Andreas Miller’s approach to ethnicity is rather interesting and comprehensive. He argues, amongst other things, that current approaches to ethnicity has failed to take into account why its character vary dramatically across cases, displaying different “degrees of social closure, political salience, cultural distinctiveness, and historical stability”. He thus introduces a “multilevel process theory”, which assumes that “ethnic boundaries are the outcome of the classificatory struggles and negotiations between actors situated in a social field”. Arguing that three elements - institutional order, distribution of power, and political networks - determine the people and the strategies of ethnic boundary making, he concludes with a discussion of how these factors lead to “shared understanding”.
First taking us through the literature review of the subject, he highlights how Barth broke away from the Herderian canon in anthropology whereby “each ethnic group represented a historically grown, uniquely shaped flower in the garden of human cultures”. He contend that this signifies a turn from “Linnean taxonomy” to “social ecology”, which paved the way for constructivism, the notion that ethnicity is a product of “social process”, rather than a cultural given. It is made and remade, and should not be taken for granted. He takes us through the various battle lines, between primordialism, instrumentalism, essentialism, situationalism, modernsm, perrennialism, before claiming that he would like to “transcend” all these categories. To do so, he starts by rejecting the approach of “definitional ontology”, claiming that definitional debates have “diverted our efforts away from understanding why ethnicity appears in such variable forms”. One can perhaps identify a “Foucauldian” element in his approach. Finally, he outlines his methodology, which involves first of all identifying four “principal dimensions of variation”: different degrees of political salience of ethnic boundaries, of social closure and exclusion along ethnic lines, of cultural differentiation between groups, and of stability over time. After that, he engages with a “more sophisticated and empirically promising theory”, what he termed “social process theory”, that focuses on how social forms are generated and transformed over time.
That much is the overall outline of the essay. Now, let’s tackle the meat.
He first starts by defining ethnicity according to the Weberian tradition. To him, ethnicity is “a subjectively felt sense of belonging based on the belief in shared culture and common ancestry”. In this broad definition, race and nationhood are both treated as subtypes of ethnicity. He draws our attention to the possibility of further subtypes, such as “ethnoreligious, ethnoregional, ethnolinguistic” categories and groups.
He then outlines how his approach of subsuming “race” under “ethnicity” runs against the folk use of the terms in the US, where “race” is associated with African-Americans and “ethnicity” refers to “less consequential distinctions” among dominant “white groups”. Mainstream American sociology, he points out, also treat them separately. Such an approach is problematic. First of all, Miller points how how such a treatment overlooks the fact that the same group of individuals might be treated as a race at one point in history and as an ethnic category in another. He give the example of how the African slaves were primarily defined as pagans and their English masers as Christians in the 17th century, whereby afterwards, the “ethnoreligious distinction was gradually replaced by ethnosomatic differentiation”. Furthermore, Miller argues that phenotypical differences are often evoked as one among other markers of ethnic distinction, which means that race kind of falls within the boundaries of ethnicity. Having a sharp and fast line between race and ethnicity also does not account for the interdependent ways and complexities of racial/ethnic formation, such as Serbs in Kosovo and Albanians in Serbia. He points out that the reason why US is skeptical of a more encompassing definition of ethnicity is because US academics argue that it is a “sinister neoconservative agenda” meant to “negate the role that racist ideologies played in the colonisation of the world” and to “deny that racial exclusion might be relevant in contemporary US society”. Arguing against such a conception, Willer suggests that a more encompassing definition will allow one to “see how *much* it matters” by situating the US case on a comparative horizon.
Exploring the notion of “boundaries”, Miller points out that boundaries display both a “categorical and a social/behavioral dimension”. The former refers to acts of “social classification and collective representation”, while the latter refers to “everyday networks of relationships”. It is about the dividing of social groups into “us” vs “them”. He maintains that boundaries are not sharply defined most of the time, that they can be fuzzy and soft.
In an attempt to classify all the available case studies of ethnicity, Willer constructs “four dimensions of variation” along with individual cases can be situated. Variation, here, refers to ethnic forms. According to him, the four are: political salience of boundaries, social closure, cultural differentiation, and stability.
