Note the structure of his article:
Introduction
1. Survey of the literature, laying out the various competing viewpoints.
2. Critique of them showing their common assumptions and common failures
3. Proposes a different reading of these theories (“instrumentalists” v. “perdurabilists”)
4. Sets a new research agenda – bring in psychology - thesis
Identity as “social Radar”
The “Thickening” of Identity Dimensions – 468
Opportunities and Limitations
1it is an emotion-laden sense of belonging or attachment to a particular kind of group (Connor, 1993; Horowitz, 1985; Shils, 1957). For others, it is embeddedness in a web of significant symbols (Geertz, 1967, 1973; Smith, 2000). Still others see ethnicity as a social construct or a choice to be made (Anderson, 1991; Barth, 1969; Royce, 1982). One recent view treats it above all as a cognitive process (Brubaker, 2002; Brubaker, Loveman, & Stamatov, in press). Some even call ethnicity a biological survival instinct based on nepotism (Van den Berghe, 1981).
“primordialism” and “constructivism.”
Why does “ethnicity” exist in the first place?
Although identity is found to be inherently situational and always changing, to the consternation of primordialist accounts, it is never “multiple.”
460. The primordialist image of ethnic groups may be likened to various stones constituting a “wall” that is society. As between such stones, there are clearcut and enduring boundaries between groups. Each group has its particular constitutive features (cultures, traditions, histories, physical traits, language repertoires, religion, etc.) that also do not change and that tend to be quite consistently distributed within the group. Extended kinship relations are usually said to be the critical element that holds each group together and imbues it with its emotive power.
460 For constructivists, the “stone wall” is but a facade masking a much less well defined structure. In his landmark work, Barth (1969) argues that the defining feature of an ethnic group is not the particular elements of culture or kinship that differentiate it from other groups but the mere fact that bound- 461 aries are perceived and persist. Group membership criteria and group membership itself tend to change over time as people come and go and develop new traditions and ways of life, but a group itself nevertheless endures as a way of structuring social life. Although Barth (1969) does not theorize on group origins, many other constructivists focus on precisely this, arguing that modernization or even concrete state policies play large roles in forming groups where no group consciousness existed before. Ethnic groups, they argue, are thus not holdovers from ancient times but very recent phenomena. Many constructivists see ethnic identity as enduring once created (Anderson, 1991; Gellner, 1983). Others take constructivism a step further, arguing that national identities will gradually fade as modernization brings peoples into more intense interaction (Deutsch, 1966; Haas, 1986). Still others go much further, claiming that identities never become “locked in” and that people are always at least somewhat free to change them, subject to certain constraints (costs, skills, physical endowments, etc.) (Banton, 1997; Brass, 1991, 1997; Brubaker, 2002; Gorenburg, 1999; Nagel, 1994; Okamura, 1981; Royce, 1982). This latter view sees great scope for the elite manipulation of popular ethnic identities, manipulation these authors tend to see as a key causal factor in ethnic politics.
462 The most striking divide thus appears to be between (a) those who contend that individuals can change identities relatively easily, even once identities appear “crystallized” in society,[instrumentalism] and (b) those who argue that this is, for most practical intents and purposes, impossible because people think about ethnicity in primordial terms [perdurabilitists]
Key element: degree of emotional attachment
Key question: Why do people have “identities”?
465 It is useful to treat the notion of identity as the set of points of personal reference on which people rely to navigate the social world they inhabit, to make sense of the myriad constellations of social relationships that they encounter, to discern their place in these constellations, and to understand the opportunities for action in this context. It is, in a certain way, a kind of social radar, a perceptual device through which people come to see where they stand in relation to the human environment. In the most basic sense, then, groups are defined by common relationships to points of social reference.
465 Tajfel discovered that people begin to behave in a “group” manner, favoring their own group (the “ingroup”), primarily when there is some notion of having a common fate with other group members, a finding firmly in line with the notion that groups involve common reference points to the social world. … This further indicates that what drives human group formation is less the quality of the potential members (as sociobiological theories sometimes presume; Van den Berghe, 1981) than the quality of the relative social positioning of potential members vis-à-vis a common point of reference in the social world (something that produces a commonality of fate).
466 [In contrast to the hypothesis that such identifications are based on discrimination aimed toward enhancing self-esteem and/or material rewards, ] Instead, as described above, the key “motive” driving pervasive group formation and categorical thinking is posited to be uncertainty reduction.
The “Thickening” of identity dimensions.
468 Particular points of personal reference are invested with meaning beyond the simple act of reference when one encounters situations that tie these reference points to tangible alterations in one’s life chances. This typically happens
469 POINTS OF PERSONAL REFERENCE AS RULES OF THUMB Thus far, I have assumed that perception is perfect, that people instantly and accurately assess their relationships to each element of the social world, and that the totality of their relationships constitutes their identity. The difficulty is that a critical element of perception lies between all referents and the individual doing the referring.
