Many arguments over the definition of the term “ethnos” circle around the questions of whether the ethnos is a constant or variable, whether it has a historical dimension and whether ethnicity is preserved in complex societies. We shall examine these questions in detail in the corresponding sections of the book; here we shall state a few basic theses.
Cultural Primordialism thinks that the ethnos is principally static, although inside this stasis there constantly run dynamic and sometimes very intensive processes, aimed at preserving this stasis. We can call this “active conservatism”; in order to remain unchanging, the ethnos must constantly undertake a multitude of efforts which are put together in the broad field of intra-ethnic dynamics.
When the structure of the ethnos actually begins to change and the historical factor appears, we are no longer dealing with an ethnos, but with its derivatives. The ethnos as such is invariable, but if changes in the structure of the ethnos acquire an irreversible (historical) character, they transform a purely ethnic society into something else, more complicated and differentiated. The ethnos as such is not historical, but when it proves to be inserted into history, it is transformed into a more complex social structure.
And, finally, the question of the preservation of the ethnic factor in more differentiated societies. Cultural Primordialism answers this in the spirit of “perpetual primordialism” (according to the classification of Anthony Smith). The ethnic dimension, in fact, is present in all types of society available to observation. This dimension is present even where nominally and normatively it is not there (not supposed to be there). This does not mean, however, that the ethnos in complex societies is entirely identical with the ethnos in simple societies, where it is by itself. It plays another role and in a different capacity, being a kind of “basement” or “social unconscious.”61
The conception of Cultural Primordialism as the basic ethnosociological method removes the criticism of Primordialism as a whole, which absolutely justly points to the fact that ancient ethnoses, historical narods, and contemporary nations, and also ethnic phenomena in today’s world, are entirely different phenomena, which categorically cannot be identified with one another (as the representatives of naïve Primordialism, the sociobiological approach, evolutionists and supporters of racial theories do). Cultural Primordialism agrees with this entirely. We deal with the ethnos in its pure guise only in “primordial” societies. When we register their complication, we are speaking of a derivative of the ethnos. And, accordingly, the criteria, principles, structures, regularities, function sets, etc. of these derivatives of society must also be considered as derivatives. Analogies can usefully be drawn between them, emphasizing meanwhile the qualitative difference of the diverse processes.
We can illustrate this in the following way. In Shirokogoroff’s definition of the ethnos we see three main criteria: (1) language, (2) belief in a common origin, (3) common rituals. These are the properties only of the ethnos.
In the case of the “first derivative” of the ethnos, the narod-laos, we will have a derivation from language (a common koine and polyglossia), a “derivation” from belief in a common origin (to which is added belief in a common goal, which creates the historical arrow of time) and a “derivation” of shared rituals (which will be differentiated along a caste-estate principle).62 , 63
In the nation those same three criteria will represent three other “derived” characteristics: (1) instead of language, koine, and polyglossia, the idiom (Ernest Gellner) appears; (2) replacement of the belief in a common origin by the rational foundation of an administrative-territorial arrangement; (3) a secular calendar and the organization of labour and leisure (for instance, the five-day work week) instead of shared rituals.
These criteria will be even more complex at the level of the “fourth derivative” in the context of civil and global society: (1) an artificial world language, (2) the concept of the auto-genesis of the individual, (3) personality sacrality.
If we look into futurology, then post-society brings with it: (1) a machine (computer) language, (2) system-network creativity, (3) the cult of effectiveness and optimization.
II. Constructivism
Classical Constructivism: Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm
Very often in the scientific literature the primordialist approach is contrasted with Constructivism. In its most general features, constructivism insists that the ethnos is not an organic community, but an artificial social construct, produced alongside others for the resolution of certain problems during the organization of power and property relations.
Constructivism asserts that the ethnos is an abstraction and the product of a specific, conscious act of the political elite.
Sometimes the constructivist approach in Ethnosociology is equated with “Modernism,” which points to the idea, shared by the majority of constructivists, of the strictly modern origin of “nations” as political strategies of the Modern Era.
The philosopher and sociologist Ernest Gellner (1925–1995), the sociologist Benedict Anderson, and the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm are considered the most significant representatives of the constructivist approach.
Ernest Gellner is one of the most authoritative researchers on the question of the origin of modern nations. He proposes that nations emerged into a practically “empty space” as a result of the rational demand of modern states to organize, order, mobilize, and unite their population with the aim of their effective management in the process of the attainment of concrete material goals.64 Gellner shows that nations arise simultaneously with the bourgeouis state, where the “third-estate,” which finds itself before the historical problem of the new political organization of capitalist society, dominates. The concept of the “nation” resolves this problem in the most optimal way and becomes the primary form of the political organization of society in the Modern Era.
