In the framework of the European scientific tradition the object (or subject-matter) of Ethnosociology is the ethnos, studied by sociological methods.
In the framework of the Russian one, however, we can say that the object of Ethnosociology is society and the subject-matter is the ethnos as a form of society.
However, the structure of Ethnosociology is not exhausted by the simple application of the sociological method to ethnic societies. The ethnos is not simply another form of society: it is a form that lies at its basis, i.e., a koineme. This is the main thesis of Ethnosociology, as a consequence of which, it can be stated that Ethnosociology is the study by society of its own deepest and most basic foundations, of that point from which space is made, or that seme on which rests the grand edifice of cultural and linguistic meanings. For that reason, we can give yet another definition of the object and subject-matter of Ethnosociology. The object of sociology is the deep foundations of society, identified as ethnic societies, koinemes; its subject-matter is the structure and arrangement of these foundations. In the European context, the object and subject-matter can be combined, giving us the following definition: the object (objectum) of Ethnosociology is the pure, radical structure of society or basic society with a null-dimension, on the basis of which other, more complex types of society historically unfold.
Thus, Ethnosociology studies the ethnos–not separately but as the basis of society itself — tracing the transformation of the ethnos at different historical stages, including its various dialectical derivatives, which sometimes are not proper ethnoses, but in one way or another (often in the form of direct antagonism) remain connected with it.
Definitions of Ethnosociology That We Should Reject
The contemporary English sociologist Anthony Giddens gives a definition of Ethnosociology as “a form of dual hermeneutics — sociological and ethnomethodological simultaneously.”18 “Ethnomethodology” is a sociological approach, developed by the contemporary American sociologist Harold Garfinkel, which has no direct relation to the ethnos and proposes merely that at the basis of the behavior of members of a society (in a “people” or “the masses”) there lies not the chaos of accidental circumstances, experiences and emotions, but a peculiar sociological model, which can be studied scientifically.19 In his youth, Garfinkel bumped up against the sociological problem of a systematic explanation of the behavior of jurymen, their motivations, logics, etc. In the apparent spontaneity, fortuitousness and groundlessness of decisions Garfinkel saw in the actions of a group of random simple people, not professionals and not specialists, a peculiar logical structure, entirely subject to study. The “ethnos” in this case is nothing more than an extended metaphor for a group of random laymen, connected with one another by practically nothing.
The combination of the classical sociological method and the ethnomethodology of Garfinkel (as Giddens interprets Ethnosociology) is a very productive and promising approach in Sociology, on par with the phenomenological approach developed by the sociologist Alfred Schutz.20 But this has no relation to the classical conception of Ethnosociology. The ethnos is something entirely different from an accidentally gathered group of laymen for the decision of some artificial (for them) problem.
Another famous sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), understanding “Ethnosociology” to be something close to Garfinkel’s scheme and contrasting Ethnosociology as a discipline, turned to a concrete, empirical unit of society, with all its anomalies, deviations, and forms of behavior, unable to be subsumed under general rules, to forms of Sociology that operate with highly abstract theoretical and normative constructs. Although Bourdieu offered to “erase the borders between Sociology and Ethnology,” not only did he not consider the ethnos as the basic instance of society (koineme), but he did not even make it an object of sociological study.
We should recognize the definitions of Giddens and Bourdieu, and others similar to them, as the private opinions of well-known sociologists, all the more so since none of them dedicated a separate book or even a full-fledged essay to Ethnosociology.
The Ethnos as a Phenomenon and the Phenomenological Method
Ethnosociology in its fullest expression operates with the ethnos as a basic social phenomenon. The ethnos is both a theoretical concept (the object of Ethnosociology) and a phenomenon that can be observed in real life. For this reason, Ethnosociology bases its conclusions on perceptions of the ethnos as a given and derives theoretical constructions from the study of this given.
If we return to Shirokogoroff’s definition, then in the ethnos are distinguished: 1) language, 2) belief in a common origin, 3) the presence of common customs and traditions, culture. In all societies, there are necessarily all three components of the ethnos. We know of no society, neither in current period nor in the historical chronicles of its past, that did not have at least one of these three components. For this reason precisely, the ethnos is a basic phenomenon. All societies known to us are, to one degree or another, ethnic.
The phenomenological essence of the ethnos is extremely important to the method with the help of which Ethnosociology studies it. These methods, based on a reliance on the ethnos and its structures and empathy (“living into,” “feeling into”), are necessary in order to describe, study, and understand the structures of ethnos as adequately as possible.
Different historical schools study the sources of society’s origin differently. Aristotle thought that society is built on the basis of the family. Evolutionists see as the source of society a form of development of feral (animal) flocks or herds. Marxists think that society is formed as a superstructure over economic relations, and at its basis lie the phenomena of labour and its instruments. All of these theories suppose that human society as we know it is a product of some other factors.
