In-groups, Out-groups, and Social Identities
In-groups and Out-groups
Definitions:
In-groups: A social category or group with which an individual strongly identifies, leading to a sense of belonging.
Out-group: A social category or group with which one does not identify.
Consequences of In-groups and Out-groups:
Stereotyping of Out-groups:
A common outcome of in-group belonging, where characteristics are generalized to members of other groups.
Homogenization of In-group Behavior:
Members perceive themselves as more similar, strengthening group connection.
Examples of In-group/Out-group Dynamics:
Cultural/Religious Dichotomies:
Christian vs Heathen
Muslim vs Kafir
Jew vs Goyim
Japanese vs Gaijin
Chinese vs Non-Chinese
Cultural Misunderstandings:
Britons viewing Americans as “shovelers” of food.
Differing views on flatulence between British and Arab cultures.
Language as an Authenticity Marker:
Arabian vs Persian Gulf naming dispute.
Japanese people speaking English to fluent American Japanese speakers, signaling reluctance to fully incorporate them into the linguistic in-group.
Racialized Ethnic Identities and Group Solidarity
Overview:
Racialized ethnic identities alone are insufficient to create strong group solidarity.
Examples:
Korean Americans: Often viewed as Americans by Koreans, highlighting a disconnect in identification.
Jews in Israel vs American Jews: Distinct identities despite “birthright” status for all Jews in Israel.
Communication Accommodation Theory
Definition: An explanation of how people adjust their communication to others.
Convergence:
Adapting speech to be more like the interlocutor, often to gain approval or increase social cohesion.
Divergence:
Emphasizing speech differences from the interlocutor, often to gain approval or increase social cohesion.
Social Identity Theory vs. Identity Theory
Social Identity Theory (SIT):
Core Concept of Identity: A person’s knowledge of belonging to a social category or group.
Self-Categorization:
Refers to seeing oneself as a member of a social group, e.g., “I am a student.”
Central Cognitive Process:
Depersonalization: Seeing oneself as an embodiment of the in-group prototype.
Motivational Process:
Enhancing group self-esteem through in-group favoritism and supporting identity.
Focus:
Intergroup relations, uniformity of perception, attitudinal alignment, collective behaviors.
Identity Theory (IT):
Core Concept of Identity: A person’s categorization of the self as an occupant of a role, integrating associated meanings and expectations.
Self-Categorization:
Refers to classifying oneself in terms of named roles within a structured society, e.g., “I am a teacher.”
Central Cognitive Process:
Self-verification: Seeking consistency between one’s self-views and identity standards, motivating behavior that aligns with role expectations.
Motivational Process:
Commitment and fulfillment of expected role behaviors, leading to higher self-worth based on performance.
Unique Focus:
Significance of interaction and negotiation, emphasis on individual performance of roles rather than uniform collective behavior.
Depersonalization in SIT
Definition: The central cognitive process in SIT, where an individual perceives themselves as interchangeable with other in-group members, embodying the group’s prototype.
Fundamental to Group Phenomena: Includes:
Social stereotyping
Group cohesiveness
Ethnocentrism
Cooperation and altruism
Emotional contagion
Collective action: Depersonalization facilitates unified behavior and action beyond individual interests.
Activation of a Social Identity: Activation is sufficient to result in depersonalization.
Overlapping Roles and Identities
Concept:
Individuals hold multiple social roles (expected behaviors based on social positions) and social identities (group membership).
Conceptual Integration: Stats and Burk propose that integrating both social identity and role identities offers a richer understanding of internal tensions or negotiations within the self.
Types of Ties in Identities:
Organic Ties (Social Identities): Shared group identities or characteristics (Example: a university professor and their student who share a common national identity).
Mechanical Ties (Role Identities): Clearly defined and distinct roles (Example: the teacher fulfilling their role as an authority figure and guide, while the student fulfills their learning role).