Gellner shows that at the basis of the phenomenon of the nation lies not myth, but a conscious mystification. In the sociological terms of Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936), who distinguished artificially established “society” (Gesellschaft) and naturally arising “community” (Gemeinschaft), Gellner interprets the concept of the “nation” as the knowingly false endowment of the former with the characteristics of the latter for the realization of concrete administrative tasks. All “stories” (narratives) met with in the first stage of the formation of the nation in Europe are crude ideological forgeries — and, in the first place, the idea of the continuity of the ethnic and racial belonging of contemporary men and the ethnoses and narods of antiquity.
Another well-known sociologist, Benedict Anderson, developing this kind of approach, calls the “nation” an “imagined community,” meaning by “imagination” “illusion,” “deception,” and a coarse and conscious forgery.65
Eric Hobsbawm (a Marxist) goes even further and asserts that “antiquity” and “tradition” were thought up by the bourgeoisie for the justification of their dominance, and for this reason, ethnoses, nations, and religions are reconstructions of the Modern Era, necessary for the resolution of concrete tasks by the capitalist class.66
The Limits of Constructivism’s Relevance
Among the various constructivist and near-constructivist approaches, two in particular should be distinguished. Both of them deny the primordialist approach, but in that approach itself we saw significant differences and even contradictions (for instance, between cultural and sociobiological Primordialism). Very approximately, the differences between Primordialism and Constructivism can be formulated as follows: if Primordialism asserts that ethnoses are organic and natural phenomena that have always existed and remain to this day, constructivism retorts that ethnoses and everything resembling them (narods, nations, etc.) are products of political manipulation on the part of governing elites, existing only in certain historical circumstances, and are ideological fictions. In such definitions, indeed, we are dealing with two mutually exclusive approaches, between which we must choose a
ccording to the principle either/or.
But everything changes as soon as we place both of these general approaches into our ethnosociological model “ethnos–narod–nation” and reject biological forms of Primordialism as scientifically irrelevant. Then we get the following picture.
The ethnos in its purest state (the simplest form of society, the koineme, the archaic community), is an organic and primordial phenomenon, in which social stratification, political and economic elites, and the division of labor are absent. Hence, a fortiori there is no authority that could construct the ethnos for the realization of its goals. Only and exclusively the primordialist approach is suitable for the study of the ethnos.
But if we take the nation as the “second derivative” from the ethnos, then, on the contrary, Primordialism in its purest state is not applicable to it, and Constructivism or Modernism will be the most effective means for its study. That which constructivists mean by the “imagined,” “invented” and “manipulative” quality of the nation is called in Ethnosociology the derivative. The nation is an artificial construct that emerged in the Modern Era in the bourgeois states of Europe. In no way can the nation be identified directly with the ethnos since these are two entirely different social forms: the ethnos is a “community” (Gemeinschaft), and the nation, a “society” in the sense of Gesellschaft. Constructivists are entirely right concerning the nation. And those primordialists who do not distinguish between ethnos and nation, on the contrary, are deeply mistaken. But when constructivists transfer their view of the nation as an “imagined community” to the organic community of the ethnos and assert that this community is artificial, they also prove to be wrong, executing the unauthorized transfer of a modern paradigm onto an archaic society.
The narod (laos) is found between two poles, the ethnos and the nation, and for this reason both organic (ethnic) and artificial (constructed) elements can be found in it. In the narod there is already social stratification, political and economic elites, and problems of the projective organization of society. But the construction of the narod differs qualitatively from the construction of the nation, which must also be accounted for. Hence, for the ethnosociological analysis of the narod it is necessary to use a combination of the primordialist and constructivist approaches.
By such a synthesis, the apparent contradictions between (cultural) Primordialism and correct Constructivism are resolved, and instead of these two approaches being construed as strict alternatives, we can use them simultaneously or by turns, depending on the precisely defined stage of the examined society.
The Ethnosymbolism of Anthony Smith
The contemporary English sociologist Anthony Smith, who, in order to overcome methodological contradictions, proposed the introduction of another approach, which he called “Ethnosymbolism,” and which holds a similar position.67
Smith argued with extreme constructivists, who assert that there are no common traits between the nation and the ethnos, and that they are radically distinct realities. On the whole, while agreeing that the nation is an artificial construction, Smith nevertheless affirms that it is not completely broken off from the ethnos and that the ethnos is present in the nation in symbolic form. In this Smith follows the course of the symbolic anthropologist Geertz. In the nation, we are dealing with the symbolic presence of the ethnos, with a “narrative” about the ethnos, and, hence, the ethnic factor and ethnic identity participate, in a certain way, in the phenomenon of the nation, which, thereby, cannot be reduced entirely to the manipulations of the ruling class.
Smith’s Ethnosymbolism is important and operationally useful for the ethnosociological discipline from two perspectives.