Ethnosociology approaches this problem differently, phenomenologically speaking. Society is a phenomenon, and at its roots this phenomenon is ethnic. All forms of society known to us today and about which reliable information has been preserved have always had common structural roots. In concrete lived experience these roots are the society as ethnos, i.e., a group of people united by language, belief in a common origin, and common traditions. This is confirmed by observation and all forms of verification.
But we cannot see the process of the expansion of the family to the extent of the ethnos (according to Aristotle), trace the transformation of a herd of monkeys into a human collective, or fix the role of the instruments of labour in the establishment of social forms. Ethnoses are simple and complex, archaic and developed, but they are always something other than an extended family, evolved animals or autonomous products of economic activity. For the existence of even the smallest tribe-ethnos at least two lineages (i.e. two big families) are required, as a minimum, as Lévi-Strauss shows. But as concerns the evolutionary hypothesis or Marxist dogma, they are purely theoretical constructions. And on the contrary, the ethnos is an easily verified phenomenon. We see this phenomenon everywhere and always. And it is precisely the ethnos which we see at the sources of the most complex and differentiated societies. It makes itself known even at the most complex stages of development.
For this reason, Ethnosociology, focusing its attention on the ethnos, is dealing with something unconditionally existing, i.e., with a phenomenon.
Phenomenology, both philosophical (Husserl and Fink) and sociological (Schutze), is the privileged method of ethnosociological study. This appears especially clearly in the works of one of the founders of Ethnosociology, Wilhelm Mühlmann, who considered Shirokogoroff his teacher.21
Examples of an Ethnos: Contemporary Chechens
Let us give some examples of the ethnos in the contemporary world. We will look at the Chechen ethnos in today’s Russia.
What characteristics must Chechens possess, in order to be considered an ethnos? Let us turn once again to Shirokogoroff’s definition.
1. Language. There is a Chechen language, which the Chechen people speak. It
relates to the Vainakh linguistic group and is very close to the Ingush language. Nevertheless, Chechens themselves, like the Ingush, consider their ethnic languages distinct (despite their objective resemblance), and this is a not insignificant factor in their ethnic self-definition.
2. Chechens believe that they have a common origin, that all of them are descendants of the same tribes, which separated gradually into a few branches. Some Chechens think that they are the direct descendants of Noah, interpreting the self-styling of Chechens Nokhchi as “descendants of Noah” (in Arabic, Noi [Noah] is pronounced as nuakh).22
3. Chechens possess a common complex of customs, which are a specific mixture of properly ethnic and religious, Islamic, customs. To this we should add the mystical orientation in Islam of Sufism, which possesses its owns mores, rituals and doctrines. The community of Sufis in Chechnya is called the wird. The celebrated round-dances that the Chechens dance is the zikr, a form of collective Sufi prayer, which is different in every wird. The mores, customs and culture of Chechens are a unique combination of purely ethnic, Islamic, and Sufi elements. In the self-consciousness of Chechens themselves, this cultural complex distinguishes them from all other ethnoses and comprises their identity.23
At the same time, is it possible to discover in the Chechens a clear expression of a shared racial type? This is impossible. Chechens are tall and short, dark and swarthy, blue-eyed and red-haired, recalling classical Indo-Europeans, and even red-bearded. There is a Mediterranean type, spread over all the Caucasus. There are brachycephalic Chechens, but there are also dolichocephalic ones. It is likely that from the point of view of race, various biological lines and different racial groups combined to form the contemporary Chechen population, as is the case in the overwhelming majority of ethnoses, coming across in waves, one over another, and “settling” in the difficult to reach mountains of the Northern Caucasus. However, Chechens themselves practically do not record the phenotypic differences and variation of types as a decisive or significant factor in the recognition of themselves as an organic unity, i.e., an ethnos.
From the point of view of Ethnosociology, this is the deciding factor. Chechens recognize themselves as an ethnos. Other ethnoses living alongside them also consider them an ethnos. At the same time, all of the signs of the ethnos, according to Shirokogoroff, are present. Hence, we are dealing with an ethnic phenomenon and can study it by ethnosociological means.
Another question: is it possible to consider the Chechens only as an ethnos? This assertion will be imprecise, since in addition to ethnic identity there also exist civil, national (the majority of Chechens, excluding the members of the diaspora, are citizens of the Russian Federation), territorial-administrative (they live in the Chechen Republic), and religious (Chechens are predominantly Muslim) identities. But all of these other identities are built on top of the ethnic identity. In diverse people these superstructures have diverse meanings, but all who consider themselves Chechens and who consider Chechens different are in the first place united on the deepest level precisely by their ethnic commonality. This is an empirical fact. Through it we meet the phenomenon of the ethnos directly. To the extent to which they are, Chechens truly are an ethnos.