Some boundaries are “politically salient” while others are not. A Souther Californian may identify as Blue Hmong as opposed to White Hmong, as Hmong in opposition to other persons of Vietnamese origin, as Vietnamese in contrast to other Asian nationalities, as Asian-American in opposition to African-American and Europe American, or as American from a global perspective. The immediate challenge for Miller is identifying which of these lines of cleavages are “politically relevant”. He shows how the “situationists” have claimed that salience depends on the “logic of the situation” and the characteristics of the persons interacting. If a Blue Hmong political activist is struggling with White Hmongs over which group’s cultural heritage will be recognised by the Californian government, it will be the “Blue” aspect of it that is salient. Miller criticises this theory by pointing out that there are certain aspects of one’s identity that is more “political salient” than others in *most* context, for instance the condition of being “Asian” in the case above, because of how college officers decide who to admit to their programs, or when political entrepreneurs design electoral strategies. Miller thinks that the situationists, in privileging *any* identification, is too relativist. We should thus look at how institutions, power and networks, engender a hierarchical salience in their process of structuring political relations in society.
He also mentions an approach to salience that emphasises economic competition. This theory states that ethnic boundaries that correspond to “groups in competition on the labor market will be politically more relevant than those that cut across lines of economic interest”. This argument is not clearly delineated in Wimmer’s essay, but perhaps what he is trying to articulate is how groups in competition with each other for jobs will tend to develop a corresponding ethnic identity, which is differentiated from other ethnic groups that are competing for jobs as well. Miller attacks quickly on this one, citing evidence high tide of immigration before WWI. In any case, this doesn’t seem to be that important, and it is not well developed anyway, so I’ll skip this part.
A third, and perhaps the most obvious, question to the problem of salience lies in the more “perrenialist” claim that it is the “visibility of ethnic markers” that determine which cleavages will be most relevant for social interactions and political life. This is at once the “common sense” view, and perhaps most convincing to me. However, Willer claims that such a view cannot be generalised “historically and cross-nationally”.
For instance, groups such as the Jews, Irish and Italians were once considered to be “phenotypically ambivalent” and now simply classified as “white”. Although there IS a case to be made about the social construction of perception, I think this argument is premised on a weak example. Surely, Black and Asian people have never been classified as of the same “ethnic” origins before. However, Miller also points to how in Puerto Rico, the definition of “white” expanded considerably over time to include individuals of mixed backgrounds previously considered “coloured”. Again, I think this has less to do with the fact that ethnic markers do not matter, but more to do with how the phenotypical traits themselves are ambiguous and rather similar in the first place. Sometimes, I get the sense that Wimmer is trying to hard to be contradictory.
So to summarise a little before we move on. In attempting to take into account variations in ethnic forms, Wimmer drew our attention to political salience. He points out to 3 ways political salience is constructed, via a “situational” approach, via “economic competition”, and via visible ethnic markers. Up till this far, I don’t think Wimmer has been very thorough. For one, I can think of many other ways ethnic forms can be made politically salient, for instance through differing ways self-understanding is affected - via media, institutions, etc…
So far, then, quite disappointing. The second thing that accounts for variation in ethnic forms (again, i don’t think he defines what this means enough - I shall take it to mean different types of ethnic categories) is social closure, or “groupness”. This brings in the notion of “self-identification” and a shared sense of belonging. Ah, perhaps this is why Wimmer left it out of his first factor - the first factor is purely political/economic in nature, while the second factor looks inwards. Indeed, he raises the example of how immigrants from Haiti and West Indian came to identify with the “imposed category of ‘black’” while their parents vehemently emphasise their national identity. Exploring the concept of closure, Wimmer mentions how degrees of closure affects the easy in which boundaries can be crossed. This begs the question: what does it mean by crossing the boundary? I think Wimmer answers this in his next section. Under “repositioning”, it perhaps refer to a subjective attempt for a social actor to “pass off” as another ethnicity. So high degrees of social closure means it is harder for other people to lay claim to *their* ethnic identity…? I think that is the case. For instance, when ethnicities such as “Singaporeanness” is defined as having lived and behaving like a Singaporean, then there isn’t much of a social closure. If social closure is defined by “bloodlines”, such as Kurds, or Jews, then they tend to be more closed off, and the boundaries more distinct.
