The formation of group identity: Ethnicity and nationalism appreciating particularities and appeasin

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The formation of group identityEthnicity and
nationalism appreciating particularities and
appeasing collectives
Lecture for the MA course Ethnic Challenges to
the Nation-State Studying State Responses from
a Human Rights PerspectiveKjetil Tronvoll,
NCHR, 11 September 2007
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What is a collective identity?

• A collective is not a given pre-existing
  category
• It is a symbolic representation of commonness
  among a group of people, in contrast to other
  collectives
• The boundaries are flexible and constantly
  reproduced through social interaction
• Since they are symbolic representations, their
  appearance are multivocal
• They are generated through perceived aspects of
  shared knowledge and recognised social routines
  (common behaviour and institutions)
• They appear self-ascribed or ascribed by others
• It is a relevant and meaningful category for its
  members

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Collective identities primordial or instrumental?

• Are ethnicity and nationalism (collective
  identities) an intrinsic, primordial aspect of
  human existence and self-consciousness? Are
  identities somehow clearly definable and
  demarcated? Are they basically unchanging and
  unchangeable in the fundamental demands they make
  on individuals and in the bonds they create and
  sustain between the individual and his/her group?
• Or are ethnicity and nationalism to whatever
  extent defined situationally and contextual?
  Being strategically and tactically manipulative?
  Do they have the quality of being capable of
  change at both the individual and collective
  level?

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Primordialist vs. instrumentalist/constructivist

• Primordialist identity as something intrinsic
  and inherent (importance of blood and descent,
  religion and language, custom and culture) ?
  static, non-changing perception of identity
• Neo-primordialism ethnic consciousness is only
  realised when the group is threatened
  (culturally, politically, socially) by external
  forces (the fundament of right to
  self-determination?) (Comaroff 1996)
• Instrumentalist/constructivist identity as a
  created sentiment, based on social, political and
  cultural resources ? flexible, manipulative,
  processual, multivocal, ever-changing perception
  of identity
• Realist perspective objective interest
  underpin collective identities
• Cultural constructionism formation of groups as
  a function of shared culture
• Political constructionism elite-driven hegemonic
  production of culture (Comaroff 1996)

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What is ethnicity?

• Ethnicity is an aspect of social relationship
  between agents who consider themselves as
  culturally distinctive from members of other
  groups with whom they have a minimum of regular
  interaction (Eriksen, 2002 12)
• I.e.
• it is an aspect of social relationship, not a
  cultural entity in itself
• it is relational
• it makes cultural differences relevant in
  communication
• it requires social interaction with others
• it is contextually influenced

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Understanding ethnic boundaries

• Fredrik Barth seminal work Ethnic group and
  boundaries (1969)
• Ethnicity as a form of social organisation, not
  an aspect of culture
• Focus on boundary mechanism which upholds the
  ethnic group, not the cultural stuff it
  encloses
• Allows for self-ascription of identity and
  ascription by others
• Shifting from a static to an relational and
  processual approach

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Ethnic boundary maintenance

• The ethnic boundary markers define the difference
  between groups (customs, traits, language,
  political ideas)
• The boundary markers may change through time and
  according to context (some markers emphasised vs.
  one group, different markers emphasised vs.
  another) what is made relevant? (Barth)
• Who defines culture/markers, for which purpose
  (power)?
• The groups culture and social organisation may
  change without removing/changing the ethnic
  boundary markers
• Cultural differences relate to ethnicity if, and
  only if, such differences are made relevant in
  social interaction (Eriksen)

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Ethnic boundary transcendence

• Ethnic boundaries are not necessary territorial
  boundaries, but social ones
• There is a continuous flow of information,
  interaction, exchange and even people across them
• People may change ethnic identity, individually
  or collectively (intermarriage/cultural adoption,
  economic/production strategies, escape social
  stigma, political pragmatism, etc)
• Boundaries connect, as well as distinguishes

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Ethnicity as political organisation

• Ethnicity is fundamentally a political
  phenomenon, as the symbols of the traditional
  culture are used as mechanisms for the
  articulation of political alignments (A. Cohen,
  1974)
• Dual capacity of ethnicity
• Manipulated from the outside to create ethnic
  antagonism and schism
• May also serve as a residual category for people
  to mobilise behind from within
• Ethnicity is a social organisation which might be
  used as mobilising force, since it simultaneously
  may serve political ends and satisfy
  psychological needs for belongingness
• The ethnic group as a political actor is a
  product of the situation, not of history ?
  concerns for future prospects, not past
  grievances.
• A political strategy to achieve collectively what
  one cannot obtain individually

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Ethnic mobilisation

• A political issue, conflict or race for natural
  resources, does not in itself produce ethnicity
  
