Anthropology Midterm Review: Identity and Culture

Midterm #1 Review: AN252 Fall 2019

For each of these terms or phrases:

• Context: Know when and why they came up.
• Definition: Understand what they mean.
• Significance: Understand why they were important in our conversations.

Social and Cultural Constructivism

• Context: This idea first appears in Anthony D. Smith’s article.
• Definition: It emerged to explain how culture can be "created" by people. It serves as the antithesis to essentialism, where culture "just is."
• Significance: It describes when something is made up of various features that are consistently shifting and being rebuilt (i.e., many explanations and theories surrounding a concept). It is vital for understanding how culture is formed and how its formation contributes to a group’s identity.

Emic versus Etic Perspectives

• Emic: How a group views itself. This can be subdivided into: spatial vs. travels with you, relational vs. inherent, performance vs. internal essence, and shared history vs. self-invention.
• Etic: How an outsider views the group; analytical observation.
• Significance: These are frameworks through which to interpret groups. In the readings, especially The Edge of Islam regarding possessions, Smith’s emic understandings of culture and Barth’s etic approach provide a comprehensive understanding. For instance, the justification of a principle from an etic perspective may not make sense from an emic one, and vice versa.

Strategic Essentialism

• Context: The Giriama use this against the Swahili to fight back against Swahili influence and strengthen themselves as a group.
• Kosek's Example: Hispanos use the idea of being culturally linked to the land through an extended history of labor to rally supporters. This was more effective than attempting to garner support based on objective injustices (like income inequality), which would require a conformational change of capitalist infrastructure.
• Definition: The use of essentialist notions of a group's core values as a political mobilization and representation technique. It is a manipulation performed to gain an advantage.
• Significance: Although intended as a defensive technique by the Giriama to retain their sense of self, it ultimately backfired. It allowed the Swahili to further distance themselves and highlight how the Giriama could not assimilate. It is also complicated by polyontologism, as the Giriama often use Muslim spirits when traditionalist spirits are unsuccessful, ultimately playing into Swahili hegemony.

Instrumental Identities

• Context: First appears in the work of Fredrik Barth.
• Definition: Using an identity to get something you want; switching a performance to achieve a desired outcome.
• Contrast: Unlike strategic essentialism (which is instrumental identity on a larger scale), instrumental identities tend to be individual efforts. They do not have to be essentialized.
• Significance: This involves individual negotiation for material gain. As Barth noted, people may trade identities when they no longer elicit benefits. It highlights that identity is fluid and can be manipulated in social contexts.

Nested Identities

• Context: Fredrik Barth.
• Definition: A hierarchy of identities that nest, or enfold, into each other (e.g., [Woman (Mother (Caregiver))]).
• Significance: The overarching identity is often the most important (in Barth’s case, ethnicity). For example, one might be American, then a New Yorker, then from a specific village; which one is referenced is situational.

Categorical versus Relational Identities

• Context: Found in Cooper and Brubaker as alternative terms to "identity."
• Categorical Identity (Smith): Based on a category you are sorted into by sharing an attribute. It is a "carried," "hard," and unchanging identity that lies within the individual.
• Relational Identity (Barth): Based on relationships with others or your own group. It is "contextual," "soft," and malleable, lying between people.
• Significance: These terms critique the vagueness of "identity" and demonstrate its different meanings as an analytical term.

Hard/Strong versus Soft/Weak Forms of Identity

• Context: Cooper and Brubaker.
• Hard/Strong (Smith): Assumes sameness and strict boundaries. It is categorical and problematic because it creates a "laundry list" of criteria that is challenged by the fluidity of real-life situations.
• Weak/Soft (Barth): Fluid with loose boundaries. It changes over time and context. It is relational but problematic because its vagueness can make the term "identity" lose its meaning entirely.

Essentialist versus Relational Analyses of Identity

• Context: Smith (Essentialist) and Barth (Relational).
• Essentialist Analysis: The identity of a group exists because it has always been that way. It has an unclear origin and is often not a useful analytical lens.
• Relational Analysis: The identity of an ethnic group exists based on interactions with other groups. Identity does not exist in a vacuum; it results from differences with others.
• Significance: These show that identity is not necessarily an intrinsic quality and can change under different circumstances.

Hegemony

• Context: McIntosh.
• Definition: The domination of a culturally diverse society by a ruling group’s ideas, making those ideas the accepted cultural norm.
• Significance: It helps us understand internalized norms (e.g., "it has always been this way"). For example, the Swahili enforce hegemony over the Giriama, which the Giriama incidentally reinforce.