Operational Interactions: These distinct roles operate even when organic ties are present.
SIT Hypothesis: Public identification with a group leads to higher individual self-worth and self-esteem, making self-esteem a factor in in-group vs out-group competition.
Group Vitality
Definition: Group rivalries often stem from competing groups attempting to increase their relative group vitality (perceived group strength, status, demographic stability, or control over resources).
Resulting Dynamics: Rivalries can lead to the formation of High-status vs. Low-status groups.
Examples: Bahrani vs. Arab dialects in Bahrain, media depicting American Southerners with lower status compared to Northerners.
Media Depictions of 'Ethnic Group' Violence
Overview: Broad labels like “ethnic violence” often oversimplify conflicts, obscuring the “diverging differences and intersecting overlaps” within and between groups (e.g., Shia/Sunnis, Arabs/Iranis, Jews/Arabs).
Brubaker's Insights: When an ethnic frame is established, we ‘see’ conflict and violence in ethnic, but in groupist terms.
National Identity vs. Group Identity
National Identity: A specific form of group identity, uniquely tied to a political community.
Individual’s Identity: Refers to an individual’s sense of belonging to a political community, e.g., “I am French.”
Community’s Identity: Refers to the collective identity of the political community itself, e.g., “What makes France, France?”
Classification: National identity is a form of group identity subject to critiques of “groupism” by Brubaker.
National Identity Formation through Social Constructivism
Concept: National identity is actively constructed rather than inherent.
Mechanisms of Construction:
Social interactions and shared experiences.
Collective memories and narratives (reinforcing remembrance).
Institutions and symbols (reinforcing constructed identities).
Dynamism and evolution (identities are revised as society changes).
Interplay of multiple identities (national identity is interwoven with others).
Importance of National Identity
Functions: Provides a sense of home, security, and structured space, integrating personal and collective well-being.
Variation in Priority: Individuals may prioritize national identity differently, from central to limited.
Premodern Societies and National Identity
Historical Context: National identity had less significance in premodern societies due to the shallow reach of rulers, often defined more by religion and ethnicity.
Identity Development of a Political Community: Through common territorial living, shared experiences forming collective memories, and institutional frameworks that shape younger members to values.
Distinctive Features: Requires distinguishing features to differentiate it from other communities.
National Identity in Crisis
Triggers of Crisis: Occurs during massive economic/demographic changes, internal/external threats, recovery from trauma, or deep societal divisions.
Minorities and the State
Ethnic Minorities: Defined as a group numerically inferior to the majority population and politically non-dominant, characterized by social reproduction as an ethnic category.
Relational and Relative Status: Minority/majority status is dependent on arbitrary state boundaries.
Examples of Status Variation: Sikhs are a minority in India, but a majority in Punjab. Hungarians are a majority in Hungary, but a minority in Romania.
Changing Minority Identities with National Boundaries
Redrawing State Boundaries: Directly shifts majority-minority relationships, as groups that were dominant can find themselves categorized as minorities (e.g., Russians in post-Soviet nations).
State Responses to Minorities
Eriksen's Three Options:
Assimilation: States encourage minorities to abandon their cultural markers and adopt the dominant culture, often leading to cultural erasure.
Critique: Accessibility of this option questioned (e.g., involuntary ethnic classification for African Americans in the U.S.).
Domination (Segregation): States implement policies that segregate minorities based on perceived cultural inferiority.
Examples: Apartheid South Africa, U.S. redlining.
Full Rights/Citizenship (Multiculturalism): States adopt a framework recognizing multiple identities as compatible with national citizenship, transcending nationalist ideology.
Question: Where has this been truly achieved?
Minority Strategies in Response to Dominance
Alfred Hirschmann's Strategies:
Exit: Choosing assimilation; often impossible for some (e.g., African Americans).
Voice: Seeking autonomy or negotiating for rights/recognition within the dominant structure.
Loyalty: Remaining committed to their cultural identity despite pressures to assimilate.
