The ‘other side’ of embedded ness: A case‐study of the interplay of economy and ethnicity

As interest in ethnics and their entrepreneurial activities has grown in recent years, sociologists have come to emphasize the importance of ethnic social structures as the source of actions propelling business growth. In a sign of convergence with the ‘new economic sociology’, recent literature suggests that embeddedness in ethnic networks and communities leads to cooperative, if not conformist, behaviour among ethnic economic actors. This article looks at the ‘other side’ of embeddedness, through a case‐study of African‐American, Caribbean, Korean and white construction contractors in New York City. I argue that, in construction, the embeddedness of economic behaviour in ongoing social relations among a myriad of social actors impedes access to outsiders. Embeddedness contributes to the liabilities of newness that all neophytes encounter, breeding a preference for established players with track records. However, the convergence of economic and ethnic ties has a further baneful effect, since outsiders also fall outside those networks that define the industrial community. While African‐American, Caribbean and Korean outsiders all experience these barriers in similar ways, they differ in the adaptive strategies that they have pursued. African Americans appear to be most disadvantaged, in part because they have been the most exposed to the social closure that results from the mobilization of white ethnics’ social capital. By contrast, Caribbeans and Koreans entered the labour market in societies where racial domination played little or no role in labour market outcomes ‐ a considerable asset since construction skills are transferable from one society to another. The Koreans appear to be the most embedded in ethnic networks, through which they secure jobs and skilled labour, though class factors play a role here as well and even the Koreans must reach out beyond the ethnic community for a clientele. By contrast, ethnic solidarity operates less powerfully among the black contractors, who are tied to a community where intra‐ethnic diversity and internal competition have grown as a result of immigration. In the absence of an ethnic market, black'entrepreneurs turn to the state, whose requirements and dependence on union labour expose black builders to risks from which their Korean counterparts are sheltered.     

Industrialization and ethnic change in the modern world

Despite the large recent attention given to ethnicity within the social sciences, the sources of modern ethnic change have remained opaque. Drawing upon social theory from Marx and Gellner, I argue here that industrialization incentivizes ethnic homogenization by lowering the relative value of land. Using carbon emissions per capita as a proxy for industrialization, I show that cross-country changes in ethno-linguistic fractionalization between 1961 and 1985 are negatively correlated with industrialization, and that this result is robust to the use of a variety of control variables, sub-samples and alternative measures of industrialization such as cement production, urbanization and agriculture as a percentage of GDP. In particular, I find no evidence for the direct role of the state in promoting ethnic homogenization, which adds to other recent evidence on how economic incentives may trump political ones as regards identity change, at least in the short- to medium term.     

Balancing stigma and status: racial and class identities among middle-class Haitian youth

This article examines the identity formation of middle-class Haitian youth. Segmented assimilation theory predicts that the Haitian second generation will integrate into the black American underclass or maintain strong ethnic group identities. The black middle class, however, is an unexplored pathway of cultural assimilation. This paper uses the literature on the racial and class experiences of the black American middle class as a departure point for understanding the boundary work of middle-class Haitian youth. Based on qualitative interviews and a focus group, we uncover the mechanisms of identity formation for this invisible population. Racial, ethnic and class boundaries compel Haitian youths to create strategies of either empowerment or distancing. They negotiate between their middle-class status and ethnoracial exclusion in a racially segregated neighbourhood, an ethnically homogenous church and a mixed-race school setting. This study's findings extend our theoretical understandings of middle-class immigrants and their identity work.     

War, Factionalism, and the State in Afghanistan

Since September 11, 2001, the explanations offered to account for the rise of a foreign-led terrorist network on Afghan soil have variously focused on the political vacuum opened up by the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, interference by foreign powers in Afghanistan's internal affairs, the failure of Afghanistan to produce a "strong state" because of ethnic factionalism, and an internal moral incoherence inherent to Afghan culture. I argue that none of these explanations is entirely satisfactory in itself. To understand the situation in Afghanistan, we must recognize that its political and military chaos is not an isolated or unique phenomenon, and at the same time acknowledge the particular social and political dynamics of Afghanistan's history that have set the parameters for current events. I show that communal conflicts in Afghanistan are part of a much wider affliction common to many postcolonial states and multinational societies, and that Afghanistan's current situation can only be understood by focusing on its failed attempts at nation-state building within the broader geopolitical circumstance of foreign manipulation and proxy wars that have given rise to particular forms of ethnic division. [Keywords: Afghanistan, nation-building, ethnic factionalism, warfare, the State]     