• An idea of common identity is inspired by and
  rooted in several factors, invented or real
• The appropriation of shared history (Tonkin)
• Creation of common myths of origin (Hoskins)
• Idea of a chosen people (Smith)
• Nurturing the image of historical enemies

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Ethnicity and the state

• The concept of ethnicity is most useful when
  used as a label for a dimension of the identity
  formation process in a single political unit,
  most specifically the nation-sate (Williams,
  1989)
• Ethnicity is a product of state formation, not
  the other way around, i.e. heterogeneity precedes
  homogeneity (Wilmsen)
• Ethnicity as a response to state
  intervention/imposition strategy to achieve
  collectively what one could not achieve
  individually
• It is in contexts of imposed assimilation and
  simultaneous discrimination followed by a process
  of mobilisation, that an ethnic discourse, and a
  leadership, emerges
• A minority group does not exist without a state

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Ethnicity from below, and above

• Ethnic boundaries of identity have referents to
  personal consciousness, social interaction and
  cultural symbolism i.e. they are contestable and
  multivocal (Anthony Cohen, 1994)
• Ethnicity is also a collective expression of
  identify formation related to a hierarchical
  political system/state. Ethnicity has its origin
  in inequality (Comaroff, 1996)
• Ethnicity is constructed in routine, everyday
  social interaction where relevant cultural
  differences are communicated (Barth and Comaroff)
  
• Once ethnic identities/boundaries are constructed
  and objectified, their manifestations have a
  salient impact on the members of the group
  (Comaroff)
• The conditions that give rise to ethnogenesis,
  are not necessarily the same as those that
  sustain it (Comaroff)

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Nationalism in defence of the state

• Globalisation challenges the politico-ideological
  foundation of nationalism (Comaroff 1996
  Keating/McGarry 2001)
• Growth of trans-national institutions, movements
  and diasporas
• Weakening of the nation-state
• Rise of a new politics of identity and difference
  
• What is nationalism?
• Ethnicity writ large and adapted to the state
  Nationalism is a theory of political legitimacy,
  which requires that ethnic boundaries should not
  cut across political ones (Gellner 1983) or
• Nationalism/nation is an imagined political
  community and imagined as both inherently limited
  and sovereign (Anderson 1991)
• A process to establish the ideological
  justification of the state (Eriksen 1993/2002)

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Nationalism in practice

• Try to make ethnicity and other sub- and supra
  national identities irrelevant (regionalism,
  religion, etc)
• Establish/re-establish the states hegemony and
  authority over its citizenry (political and
  territorial control, etc)
• The state must be relevant to its citizens
  (service delivery, sentimental attachment ?
  imagined community, etc)
• Manifestation of its geographical borders
• Be prepared to use violence to defend the
  nation

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Two types of contemporary nationalism (Comaroff)

• Ethno-nationalism the ideology of uniting an
  ethno-cultural group with territory by way of
  genealogy. I.e. one dominating ethnic group
  defines the national content (Smith 1991).
  Emphasis on cultural particularism membership by
  ascription trans-national character.
• Euronationalism an ideology that promotes a
  secular state founded on universalist principles
  of citizenship and social contract. Emphasis on
  heroic origin, historical continuity, not ethnic
  basis, politico-territorial community.
• From the perspective of Euronationalism, all
  ethninationalism appear primitive, irrational,
  magical, and above all, threatening in the eyes
  of ethnonationalism which appears perfectly
  rational from within Euronationalism remains
  inherently colonising, lacking in humanity, and
  bereft of social conscience (Comaroff 1996)

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and the third

• Heteronationalism a synthesis that seeks to
  integrate ethno-national identity politics within
  a euronationalist understanding of political
  community.
• Its objective is to accommodate cultural
  diversity within a civil society composed of
  autonomous citizens equal and undifferentiated
  before the law. It promotes the rights to
  difference, understood as multiculturalism
  (Comaroff 1996)

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Positioning the 3 theories of nationalism

• Ethno-nationalism primordial attachments gives
  validity and justifies claims to ethnic
  self-determination
• Heteronationalism also based on primordial group
  sentiments but recognises individual rights -
  multiculturalism rationalised and explained by
  neoprimordial instrumentalism self-determination
  
• Euronationalism relies on heroic human agency,
  justified by constructionism emphasises
  individual rights and equal citizenship
  privileges

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Understanding collectives

• Boundaries both distinguish and connect
  collectives
• Must distinguish between the cognitive premises
  that construct the boundary by what might be
  called acts of imposition and the sociology of
  people living and acting around that boundary and
  thereby shaping an outcome (Barth 2000)
• Boundaries are multivocal symbolic expressions,
  thus individually perceived based on personal
  experience and cognition (Barth/Anthony Cohen
  200)
• Whose boundaries?
• Boundaries of identity are amorphous and
  ambiguous
• Thus must be infused with symbolic content to
  create collective distinctions