Immigrant Minorities vs. Indigenous Minorities
Immigrant Minorities:
Often lack citizenship; may be temporary residents; often from majority origins in their home country, fully integrated into the capitalist system.
Indigenous Peoples:
Non-dominant groups linked to specific territories and non-industrial ways of life, primarily seeking cultural survival rather than independent nation-states.
Brubaker’s Critique of Ethnicity
Background on Groupism: Brubaker critiques the common-sense notion that society is intrinsically partitioned into discrete, bounded, and essentializing ethnic categories.
Key Aspects of the Critique:
Questioning Ethnic Common Sense: Arguing that common-sense understandings of ethnicity should be explained rather than serving as the foundation for analysis.
Critique of Ethnopolitical Practice: Analysts should resist reifying ethnic categories often used for political gain, reinforcing constructed identities, obstructing conflict resolution.
Reification as a Social Process: Treating ethnic groups as substantial, homogeneous, and bounded inadvertently reinforces identities leading to misunderstandings of ethnic conflicts.
Proposed Shift in Perspective: Move beyond groupism to view ethnicity, race, and nationalism as dynamic, relational, and contextually contingent.
Dynamics of Groupness: Seen as fluctuating social relations rather than a permanent state, strong during mobilization or conflict, and latent at other times.
Schiller: Methodological Nationalism and Global Power Networks
Critique of Traditional Migration Scholarship: Schiller critiques this scholarship for “methodological nationalism.”
Definition of Methodological Nationalism: An ideological orientation that views social processes primarily within the borders of individual nation-states, assuming shared histories and values and viewing national borders as definitive societal boundaries.
Consequences of Methodological Nationalism:
Portraying migrants as threats to social solidarity.
Overlooking cultural divisions within nation-states.
Perpetuating exclusion policies.
Failing to integrate broader social theory developments (e.g., globalization).
Shortcomings of Current Migration Theories
Issues Highlighted by Schiller:
Lack of Power Analysis: Fail to examine global power relations (including roles of states, financial institutions, and corporations).
Conflation of Nation-State with Society: Treat nation-states as discrete units and societal boundaries, disregarding the transnational nature of social processes.
Ignoring Global Capital: Disconnect migration from global transformations rooted in neo-liberal restructuring and its impact on localities and labor.
Reintroduction of Methodological Nationalism: Distinctions between macro and micro levels without a global power framework re-embed migration in state-centric views.
Global Power Networks and Immigration
Advocacy for a Global Power Perspective: Schiller promotes understanding migration through “Global Power Perspective” analyzing “transnational social fields.”
Effects of Global Power Networks on Immigration:
Institutional Power: Economic and political institutions exert power determining who is categorized as a migrant, often restricting migration from poorer nations.
Neo-Liberal Restructuring: Global capitalism shapes migration patterns, creates flexible labor markets, fostering disparities.
Serves interests of global capital, creating a flexible, exploitable labor force.
Contradictory Discourses: Anti-immigrant rhetoric legitimizes labor exploitation while celebrating remittances, contributing to narratives prioritizing temporary, flexible labor over long-term settlement rights.
Rescaling Processes: Changes in cities' positions within global hierarchies affect migration and policy, as cities integrate into capital and labor markets.
'Whiteness' as a Construct: Institutional power historically manipulated racial categories to define who qualifies as “white” and eligible for citizenship.
Diasporic Identities and Transnationalism
Definition of Diaspora: Refers to people dispersed across geographical boundaries sharing a belonging to different “homes” in different nation-states.
Contrast with National Identity: Challenges the idea of a single nation, state, demonstrating dual orientation to both home and host societies.
Schiller's View of Transnationalism: Challenges methodological nationalism by emphasizing material and symbolic ties maintained across multiple borders, influencing social, economic, and cultural processes.
Creation of Communities of Co-responsibility: As a result of transnational social fields.