New perspectives on the declining significance of race: a rejoinder

In sharp contrast to many earlier studies, the articles in this symposium encompass a careful discussion of the two major underlying themes of my book, The Declining Significance of Race: (1) the effect of fundamental economic and political shifts on the changing relative importance of race and class in black occupational mobility and job placement; and (2) the swing in the concentration of racial conflict from the economic sector to the sociopolitical order. In my rejoinder I reflect on their arguments, including those that relate these themes to more recent developments in American race and ethnic relations featuring other groups, including whites and Latinos.     

Saving face: the emotional costs of the Asian immigrant family myth

Access to resources through ethnic group membership is often presumed to affect the intensity of ethnic identification. We examine this premise using survey data on three ethnic groups in Mauritius: Creoles, Hindus, and Muslims. Two key findings emerge from our research. First, access to material resources explains only a modest proportion of total variation in ethnic identification within each group. Second, the resources that affect ethnic identification differ significantly across groups. Access to political goods through group membership affects Hindu identification but is unrelated to ethnic identification among Creoles or Muslims. Conversely, access to economic goods affects Creole and Muslim identification but has no effect on Hindu identification. Explaining these group differences leads us beyond a basic means–ends instrumentalist model to identify conditions that likely mediate the relationship between individual interests and collective identification including the divisibility of economic goods relative to political goods in Mauritius.     

Modernity and ethnic affiliation in Israeli schools: A dependence approach*

In this article, we argue that there is an important, but as yet unidentified, process involved in the maintenance and reconstruction of ethnic identity. We call this process ‘ethnic reorganization’. We argue that this process is useful for understanding the ethnic survival of indigenous peoples in colonized societies, as well as for illuminating the processes of ethnic renascence among both indigenous and immigrant groups. We find it especially useful in accounting for both the persistence and the transformation of American Indian ethnicity in the United States. Ethnic reorganization occurs when an ethnic minority undergoes a reorganization of its social structure, redefinition of ethnic group boundaries, or some other change in response to pressures or demands imposed by the dominant culture. From this viewpoint, ethnic reorganization is a mechanism that facilitates ethnic group survival, albeit in a modified form. We specify several types of ethnic reorganization. These include: social reorganization, economic reorganization, political reorganization, and cultural reorganization. We argue that ethnic reorganization represents a central mechanism of ethnic change. We present evidence of these forms of ethnic reorganization among many different American Indian societies faced with demographic and cultural extinction.     

Regional Patterns in Global Resource Extraction

This article presents an account of global resource extraction for the year 1999 by material groups, world regions, and development status. The account is based on materials flow analysis methodology and provides benchmark information for political strategies toward sustainable resource management. It shows that currently around 50 thousand megatons of resources are extracted yearly on a global scale, which results in a yearly global average resource use of around 8 tonnes per capita. Assuming further growth in world regions not yet close to the levels of resource use in the industrial cores—such as India or China—numbers could easily double once these parts of the world come to fully incorporate the industrial mode of production and consumption. This article contributes to information on resource use indicators, complementing and enriching information from economic accounting in order to facilitate political measures toward a sustainable use of resources.     

