and ethnic unity over long period. (e.g. inland and coast Chuchchee; reindeer, river and coast Lappes)

Ethnic groups as an organizational type

In social effect, each ethnic group can be seen as a form of social organization, which is self ascription and ascription by others. The actors use ethnic identity to categorize themselves and others for purposes of interaction, in that sense, they form ethnic group as organization.

Here the individual level difference comes in place. Not only do ecological variations mark and cause differences, some cultural features are used by the actors as signals and emblems of differences, others are ignored and in some relationships radical differences are played down and denied.

Noted that cultural contents of ethnic dichotomies include:

1. overt signals and signs
2. basic value and orientation

They may or may not have relevance to individual's behavior; Ethnic groups provide an organizational vessel that may be given varying amounts and forms of content in different socio-cultural system. The boundary of an ethnic group can be changed, the cultural characteristics of members may likewise be transformed. Socially related factors define membership of a group. It is fluid and not fixed.

The boundary of ethnic groups

The identification of another person as a fellow member of an ethnic group implies a sharing of criteria for evaluation and judgment. It entails the assumption that two are playing the same game; on the other hand, a dichotomization of others as strangers, as member of another ethnic groups, implies a recognition of limitations on shared understanding, differences in criteria for judgment of value and performance.

That involves the interaction with other ethnic groups. Ethnic group will persist if there are marked differences in behavior and persisting cultural differences.

Yet, the interactions of people from different ethnic groups require and generate a congruence of codes and values, in other words, a similarity or community of culture. Stable inter-ethnic relations presuppose a structuring of interaction: to allow the articulation of some sectors while insulate parts of the cultures from confrontation and modification.