Artikel

Sociale en politieke functies van etniciteit: verkenning en operationalisering van een begrippenkader

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Abstract

Social and political functions of ethnicity - The present academic discussion on ethnicity usually starts with the complaint that the term ’ethnicity’ is increasingly employed in discussions of social and political events in sub-Saharan Africa which encapsulate radically different phenomena. Some scholars conclude that the whole concept of ethnicity ought to be abandoned since it is void of meaning. Such argument rarely contributes to a resolution of the difficulty in defining more clearly the blurring reference frame that has developed since the early evolution of ’ethnicity’ in popular discourse. However, the weakness of much research concerned with ethnicity resides in the fact that it rarely seems to be able to define what it is seeking to explain. In this article it is argued that ethnicity should not be abandoned as a conceptual frame of reference. It has to be considered of prime importance to adequately define the theoretical concepts which are used to analyse social and political realities. This means that, instead of taking the ethnic as self-explanatory, it needs to be considered as a particular focus on society which can help us understand society as a complex, unstable and ever changing reality. Ethnicity has to be seen as a process of collective identity formation that serves a broad set of social and political functions. At basic community level it can be described as the translation of a social contract into a code of conduct. This collective identity may subsequently lead to forms of identity organisation. In situations where communities fear for their social security and material resource base, political entrepreneurs find it easier to address the ethnic identity in an attempt to promote group cohesion or even creation in view of political action. As such, the historical narratives which serve a moral social function at basic community level subsequently serve a political function at a broader level of society. They are used by political entrepreneurs in an attempt to polarise society in the interests of successfully re-negotiating a social contract that has been placed under pressure. First a historical overview of the different approaches will be given. Then it will be demonstrated that the process of identity formation and organisation is a modern phenomenon, which can be understood as a response to processes of modernisation and globalisation. Finally the process of indentity formation and organisation will be more closely analysed. It will be argued that, in order to understand the phenomenon, research has to start from a semantic approach and has to expose the broad set of social and political functions ethnicity serves.

How to Cite:

Vlassenroot, K., (1997) “Sociale en politieke functies van etniciteit: verkenning en operationalisering van een begrippenkader”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 42(4), 385–407. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95283