Citizenship and Resource Competition in Nigeria

This article discusses the growing tension between constitutionally defined citizenship and socially accepted practices of “we–they dichotomies” as a turbulent component of the national question discourse in Nigeria. It examines the adoption of dual citizenship across the country as well as how this generates violent ethnic conflict. Importantly, while citizenship refers to one’s full membership of a sovereign political community acquired either by birth, naturalisation or any other process legitimised and recognised by the supreme law of the state, indigeneship, on the other hand, is a discriminatory policy employed by local or provincial governments for protecting the rights of their so–called indigenous populations to employment, political power and other resources of the regions or states against domination by alien populations and outsiders. It is argued that while such distinctions have been made possible inter alia by Nigeria’s multi–ethnic character, the ensuing struggles and tensions have been driven by the normless competition over resource allocation. These have especially been the case in instances where ethno–territorial cleavages have been the primary beneficiaries and targets of such resource allocation. This article discusses land as a major economic resource over which heated ethnic conflicts have taken place in Nigeria. Drawing on the conflicts between Hausa–Fulani pastoralists and Yoruba farmers in South–Western Nigeria, it examines the question of how disputed access to land and water has underlain an almost permanent basis of conflict in Nigeria as well as their implications for the country’s fledgling democracy. How does the struggle over land affect the articulation of the citizenship question in Nigeria? How have scarcity and competition over resources affected the contest over citizenship and the forging of nationhood among natives and settlers in South–Western Nigeria? How have colonial framings of socially accepted practices of indigeneship entrenched an understanding of the state in Nigeria as a representation of permanently defined subnational conceptions of ethnic citizenship? What role can the state in Nigeria play towards transforming the multiplicities of traditional societies into coherent political societies as a basis for (i) eliciting deference and devotion from the individual to the claims of the state, and ultimately for (ii) increasing cultural homogeneity, political integration and value consensus? Drawing on data generated from an ethnographic study carried out in South–Western Nigeria between October 2009 and March 2015, this study interrogates these questions.     

The African development dilemma revisited: Theoretical and empirical explorations

This article considers the issue of ethnic diversity in black Africa. In the first part of the article we discuss the various implications and possible consequences of the extensive ethnic diversity that characterizes most African countries, paying special attention to the relationship between the multi‐ethnic state and socio‐economic development. In the second part of the article we delve more deeply into the nature of ethnic diversity in contemporary Africa by examining in detail the cultural differences between two particular ethnic groups, the Kipsigis and Kikuyu of Kenya. Our empirical analyses indicate that some of the historic differences between these groups disappeared during the course of modernization. However, our findings also show that certain traditional aspects of both Kipsigis and Kikuyu culture remain. We conclude by noting the persisting importance of ethnicity as African states continue to struggle with the ‘development dilemma’.     

Why fruit rots: theoretical support for Janzen's theory of microbe–macrobe competition

We present a formal model of Janzen''s influential theory that competition for resources between microbes and vertebrates causes microbes to be selected to make these resources unpalatable to vertebrates. That is, fruit rots, seeds mould and meat spoils, in part, because microbes gain a selective advantage if they can alter the properties of these resources to avoid losing the resources to vertebrate consumers. A previous model had failed to find circumstances in which such a costly spoilage trait could flourish; here, we present a simple analytic model of a general situation where costly microbial spoilage is selected and persists. We argue that the key difference between the two models lies in their treatments of microbial dispersal. If microbial dispersal is sufficiently spatially constrained that different resource items can have differing microbial communities, then spoilage will be selected; however, if microbial dispersal has a strong homogenizing effect on the microbial community then spoilage will not be selected. We suspect that both regimes will exist in the natural world, and suggest how future empirical studies could explore the influence of microbial dispersal on spoilage.     

How Do Real Indians Fish? Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Contested Indigeneities in the Colorado Delta

ABSTRACT   There has been a growing interest in anthropology regarding how certain political conditions set the stage for "articulations" between indigenous movements and environmental actors and discourses. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how these same conditions can suppress demands for indigenous rights. In this article, I argue that the pairing of neoliberalism and multiculturalism in contemporary Mexico has created political fields in which ethnic difference has been foregrounded as a way of denying certain rights to marginalized groups. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern Mexico, I analyze how the arguments of a group of Cucapá for fishing rights in the Colorado Delta have been constrained within these political circumstances. I argue that cultural difference has been leveraged by the Mexican federal government and local NGOs to prevent the redistribution of environmental resources among vulnerable groups such as the Cucapá.     