There are also examples of ethnic boundaries that are drawn unambiguously, for instance the Mongolians, where a “Mongol is a Mongol even if born from a Kazah mother and brought up among Kazahs”. Some studies show that a Mongol is a mongol even if born from two Kazahs and brought up in America. Lol jk.
Apart from social closure, there is another factor in accounting for variation in ethnic forms: cultural differentiation. Wimmer is quick to point out that many do contend that the “culture stuff within” matters. Cultural differentiation therefore may “make a boundary appear quasi natural and self-evident”. On the other hand, we have countries where “ethnic boundaries do not divide a population along obvious cultural lines but unite individuals who follow quite heterogeneous cultural practices”. Singapore is, again, a great example, and multilingual, multi religious national communities such as the Swiss. Also, when ethnic boundaries *do* coincide with cultural differences, the boundary might be “blurred subsequently and eventually break down completely, such as among the Chinese in Guyana or Cuba, and countless other cases of assimilation”.
Stability also poses a problem in our consideration of ethnic forms. While some groups and boundaries change slowly, other change rapidly. The most stable boundaries are those that identify through “multigenerational, unilineal descent lines, such as MOngols, Pathans, Jews”. More unstable boundaries are those defined by behaviour, such as Vezo of Madagascar, or Singaporeans…
Moving on to the theoretical foundations of his own work (it never seems to end! - Wimmer builds foundations upon foundations), Wimmer says that his model draws inspiration from three research traditions. First is Weber’s notion of “group relations”. Second is the study of ethnicity as “the outcome of a political and symbolic struggle over the categorical divisions of society”, in the tradition of one like Bourdieu, and perhaps also drawing upon the Gramscian notion of hegemony. Thirdly, the institutional tradition - the spread of nation-state form - is engaged as well.
There are five “strategies” of ethnic boundary making that “may be pursued by different actors in different social context”. There might be shifting boundaries through expansion, for instance when modernising empires incorporate smaller ethnic groups, or when newly nationalising states create ethnoregional blocks in an attempt to establish a larger political base, or perhaps simply in “nation building”, in “making French” of peasants, Brazilians out of whites, blacks, browns, Singaporeans out of Indians, Chinese, Malay, etc.
Boundaries can also contract. This occurs when second-generation chinese and Koreans in Los Angeles would prefer to be referred to and treated as Chinese-Americans and Korean Americans rather than lumped together under the term “Asian”, in the same way as how immigrants from the West Indies fought to be recognised as “Jamaicans” and “Trinidadians” in order to avoid being categorised as “black”.
Inversion can also apply to a boundary, where, according to Wimmer, the culturally, economically inferior group empowers itself. Examples given were cultural nationalism among African Americans in the States. As a process, however, this one seems much more shaky than the rest. It is premised on a very specific form of inversion, that of power.
Boundaries can furthermore be repositioned. This was mentioned earlier in the essay, where assimilation or passing off are the main strategies where individuals “shift sides”. A good example of “collective repositioning” is what anthropologists have called “caste climbing”, where lower caste members of India adopts the lifestyle of the upper castes.
Finally, boundaries can be blurred. For instance in explicitly anti-nationalist organisations such as the Communist International, the radical Islamic movements that dream of the restoration of a supranational caliphate, Sophiatown in the 1950s where Africans, Jews and immigrants had formed what they perceived as a cosmopolitan culture inspired by American Jazz, British fashion and continental literary styles. The emphasis of civil commonalities in arguments where universal moral qualities and membership in the “human family” is evoked, etc.
In what seems like the final part of Wimmer’s essay, he explores how institutions, powers and network that constraints actions upon the boundaries.
Institutional frameworks affect the dynamics of ethnic boundary making. For instance, the colonisation of the non-Western world, the racialization of population, the spread of the nation-state in the postcolonial era, are all example of “boundary creation”. This is really just governmentality (Foucault), how ethnicity is created by institutions through violent localised struggles. Wimmer himself doesn’t really quote Foucault. He mentions how the nation state creates incentives for state elites to pursue strategies of ethnic boundary making. The “principle of ethnonational representativity of government”, for one, became the norm for any legitimate state. This provides the main institutions incentive for state elites to systematically homogenise their subjects in cultural and ethnic terms, usually by expanding the boundaries of their own group and declaring their own ethnic background, culture, and language as forming the national pot into which everyone else should aspire to melt.