First, he establishes a connection between the ethnos and the nation (as the second derivative of the ethnos), which is completely denied by the constructivist approach. In this case, Smith’s notion of the “symbolic” corresponds in meaning to the notion “derivative,” which we use. The idea of the “symbolic presence of the ethnos in the nation” is identical to our thesis of the “nation as the second derivative of the ethnos.”
Second, just as the ethnos is present within national society non-legally, non-normatively, and on the level of the social unconscious, in this case “symbolism” might be understood psychoanalytically, as remembrance of the excluded and censored element of the collective unconscious. In a nation-state of the Modern Era, the ethnos is nominally abolished, but it remains in the form of a collective unconscious and manifests itself in a “symbolic” form: for instance, in nationalism, xenophobia, and chauvinism (which possess numerous irrational characteristics). Smith’s Ethnosymbolism successfully supplements Cultural Primordialism and appropriately used Constructivism; hence, it should be used by ethnosociologists as further support.
III. Instrumentalism
The Emergence of Instrumentalism
It remains for us to consider the instrumentalist approach. It is rather similar to Constructivism, only differing from it in that it is not tethered to the Modern Era (as constructivists-modernists like Gellner and Anderson are) and does not consider the phenomena of the nation and nationalism a priority.
Instrumentalism in the study of ethnic processes took shape in the 1960s and 70s in the United States over the course of the sociological analysis of the integration of the colored population of that country, interracial marriages, and the position of the White population.68 Studies revealed the decisive role of political elites in this process. Earlier these elites were interested in supporting the segregationist model of the administration of society, but gradually, owing to the necessity of broadening the middle class and the consumer potential of the population, they came to the technique of racial integration.
To this were added studies of the behavior of minorities in poly-ethnic societies (the USA, contemporary Europe, etc.), which used their ethnic belonging exclusively with the aim of receiving with its help supplementary material and social goods.69 A picture formed, of the ethnos being nothing more than an instrument for the attainment of social aims.70 Defining the instrumental approach, the sociologists Steven Cornell and Douglas Hartmann write: “Ethnicity and race are here understood as instrumental entities, organized as a means for the attainment of concrete aims.”71
These situationally correct conclusions of the instrumentalists were applied to all ethnic processes in principle, without taking into account the historical context or specific social character of the society.
Instrumentalists focused specifically on the study of ethnic processes, but as organized artificially and with the goal of strengthening or reorganizing social stratification in the interests of a concrete political group.
Ethnicity as a Strategy
In his book Ethnic Studies: Issues and Approaches, the sociologist Philip Yang, himself inclined toward a moderate form of Instrumentalism, gives a similar definition of the instrumentalist school in the USA.72
The Americans Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan were the first sociologists to advance the concept of the instrumentalist approach. In their book Ethnicity: Theory and Experience,73 they formulated the foundations of such an approach. According to Glazer and Moynihan, ethnicity is not simply a set of sentiments and active feelings, but a form of realization of social strategies, together with nations and classes. From their perspective, the ethnos is a group of common interests, i.e., an artificial organization. Glazer later developed this theme in his book Ethnic Dilemmas,74 where he radicalized his approach even more.
Another sociologist, Orlando Patterson, a native of Jamaica, analyzing the structure of the imperialistic dominance of the “White” nations over the “colored” ones, asserts that “the power, structure, effectiveness, and grounds of the ethnic factor depend entirely on the individual and group interests that use it and which it serves.”75
Instrumentalists (such as American sociologist Michael Hetcher, for instance) apply rational choice theory to the study of ethnic identity, according to which the behavior of an individual is
dictated by his striving to attain certain goals by the shortest and simplest path, which also predetermines the structure of his identification: he identifies with those collective forms with which it is advantageous to do so.76 Thus, ethnicity becomes no more than a means for the attainment of a concrete goal. If his ethnicity helps him to attain that goal, it is accented; if it hinders him, it is ignored.
Instrumental Perennialism
Anthony Smith places the “instrumental perennialists” in a separate category, in order to emphasize their conviction in the permanence of ethnic phenomena.
The sociologist Donald Noel, a member of the instrumentalist school, reduces the factor of ethnic identity to the cases in which one group of people aims to impose its power on another group and has, for this purpose, resorted to the instrumental construction of a specific community (ethnic or religious).77 The ethnos and ethnic identity are invented by the elite for the consolidation of social stratification. Noel calls such stratification “ethnic” and considers it a particular case of social stratification. Ethnic stratification is most often used when two ethnoses with a sufficiently expressed ethnic identity collide and intermingle with one another.
The English sociologist and supporter of instrumentalism David Mason asserts that “ethnicity is situational. Different people in different situations declare a different ethnic belonging”.78
Situational Perennialism
“Situational Perennialism,” which states that the ethnos and ethnic societies are something whole which emerge in specific historical situations and serve the realization of concrete political or group interests, is another version of instrumentalism. At the same time, supporters of this approach do not distinguish between the ethnos, narod, and nation.
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