Optimal foraging, specialization, and a solution to Liem's paradox

Species that appear highly specialized on the basis of their phenotype (e.g., morphology, behavior, and physiology) also sometimes act as ecological generalists. This apparent paradox has been used to argue against the importance of competition as a diversifying evolutionary force. We provide an alternative explanation based on optimal foraging theory. Some resources are intrinsically easy to use and are widely preferred, while others require specialized phenotypic traits on the part of the consumer. This asymmetry allows optimally foraging consumers to evolve phenotypic specializations on nonpreferred resources without greatly compromising their ability to use preferred resources. The evolution of phenotypic specialization on nonpreferred resources can be driven by competition, but the specialists act as ecological generalists whenever their preferred resources are available. Our model identifies at least three different concepts of specialization that need to be distinguished, based on diet, prey utilization efficiencies, and phenotypic adaptations. The relationships among these concepts are complex and often counterintuitive. Specialists should often reject the very resources that they have evolved traits to use. The most extreme phenotypic specializations should occur in the absence of a trade-off between using preferred and nonpreferred resources. Our model may explain why extreme phenotypic-specializations evolve more often in fish communities than in terrestrial vertebrate communities and provides a mechanism whereby species can coexist in stable communities despite common preferences for some resources.     

Historical differences in the political experiences of American blacks and white ethnics: Revisiting an unresolved controversy

Influenced by the revival of white ethnicity, a number of scholars began to re‐examine the historical experience of various white ethnic groups by the late sixties and early seventies. A common theme emerges from their historical analysis ‐ the argument that both white ethnics and Blacks faced similar problems adapting to American life resulting from discrimination by the White Anglo‐Saxon Protestant [WASP] mainstream: Many students of the Black experience took issue with this reinterpretation of American history, arguing that Blacks had a subordinate relationship to white society which produced a unique pattern of discrimination. Although scholars on both sides of this controversy have made their positions clear and have provided some supporting evidence, the controversy nevertheless remains unresolved because of the absence of systematic and comparative historical data on Blacks and white ethnics in the same study. The present study attempts to resolve partially this controversy by examining the political experiences of Blacks and three white ethnic groups ‐ Irish, Jews and Italians ‐ during their period of first entry into politics, a period that can greatly influence group political empowerment. The resources each group possessed, and the context and timing of the group's interaction with dominant political elites provide the focus for analysis. The ‘Black exceptional‐ism’ thesis finds strong support in the study. White ethnics were better endowed with relevant resources and experienced much less resistance from the dominant WASP elites than did Blacks. Of great significance was the fact that Blacks were forced to participate in a continuous politics of seeking basic citizenship rights, while white ethnic groups could take their citizenship rights for granted after the early years of immigration to America. Little support was uncovered for the ‘ethno‐racial umbrella’ thesis, which argues for treating race, religion and nationality as part of the same theoretical and policy universe.     

Political mobilization of a regional minority: Han Chinese settlers in Xinjiang

The tumultuous events of summer 2009 have brought Uighur protests and minority mobilization in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) to the forefront. But this focus overlooks similar protests organized by various groups of Han Chinese settlers over the years. This paper contributes to the body of literature on minority mobilization and ethnic relations in Xinjiang by illustrating how the political mobilization of a group that is simultaneously a national majority and a regional minority differs substantially from ‘traditional’ minority mobilization. Reviewing the main instances of Han Chinese political mobilization since the XUAR was created in 1955, I argue that two factors are particularly important in enabling their mobilization: the Han Chinese's subjective perception of discrimination and their close ethnic ties to the state. This paper concludes with a discussion on the presence of a cycle of protests between Han settlers and the Uighurs in Xinjiang.     

Cooperation should not be assumed

Evolutionary game theory provides a framework for explaining social interactions, including those between males and females. In a recent article, Roughgarden et al. discuss a new approach to sexual selection based on cooperative game theory and argue that cooperation rather than competition is fundamental in interactions between the sexes. However, compelling reasons for adopting this approach are not given and the authors do not adopt it consistently. We argue that non-cooperative game theory provides an adequate basis for understanding sexual selection, but that further work is needed to produce realistic models. We agree with Roughgarden and colleagues that bargaining is an important aspect of social interactions, but this is not a novel claim. Bargaining does not require the assumption of cooperation and does not necessarily lead to it.     