What we have said relative to Chechens can be applied to all ethnoses, whether they live in Russia or beyond her borders. They are a phenomenon, and should be studied as such.
The Main Rules of Ethnosociology: The Plurality of Ethnoses and Their Classification
In the course of Ethnosociological research we must follow a set of rules, which are of paramount importance:
On the one hand, when we study an ethnos specifically as an ethnos, we apply general criteria to it. Any ethnos in its pure guise is a simple society, with the domination of a collective identity, a synchronism of ethnic reactions and exceedingly weak vertical and horizontal differentiation, which corresponds to Shirokogoroff’s three indicators. That is, we are dealing with a koineme.
But this common quality of all ethnoses expresses itself in practice in the most variegated and often unexpected forms. Even the simplest ethnoses have a different structure of their simplicity, precisely as the languages humanity speaks have something in common (after all, they are all languages), but at the same time contain a tremendous number of differences.
Consequently, after identifying some ethnos as an ethnos, the ethnosociologist is dealing with a koineme. But this does not yet mean that a koineme in the case of one ethnos will be exactly the same as a koineme in the case of another one. Even the most archaic and simple tribes differ from one another substantially.
Consequently, ethnosociology does not deal with the ethnos but with ethnoses in the plural. A koineme differs from more complex social systems, and, at the same time, from other simple koinemes, with other structures of this simplicity.
The first rule of Ethnosociology is to recall the plurality of ethnoses, even in their most radical and simplified foundation.
The second rule concerns the classification of ethnoses. To speak of more or less “developed,” “civilized,” or “progressive” ethnoses means to take a racist approach in relation to them, to separate them into “higher” and “lower.” And even if this racism is not dogmatic or biological and is based on an analysis of technical, economic, or some other kind of criteria, it nevertheless remains racism (even in a veiled and cultured form). This is absolutely unscientific, since in doing so we approach the study of one ethnos from the position of another one, evaluating its condition, values, and social structures with an aloof, extraneous gaze. Such an approach is inadmissible, since the entire structure of the ethnic phenomenon becomes invisible as a result.
Thus, the founder of American Cultural Anthropology (an analogue to Ethnosociology) Franz Boas wrote in his letters from the expedition to the Eskimo-Inuit: “I often ask myself what the superiority consists in which ‘developed’ society possesses over a society of ‘savages,’ and I find that the more I study their habits, the more I understand that we simply have no right to look down on them from above. We do not have a right to judge them for their forms and prejudices, however absurd they might seem to us. We ‘highly educated people’ are much worse than they are…”24
The sole correct form of the classification of ethnoses is their placement on the scale “simple–complex.” At the same time, the concepts of “simplicity” and “complexity” should not carry anything at all positive or negative; these are two neutral constants, founded on the description of a phenomenon. There are “simple societies” and “complex societies.” Neither one is better or worse than the other. They are simply different. This is a non-hierarchical classification, fixed on the state of affairs and in no way evaluative of it.
Here we should notice that the simpler a society is, the more ethnic it is, and the more complex it is the less ethnicity comes forth by itself, both on the surface and at a glance. In a simple society ethnicity is obvious; in complex society, it must be looked for. The more complex a society is, the deeper ethnicity is hidden in it and the less apparent it is to superficial familiarity.
The simplest society is a purely ethnic society, which has no content besides the ethnic. Using our terminology, we can say that it is practically identical to the koineme.
The most complex society is one in which the ethnic factor is found on a fundamental level, over which are built a few floors, imposing and striking to the imagination. The attention of the observer is drawn to these floors, and few lower their gaze to the foundation or take an interest in the construction of the basement.
These two rules — the rule of the plurality of ethnoses and the rule of the non-evaluative criteria “simple-complex” are the basic principles of ethnosociology.
The Ethnos and the Lifeworld
The ethnos cannot be considered in isolation from the surrounding environment. The ethnos always lives in a concrete space, and this space is integrated into its own structure; it is apprehended, transformed, and dwelt in by it.25 Gumilev re
ferred to it as “[an] accommodating landscape,” emphasizing that the ethnos in its existence is a single whole with the surrounding environment, and their interaction [TN: inter-influence] lies at the basis of the different phases of an ethnos’ transformation.
The philosopher and founder of phenomenology Edmund Husserl introduced the very important concept of a “lifeworld” (Lebenswelt), which is a set of arrangements and acts of consciousness that are not subject to logical verification along the lines of subject-matters and phenomena found opposite a person, i.e., objects.26 The “lifeworld” is contrasted with the “scientific world,” with its conception of what is “real” or “objective,” and what “imaginary” or “subjective,” where consciousness ends and material begins, etc. The “lifeworld” does not know such stringency and simply identifies thought with reality, representations and models with that which actually is. For this reason, the “lifeworld” does not distinguish between a person and that in which he lives, i.e., his surroundings, understanding both one and the other as an integrated whole.
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