A year ago on Round and Square (28 July 2012)—The Accidental Ethnographer: Reading Geil
Two years ago on Round and Square (28 July 2011)—Longevity Mountain: Always the Southern Entrance
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| [a] Dynamic RF |
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IX
Dynamics of Ethnicity (b)
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| [b] Shred RF |
Of course not.
Too many discussions of
ethnicity seem to assert that “this people” or “that people” acts, works, or
plays in a manner that can be shared by the entire group. There is a tiny shred
of “truth” to this, of course. To the extent that a group (Boston Red Sox fans,
the Tajik people) can be called a group at all, they have to share certain
qualities. The purpose of individual descriptions is in outlining exactly those
items. These, too, are “subjective” if we parse them enough, but it is clear to
any reader that the Boston Red Sox play their home games in Fenway Park, broadcast
to all of the New England states, and won the World Series in 2004 and 2009.
Those who try to claim that we can know nothing without our “subjectivities”
getting in the way have missed the point. We need precisely that kind of detailed
information if we are to understand any complex group.
On the other hand, such
information can take us only so far. Homi Bhabha might say, “fine; memorize
that….now put it into motion—dynamic motion.” For that, we need to understand
how the Yankees and Red Sox played their games (myriad contests throughout the
past). We need to understand marriage alliances, feuds, and treaties between
the Bai people and the Han. We need, in short, to understand the interstices,
the contestation.
And to do that, we need to understand that
individuals inhabit their ethnic and cultural realms. There is no such thing as
“a culture” (or even “an ethnicity”) doing, acting, or contesting anything.
Individuals do that, and make individual (sometimes weird and idiosyncratic)
choices while doing so. Sometimes they make terrible mistakes. Sometimes they
strike out.
And sometimes they hit a
home run. Individuals hit home runs. Teams don’t hit them; they help create
them in many ways, and then benefit from them. Only individuals can hit them.
Pierre Bourdieu, our second cultural theorist, never forgot the individual. His angle is a bit different from Bhabha’s, but it merges together with it nicely. His conception of social action, while enormously complex and nuanced, can be summarized in a useful idea—there are no rules that determine how people act. To the extent that researchers have focused on “the way” the Zhuang people behave, for example, they have missed a much larger and more powerful point. People make individual choices within a vast set of correspondences and challenges. Every social action—from a marriage alliance between Han and Miao people to the complex PRC decision to emphasize ethnicity as a part of the history and culture of the state—is strategic. These choices can be individual or engage many layers of people and opinion. Choice is always a large part of the equation.
Pierre Bourdieu, our second cultural theorist, never forgot the individual. His angle is a bit different from Bhabha’s, but it merges together with it nicely. His conception of social action, while enormously complex and nuanced, can be summarized in a useful idea—there are no rules that determine how people act. To the extent that researchers have focused on “the way” the Zhuang people behave, for example, they have missed a much larger and more powerful point. People make individual choices within a vast set of correspondences and challenges. Every social action—from a marriage alliance between Han and Miao people to the complex PRC decision to emphasize ethnicity as a part of the history and culture of the state—is strategic. These choices can be individual or engage many layers of people and opinion. Choice is always a large part of the equation.
Although this may seem
obvious, enormous misunderstandings have flowed from “over-reading” the stories
of individual groups. A “minority” family, for example, that wants to see its
younger generation thrive will often embrace ethnicity in one manner (for
example, accepting the criteria for minority representation in universities)
even while acting in a much more ecumenical manner in others, such as business
dealings. Ethnicity is not a “thing” that is worn in the same way in all
contexts. They change in time and space, and nuanced interpretations—and
actions—are the norm.
*** ***
If we pair the insights
of Bhabha and Bourdieu, we can see a sophisticated weaving of two themes. On
the one hand, we best understand concepts like ethnicity by focusing on the
margins, the interstices, of “ethnic categories.” On the other hand, following
Bourdieu, every action at those margins—in the end, every action at all—is a
(complex), layered medley of choices in historically and culturally situated
settings. What this means for our study of Asian ethnic groups is that we must
balance the detailed knowledge we can gain from the formidable information in
this book’s encyclopedic entries with knowledge of process, change, and choice.
A Mongol family choosing to marry a member of the Han elite today would not be
the same—in terms of power, class, or motivation—as one performing the same
cultural “act” (engaging to marry outside of one’s ethnic group) during the
Mongol-controlled Yuan dynasty (1279-1368).
Ethnicity is always in
motion, and this book will help you to understand both the dynamics of movement
and the key elements shared by ethnic
groups in northern, central, and eastern Asia.
Click below for other items in this essay:
Click below for other items in this essay:
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| [f] Motion RF |
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