Identity

Concepts of the Individual, self, person in anthropology Individual as member of humankind (biologistic) Self as locus of experience (psychologistic) Person as agent-in-society (sociologistic)

Identity and Subjectivity Social order -- arrays of identifications jockeying for position, gaining and losing strength, clashing with others, aligning with still others, and defining the texture of social action in their activity. Subjectivity – complex negotiation of representation & experience constructing the subject, constructing agency, constituting subjectivity

Discourse, Subjectivity, Power Discourse -- the bearer of various subject positions Subject positions -- specific positions of agency and identity in relation to particular forms of knowledge and practice Subjectivity --produced within discourse, subjected to discourse. subject position--[for us to become the subject of a particular discourse, and thus the bearers of its power/knowledge] we must locate ourselves in the position from which the discourse makes most sense, and thus become its 'subjects' by subjecting' ourselves to its meanings, power and regulation.

Culture Richard Fox -- culture is in a constant state of becoming/in-the-making unitary set of rules & meanings continually are in-the-making through oppositions & struggles among groups Fox – “culture always is, but it has always just become so”

Race and Ethnicity races are ethnic groups assumed to have a biological basis, but actually race is socially constructed, there are social races – There are no biological human races up until 14th cent. in Europe cultural & social evolution based on the idea of progress from kin-based societies to civil society through governance & law after 16th cent. in Europe dispositions of blood distinguished the character of difference (racist notions of social & cultural evolution)

ETHNICITY forged in the process of historical time subject to shifts in meaning Subject shifts in referents or markers of ethnic identity Subject to political manipulations ethnic identity is not a function of primordial ties, always the genesis of specific historical forces that are simultaneously structural & cultural

Ethnicity ethnicity is founded upon structural inequities among dissimilar groups based on cultural differences & similarities perceived as shared identification with & feeling a part of an ethnic group & exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation (endogamy & exogamy)

building blocks of ethnicity associated with distinctions between language, religion, historical experience, geographic isolation, kinship, notions of race (phenotype) markers of ethnic identity may include collective name, belief in common descent, sense of solidarity, association with a specific territory, clothing, house types, personal adornment, food, technology, economic activities, general lifestyle

Ethnicity and Boundaries where there is a group there is some sort of boundary where there are boundaries there are mechanisms for maintaining boundaries – cultural markers of difference – cultural markers of difference must be visible to members and non-members

ethnogenesis "fluidity" of ethnic identity - ethnic groups vanish, people move between ethnic groups, new ethnic groups come into existence ethnogenesis - emergence of new ethnic group; part of existing group splits & forms new ethnic group, members of two or more groups fuse

PLURAL SOCIETIES society in which ethnic distinctions persist in spite of generations of interethnic contact economic niche & plural society no assimilation peaceful (??) coexistence of different ethnicities many contemporary plural societies the result of colonialism

The Nation (-State) modern nation-state a more recent phenomenon – most have appeared since the end of WWII communities of people who see themselves as “one people” on the basis of common ancestry, history, society, institutions, ideology, language, territory, and (often) religion anthropology questions this reality while recognizing the power of the idea differences are suppressed in modern nation-states

The State, The Nation, and Ethnicity 181 states but 5000 nations? idea that nation and state coincide is rare The appearance of ethnicity and the rise of the nation- state (Nash) nation-state responsible for the rise and definition of social entities called ethnic groups - last 500 years – grew out of the wreck of empires, breakups of civilizations - disruptions of mechanic societies – within borders of nation-state - social and cultural diversity

NATION & NATIONALITY nation was once a term that referred to tribe, indigenous people, or ethnic group - collectivity sharing single language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, kinship (Herder & volk) nation comes to mean the state = a country, but a sociopolitical form, the modern state composed of diverse ethnic groups

Nation as “Imagined Community” "it is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion" (Anderson p.15)