In addition, political entrepreneurs among “ethnic minorities” emphasise ethnic rather than other social divisions, in their bid to expand nationalist power. Wimmer mentions a sad point of how majority members may discriminate against minorities in everyday circumstances for the reinforcement of their own national identities.
Wimmer then qualifies that boundaries are not drawn along ethnic or national lines for all institutions, citing the example of emergency room hospitals in US as how it transcends boundaries. Second, he claims that other institutions also influence the dynamics of ethnic boundary making, such as democratisation politics. This is an interesting point of how the very nature of democracy promotes ethnic divisions as politicians appeal to and manipulate the sense of shared groupness.
Next, Wimmer looks at how power acts on the boundaries. He claims that the level of ethnic differentiation an individual will emphasise “depends on her position in the hierarchies of power that the institutional order establishes”. The effect of this power are twofold.
First, the actor will prefer the level of ethnic differentiation that is perceived to further her interests. This is a variant of the situationist argument in disguise, actually, with a slight focus on the “reflexive mode of reasoning” that it takes to decide one’s interest. Wimmer claims that even when boundaries are already established and routinised, individuals have a “choice between different interpretations and instantiations of the ethnic scheme”. This gives more power to the individuals to act on their idea of ethnicity.
Second, “endowment with power not only determines which strategy of ethnic boundary making an individual will pursue but also how consequential this will be for others”. Wimmer gives the example of how only those in control of the state apparatus can use the census and law to enforce certain boundary. He cautions against “overstating the hegemonic power” because “subordinates may develop counter discourses”, for instance in the case of West Indians insisting on being Jamaican rather than being black.
Moving on, Wimmer also studies how networks determine how the boundaries are drawn. By network, he means “networks of political alliances”. In particular, he seems to suggest the networks that politicians belong to in the decisive, early periods of nation-state formation in deciding the boundary between nation and minority. For instance, different types of political alliance networks was present in Brazil’s nation-building project, which included population of African descent, as opposed to that of the US, which resulted in more inclusive policies.
It follows that there is one last thing to be explored, according to Wimmer, and that is the notion of consensus. Who gets to decide why certain boundaries are drawn? What if some actors (minorities) disagree? Wimmer says that those in power typically has to “convince others of their view of society”. They thus have to enter a “negotiation process”. One theory (neo-Gramscian) states that the elites achieve hegemony through consent. There is, of course, the presence of counter hegemonic struggles, which does not mean that consent does not exist for large parts of the population. Consent may also arise from the “exchange” of different economic, political and symbolic resources between individuals occupying different social positions.
Finally, Wimmer moves on to the features of the boundaries. In trying to construct how different degrees of inequality affect the nature of ethnic boundaries, he argues that where there is high “power differentials” between individuals, degrees of social closure are also high. According to Wimmer, those who have “successfully set themselves apart form the rest as “ethnic others” and managed to monopolise economic, political or symbolic resources will try to police the ethnic boundary and make assimilation difficult”. Conversely, Wimmer notes the potential for “market forces” - ‘meritocratic recruitment through elite universities- ensure status reproduction and tendencies of closure may weaken. ??? what does this mean? So when class divisions are perpetuated, ethnic boundaries are weakened? How does this make sense?
He then talks about things like Stability and path dependency, which I feel are clustered and unilluminating terms in general, and hence I’ll end this summary here.
He mentions how certain boundaries are more resistant to strategic reinterpretation or blurring than others. He mentions three main mechanisms of change. The first is an exogenous shift. Major political events such as imperial conquest or nation-state formation will transform the institutional structure, hence blurring or changing the boundaries. Things like the EU, and the UN are examples of such forces. International migration can also change this. Secondly, endogenous shifts occur due to “cumulative consequences of strategies pursued by actors”. Strategies of boundary expansion and assimilation, for instance, will lead to shift in boundaries. Third, when actors adopt new strategies that are not within the current repertoire, boundaries may change. For instance, the US civil rights movement’s influence on the global LGBT community world wide, the political mobilisation of Quebecois in Canada, postcolonial immigrants in the UK, “blacks” in Brazil, and so forth. They are hence inspired.
Okay this shit is way too long, I am going to stop here.
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