Ethnic politics and labour market closure: Shipbuilding and industrial decline in Northern Ireland

This article examines the interplay of ethnic conflict and economic interests in Northern Ireland, specifically for the case of the shipbuilding industry, which received massive state aid despite its terminal decline. Parkin's theory of dual social closure by members of the subordinate class but dominant status group to monopolize resources and opportunities is employed to examine the interests and actions of Protestant workers. The contribution of local institutions including Extended Internal Labor Markets to the salience of Protestant group solidarity is examined from a political economy perspective. Political accommodation between Protestant labour and the Northern Ireland government, and later British government political fears of antagonizing Loyalist workers, facilitated huge aid to a failing industry.     

UNO … . What happened to autonomy? Politics and ethnicity on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast

Current debates surrounding the ethnic mobilization of indigenous groups are explored with reference to Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast region. The Autonomy Project, promoted under the revolutionary government of the 1980s, inspired new forms of regional multi‐ethnic forms of mobilization and, in so doing, eschewed nationalistic claims associated with the resurgence of ethnicity elsewhere. The fate of the principle of ethnic autonomy is subsequently examined in the wake of the defeat of the Sandinistas in the elections held in 1990. Evidence suggests that domestic political conditions as well as international political and economic pressure have been crucial in undermining the autonomy process. This, in turn, has had important consequences for ethnic identity formation in the region, since a combination of pressure from international agencies, the United States government and multinational companies in conjunction with the UNO alliance have undermined educational and employment as well as political initiatives built around old and new ethnic groupings. Examples of bilingualism and initiatives to control and protect the region's resources are shown to have suffered directly as a result of the increased activity of multinationals, the privatization programmes of the Chomorro government and efforts to bypass local political structures. A local radio station, which also played a role in promoting multi‐ethnicity in the region, was similarly under threat. In conclusion, and drawing on wider debates, it is argued that Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast provides an important example of the interpenetration of local and global pressures in the development of ethnic politics. The analysis of changes on the Atlantic Coast during the period of the revolution and after the defeat of the Sandinistas in 1990 allows us to assess their impact on changing forms of cultural and ethnic identity in the region. The article argues that the scope for ethnic autonomy, including new and empowering forms of regional multi‐ethnic identity, is seen to be profoundly contingent on political circumstances which themselves cannot be considered independently of wider international and economic conditions.     

The business of preventing African-American infant mortality.

African-American women are twice as likely as women from other ethnic groups to have babies with low birth weights and to experience the loss of infant death. The problem is so endemic in black communities in Alameda County, California, that numerous programs have been developed over the past decade to reduce maternal risk factors and eliminate barriers to prenatal care. Despite these efforts, African-American ethnicity continues to be a major risk factor for infant mortality for reasons that are poorly understood. We take a critical look at 3 types of studies characteristic of infant mortality research: epidemiologic, studies that advocate prenatal care, and ethnomedical (cultural). We argue that the assumptions informing this research restrict the thinking about infant mortality and the political issues involved in how prevention programs are developed and structured. The persistent focus on maternal behavioral characteristics limits more in-depth analysis of the micropolitics of perinatal bureaucracies established in response to this ongoing crisis.     

Reducing the gap between leaders and voters? Elite polarization,outbidding competition,and the rise of secessionism in Catalonia

The ethnic outbidding thesis explains party polarization as a consequence of political changes amongst voters. We argued instead that party elites’ extreme position on the national identity cleavage can help polarizing strategies to prevail over moderate strategies in a context of increasing political uncertainty, without previous voters’ polarization. We test successfully this hypothesis in Catalonia by analysing the polarization of political parties and people’s demands for self-government in Catalonia since the early 2000s. We also find that the result of this outbidding pattern of competition was a reduction in the gap between elites’ and voters’ views on national identity. The analysis employs a set of unique data on party elites and activists’ national identity, from several surveys conducted on the delegates at party conferences of the main Catalan parties between 1996 and 2012. Our data provide empirical support for the argument that ethnic polarization is mainly an elite-driven process.