By Hala Abu-Maizer
We don’t often link ideas like identity with conscious and active decision making. The truth of the matter is that everything that makes up our identity and the elements that we have come to identify with be it our religious, ethnic, national, work identity and personal beliefs and values are a cumulation of conscious or unconscious decisions we have made along the way. The literature around how humans choose to identify is vast, dense and quite interesting. If we take ethnic identity as an example, one school of thought, primordialism, suggest that ethnicity is something that is fixed and assigned at birth, passed down generations as well as inherent in human beings (Wimmer, 2008;.Williams, 2015) This means that the need and desire to assimilate with and relate to a group’s characteristics is reflexive, and one that we use to identify ourselves in relation to the other, more specifically through the rejection to the other. D.L Horowitz classifies ethnic identity as a broad term that encompasses group of individuals that speak the same language, share the same religion and culture, and ones that hold a common ancestral heritage. He also views ethnicity on an ascriptive basis under the myth of common ancestry and one that can involve people differentiated by tribes, nationalities and casts.
The theory of constructivism overtook primordialism in the 1960s-70s, and it sought to understand how group psychology and social phenomena and tradition is created, propagated, normalised, and institutionalised. Social constructs are a product of multiple choices made by people living in societies over time, instead of a set of natural or divine laws that need to be adhered to. Therefore, one can deduct that social constructs like ethnicity amongst others according to constructivism, is an ongoing and dynamic process that involves the creation, reinforcement and reproduction of these constructs to ensure their survival through time. In other words, ethnicity amongst many other identities can be a tool of social conditioning used to drive individuals to identify with a specific in-group. For constructivists like Anthony D. Smith, ethnicity is simply built on the foundations of the “myths and beliefs in common origins” (p.50) instead of blood relation and genetic heritage.
"In other words, ethnicity amongst many other identities can be a tool of social conditioning used to drive individuals to identify with a specific in-group"
So, what does this actually mean? Does it mean that the entire foundation of who you are as a social being in this society is a fad? Not entirely. It means that we have more agency in shaping who we are than we might think. You see, what Smith is trying to convey is that social constructs that extend to many elements of our personalities and life like identity fragments (ethnic, religious, national, professional, cultural, even traditions), to varying social beliefs and practices, or the way things around us “should be” is represented through the valued history of the collective. This includes the immortalisation of some narratives and people as others may be forgotten. Our collective and local history then becomes a very powerful pool of knowledge that is malleable, from which historical facts and heroines are created and bound together by the glue of common history and life path. The creation of kinship acts as a binding glue between people and social groups, but inherently creates a level of group exclusivity. In analysing prejudice, Leyens et al. identify an ‘in’ group and an ‘out’ group in social categorisation. When an emotional and psychological distance is built between them, the in-group that a person identifies with becomes one where it is believed that they share distinctive markers than ‘other’ groups. ‘In’ group distinctions are what breeds a sense of superiority and entitlement within certain groups and the beginning of dehumanizing the other. Soon enough this becomes a mechanism to legitimise and justify acts of violence against others. In viewing an ‘out’ group as one possessing a lesser degree of humanity makes them vulnerable to the assumption of subscribing to different values than the in-group.
Here, all the “isms” and “phobias” are born like racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, xenophobia, transphobia, islamophobia and homophobia amongst others. This is born under the subdued cover of favouritism, and the ascription of positive attributes exclusively to the in-group. When people start compartmentalising each other based on identity fragments, they cognitively distance themselves and emotionally detach from others, and in the process deny others their basic human
characteristics. The implications of social categorisation and perception of groups is central in understanding conflict behaviour and its legitimisation. In the process of stripping the ‘other’ of their humanity, an enemy is created and moulded to fit the perception of inferiority by an in-group, rendering it easier to legitimise such violence from the perpetrator (Jabri,1995). So why is the racial climate so charged and social conflict is taking centre stage around the world during this time? and why now? This could be explained through cumulative grievances and the sentiment of injustice that has been festering for decades but is only now flaring up in a time of high uncertainty and collective agitation.
"The creation of kinship acts as a binding glue between people and social groups, but inherently creates a level of group exclusivity"
When framed this way, many instances of social unrest from the United States, Nigeria, Chile, Kenya, Turkey, to Thailand, are better understood as not an exclusively racial/demographic lens, but as a much deeper issue. Constructivism is opposed to primordialism because it stresses that ethnicity, and therefore ethnic identity (and possibly other identification tools) is a result of a social process created and reinvented by people rather than a factor that is ascribed to individuals through birth. Additionally, socially created distinctions between groups are not inevitable or static like genetics as Smith describes, rather a reflection of the inner workings and logic behind the rise of discourse between people. This means that debates around ethnic boundary placement and the social worth of a specific ethnic group is constructed and upheld by people subscribing to it.
Fredrik Barth’s logic maintains that ethnicity is a mutable and elastic concept due to process of social ascription and classification by the subject and the object. Subsequently, one person’s identification with an ethnicity can become pronounced according to one’s audience and situation. Hence, created ideas like ethnic identity can change and transform through history, continuously being assembled and deconstructed when needed, making ethnic identity, and other identity fragments concepts susceptible to continuous change. Hence, created ideas like ethnic identity can change and transform through history, continuously being assembled and deconstructed when needed, making ethnic identity, and other identity fragments concepts susceptible to continuous change.
"In the process of stripping the ‘other’ of their humanity, an enemy is created and moulded to fit the perception of inferiority by an ingroup, rendering it easier to legitimise such violence from the perpetrator"
References
Horowitz, D. L. (1985). Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Jabri, V. (1995). The construction of identity and the discourses of violence. Discourses of Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 119-141.
Leyens, J.P, Paladino, P, Torres, R.R, Vaes, J, Demoulin, S, Perez, A, and Gaunt, R. (2000). The Emotional Side of Prejudice: The Attribution of Secondary Emotions to Ingroups and Outgroups. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 4 (2), 186-197.
Smith, A. (1993). The Ethnic Sources of Nationalism. Survival. 35 (1), 48-62.
Williams, D.U. (2015). How Useful are the Main Existing Theories of Ethnic Conflict? Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. 4 (1), 147- 151.
Wimmer, A. (2008). The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries: A Multilevel Process Theory. American Journal of Sociology. 113 (4), 970-1022.
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