470 When one combines the fundamental human imperative for uncertainty reduction with the limited cognitive capacity of the human brain, one is led to a very important way in which some identity dimensions (points of personal reference) can take on a great deal of “extra” meaning. When relatively simple, visible points of personal reference become coincident (or significantly probabilistically correlated) with other less visible, more complicated points of reference that are important for independent reasons, the simpler, more visible ones can serve as “rules of thumb” (or shorthands) in the process of recognizing and responding to other people for these “independent reasons.” Points of personal reference, then, even group labels, can become thick with meaning not only in the implications of the original referent but also in connoting relationships to other referents seen to be correlated with the original. At their most robust, these rules of thumb can involve whole patterns of recognition and implied appropriate relational action to such an extent that they can be fruitfully analyzed as cognitive schemas.10 Hogg and Mullin (1999)
471 Identity, to summarize, is not an evenly distributed set of personal points of reference. Instead, it is “lumpy,” combining some thick and some thin social categorizations. But if some identity categories take on the properties of rules of thumb for the purposes of social navigation whereas others do not, and if no single hyperthick category comes to define all elements of human interaction, what determines which rules of thumb will be activated?
471 Nevertheless, important research makes abundantly clear that the mere accessibility of a category does not guarantee its use but that people also tend to weigh available categorizations on the basis of how well they fit a situation. That is, accessible categories will be used to interpret a situation only if they help make sense of it, accounting reasonably accurately for similarities and differences among people (Abrams, 1999; Hogg & Mullin, 1999, p. 252; Oakes et al., 1999, p. 59). This effect has been found to be quite strong, capable of overpowering even the thickest categorizations when the latter “fit” the demands of a situation poorly and when some other categorization, even a completely new one, fits significantly better.
472 “Any readily observable feature—however arbitrary—can acquire social significance and cognitive efficacy when it validly cues patterns of alliance” argue Kurzban et al. (p. 15388).
472 Restatement of thesis and moving argument forward: Because situational fit strongly influences the tendency to resort to categorical thinking, and because category thickening is held to be a mechanism for uncertainty reduction, we might expect more use of thicker social categorizations as uncertainty levels rise. Hogg and Mullin (1999, p. 266-267)
473 Why do so many scholars, practitioners, and political observers assume that ethnicity is distinctive, having special power beyond that commanded by more run-of-the- mill social categorizations? In answering this question, it is helpful to start with the aforementioned robust finding in psychology that people are most likely to use social categories as perceptual shorthands for complex situations when these categories (a) are readily mentally accessible, either through memory or the nature of a situation itself, and (b) fit a situation at hand well, providing reasonably reliable clues to behavior (Hogg & Mullin, 1999; Kurzban et al., 2001; Oakes et al., 1999).
Goes on to argue particular usefulness of ethnic markers as particularly powerful:
474: barriers to communication
Visible physical differences
Congruence with important exogenous factors
Symbols & myths of common origin
Putative kinship
478 Implications for how social scientists think about ethnicity
Identity:
479 The recommendation made here, then, is to reserve identity to refer to the complete set of a person’s points of personal reference, lumpy though they may be, to the totality of things that constitute the self-concept, the person’s sense of how he or she fits into the social world.15
481 CONCLUSION
I have argued that conceiving of identity as personal points of reference helps us understand why ethnicity exists and is widely regarded to be so important. In some ways, the result resembles a reconstituted primordialism. But the primordial element is not that groups themselves are necessarily “permanent,” “ancient,” or “impassioned,” but that (a) people have a deeply rooted psychological mechanism facilitating social categorization; (b) there tends to be intrinsic value to those markers we call “ethnic” in constituting boundaries distinguishing these groupings; and (c) some ethnic identifications are in fact quite “old,” thick, and/or stable. But in other ways, the findings seem decidedly constructivist: (a) Group identification is not intrinsically linked to emotion; (b) identity is constantly and inherently changing as the environment changes, and, critically; (c) identifications and the meanings associated with them are highly manipulable by both elites and the “identifying” individuals themselves.
482 One key implication for theory is that if ethnicity derives not from inherently conflictual, primordial group urges or from any universal drive to raise self-esteem at outgroups’ expense but instead from an individual’s need to make sense of the world for whatever important goals a person pursues, then ingroup-favoring behavior often considered ethnic is likely to have its most fundamental roots in other human motivations, such as desires for physical security, material resources, or status. 18 Ethnicity, then, serves to structure such action by providing people with social radar that they use to efficiently identify or impose social possibilities and potential constraints in a world of immense uncertainty and complexity.
