IBV exam Socio-political boundaries w2 "the (un)making of groups" Flashcards
Social category
Set of people who are given a label and distinguished by two main features:
1) rules of membership: that decide who is and is not member
2) content: set of characteristics throughout to be typical of members , or behaviors expected or obliged in certain situations (roles)
Irredentism
political movement that seeks to (re)reclaim and occupy a land that the movement’s members consider to be a “lost” territory from their (nation’s) past.
(everyday) Primordialism
Ethnicity is
- a communal bond given by nature
- something in your blood or DNA
- unchangeable
Constructivism
(Weber): Ethnic groups entertain a subjective belief in a common descent, because of
- similarities of physical type
- similarities of customs
- memories of oppression / suffering
(Barth): What makes an ethnic identity ‘ethnic’ is to be sought in the social processes of maintaining boundaries that people themselves recognized as ethnic.
Boundary (rule)
A (social) boundary displays both a categorical and behavioral dimension
(a) we divide the social world in groups (us vs. them)
(b) we act upon these divides through ‘script of action’
Only when these two dimensions coincide ‘when ways of seeing the world correspond to ways of acting in the world’ shall I speak of a social boundary.
Reification / thingification
Cementing. Political / social process that takes place at a certain time, where identities become hardened.
Institutionalization
process of developing / transforming rules and procedures that influences / become norm in social interaction (in culture)
enculturation
born into it (individual level)
‘family writ large’
- narratives / mythologies of blood and belonging
- symbolic reference to kinship / shared ancestry and history
- builds trust / solidarity
strong need to belong
groupism
wrong approach (views of homogeneous groups - Serbs fighting Croats) - rather look at the levels of groupness (social cohesion) like Dutch international soccer match