Structures of Feeling

Context: Used by Kosek in Understories (Ch. 3) regarding the Hispanos.Definition: A fusion of labor and land that gives people a deep connection and a history assuming labor has always been done this way. It is an essentialist perspective of labor and a feeling of entitlement to the land.Significance: It provides an emic perspective on how land is symbolic and shapes Hispano culture.

Ideology

• Context: McIntosh (Ch. 1).
• Definition: A group’s most consciously held, explicitly formulated views and beliefs.
• Significance: Ideology can conflict with or align with hegemony. Understanding ideology is crucial to understanding how ethnic groups perceive power relations and why certain relations persist.

Personhood

• Giriama: Pragmatic and performative; appearance matters. Their notion is closer to personne (relational; defined by roles in society).
• Swahili: Faith-based; intention (nia) is more important than practice. Their notion is closer to moi (an internal, essential self that remains consistent).
• Significance: This affects religious views. The Giriama emphasize the performance of rituals, while the Swahili emphasize internal belief.

Language Ideologies

• Definition: The ways in which languages and their speakers are perceived. For example, the different perceptions of Spanish vs. French in the US.
• Context: Kigiriama is often seen as a "lesser" language than Kiswahili.
• Significance: This relates to "code-switching." When talking to Giriama spirits, the Giriama use Kigiriama formally; when talking to Swahili/Muslim spirits, they use Kiswahili with a reverent tone, reaffirming ethnoreligious tensions.

Polyontologism vs. Monontologism

• Polyontologism: A mode of thought where different systems of truth can be true in different contexts. Multiple forces have mystical potency. (Giriama).
• Monontologism: A mode of thought where only one system of truth is valid. (Swahili).
• Significance: Explains why the Giriama participate in Islamic rituals more readily than the Swahili participate in Giriama rituals.

Ethnographic versus Theoretical Questions

• Theoretical: Rooted in theory and applied to large concepts in social sciences (e.g., how or why is something the way it is?).
• Ethnographic: Practical questions related to the behaviors of a specific group in the context of daily life.
• Significance: Theoretical questions can exist without ethnographic ones, but ethnographic questions are always rooted in theory.

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II. Discussion Questions

What is the difference between "identity" and "identification"?

• Identification: A process; something that you do (Brubaker and Cooper).
• Identity: A state of being or a noun. It implies an essentialist, "hard" notion that assumes homogeneity and can be reifying.

Why distinguish between groupness, commonality, and connectedness?

• These terms help analyze relations of different depths. Commonality is having shared traits; connectedness consists of relational ties; groupness is the feeling of being part of a distinct, solidary group.

How do Smith and Barth differ on "cultural difference" vs. "boundary work"?

• Smith (Cultural Difference): Identity is strongest in isolation. You are one thing all the time.
• Barth (Boundary Work): Identity is strongest in multicultural settings where it is compared to others. He argues against conflating culture with identity because people with similar cultures can identify differently.

Why are divergent notions of personhood key for McIntosh?

• The Giriama (personne) see identity as malleable and relational, while the Swahili (moi) see it as a permanent, internal self. This reinforces the sense of "essential difference," such as the belief that Swahili bodies cannot tolerate Giriama food. This also links to global Islamic reformist movements that emphasize "pure" internal faith over local cultural practices.

Which theorists help us understand the Kenyan coast?

• Smith helps us understand the emic sense of intrinsic difference and the feeling of betrayal regarding food/identity.
• Barth helps us analyze the boundary work and how identity is pronounced when these cultures interact.

How is nature "raced" and "classed" for Kosek?

• Nature is linked to resource politics. The ideology of nature as "pure" and "untouched" is often a white/environmentalist schema that ignores the labor Hispanos have historically put into the land.

What role does labor play in belonging?

• Labor maintains the landscape and creates "structures of feeling." Unlike Barth’s view of identity as something easily shed for material gain, the Hispanos have an irrevocable tie to the land through generations of work.

How is the Truchas community an example of strategic essentialism?

• Hispanos leverage their cultural ties to the land to fight for rights. It is essentialist because they embody this connection as a central part of their being, and strategic because it draws a diverse group of supporters to their cause.

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Reading Summaries

• Smith: Believed in essentialized ethnicity that predates capitalism. Focused on emotional ties, though his logic is often considered circular for analysis.
• Barth: A constructivist who focused on boundary work and relational interactions. Believed identity is malleable and can be shifted for material gain.
• Brubaker and Cooper: Argued that "identity" is too amorphous. They distinguished between hard and soft notions, suggesting we should focus on more specific terms like identification or groupness.
• McIntosh (Edge of Islam): Explored how colonialism essentializes ethnicity and how contrasting notions of personhood (personne vs. moi) maintain Swahili hegemony.
• Kosek: Argued that nature is "cultured" and that people leverage strategic essentialism within resource politics to achieve political goals.