• Assignment 1
• Why look at structures?
• Exercise
• Ethnic boundaries

• Due October 7 at 11:59 pm
• 3-5 pages, double spaced, Times New Roman
• Required readings; use of key terms
• Don’t put your name on it (blind grading)
• Citations: be consistent, cite required readings
• References: not required to do additional research, but it is permitted

• Thesis
• Evidence to support Thesis
• Evidence to refute counter-arguments
• Use of sources

Ethnicity is not essential, it is an active process of ‘identification’

• rational/strategic
• psychological

\(1)\) Instrumental/Psychological perspectives assume:

• repertoire of descent attributes
• nominal ethnic identities
• operative ethnic identities

Where do these come from?

\(2)\) Identification approach implies individual choice of ethnicity: how easy is ethnic change?

• What stops you from just successfully identifying as a different ethnicity?

Viewing ethnicity as structure may solve these problems, but we need a definition that is not…

• essentialist (structures do not come from ‘nature’)
• immutable (structures do not change)
• deterministic (structures override human agency)

Sewell (1992):

social structures…

• shape and direct human activity by enabling and constraining certain forms of action
  • but also created/changed by human activity
• dual:
  • necessarily made up of two (possibly) mutually-reinforcing components: schemas and resources
  • schemas shape resources
  • resources shape schemas

schemas: categories and concepts, as well as recognized “rules”, “recipes”, or behavioral scripts for how to use those categories/concepts.

• “virtual”, in that they aren’t limited to one point in space and time
• they are “ways of thinking”, and they are powerful insofar as they are shared with/intelligible to others
• may be used by anyone, transposed into new contexts, new uses
• examples:
  • gender categories vs memes
  • jati in India vs Canada; honorifics/familiarity in language

resources: are both human capabilities of thought/action, as well as natural and human-produced materials that can be used to maintain or enhance power

• “actual” in the sense that they can be used to enhance power in a particular place and time
• only enhance power through using capacities/materials
• examples:
  • nonhuman: gold, livestock, property
  • human: physical skills, social media metadata, certification

schemas shape resources:

• property is resource, depends on schemas
• ethnic stereotypes, behavior scripts have economic, political, bodily consequences…

resources shape schemas:

• income/educational/housing inequality can reinforce stereotypes
• control over census, jobs, school curricula, etc. can reinforce use of ethnic categories, stereotypes

Solves problem \((1)\): helps to understand where these come from…

• repertoire of descent attributes
• nominal ethnic identities
• operative ethnic identities

Solves problem \((2)\): how can ethnicity be “socially constructed”, yet hard to change?

social structures are intersubjective

• \(S_2O\): two subjects (people), one object (material world)
• mutual intelligibility and shared understanding of material world
• people understand the categories, rules for membership, and how they are used, even if they DO NOT CONSENT/AGREE WITH these practices.

Ethnicity may be difficult to change because categories/rules for membership… - are still enforced by many other people… (schema) - are embedded in material world (segregation, media, etc.)

This definition of structure is not:

• essentialist (multiple, conflicting structures… nation vs. ethnicity)
• immutable (because resources \(\to\) schemas and schemas \(\to\) resources, structures can change)
• deterministic (schemas applied in new ways, e.g. human rights; resources have unpredictable consequences, e.g. slave revolts)

Identification is only one part of how ethnicity. Helpful to think of ethnic boundaries as a structure.

To explain why some descent-based categories are used, some ethnic categories operative, need to know

• how are ethnic categories/schemas propagated/reinforced culturally?
• how are they invested with power/resources?

ethnic boundaries (Wimmer)

1. ethnic categories for people and category rules

• “labels” and “definitions” (Chandra)

2. real-world practices that use those categories

• what we “do” with those labels
  • in thought and speech;
  • in action/in shaping our material world

As you watch the following, think about the following:

• what are the “ethnic identity categories”?
• in what ways are those ethnic categories used in thought/speech/action? (be as specific as possible)

In small groups: share the ways ethnic categories are used

• for each way ethnic categories are used in the story, think of a real world example that is similar

• what are the “ethnic identity categories”?
• in what ways are those ethnic categories used in thought/speech/action? (be as specific as possible)

In small groups: share the ways ethnic categories are used

• for each way ethnic categories are used in the story, think of a real world example that is similar

institutional use: the use of ethnic/racial categories by formal institutions to label people (not necessarily in a discriminatory manner)

• examples: census forms, school forms, voting rules, government social service records

institutional separation: the presence of distinct formal institutions for people labelled as members of different ethnic/racial categories (not necessarily unequal)

• examples: churches/houses of worship, stores, schools, private associations, voting constituencies, governments, political parties, newspapers

social closure: the use of ethnic/racial categories to separate or organize personal/informal interactions between people (not necessarily unequal)

• examples of separation: neighborhoods, use of space (e.g. pools), marriage, reproduction (endogamy), friendship, the types of interaction (e.g. equal/unequal status)

power disparity: the use of ethnic/racial categories to discriminate in access to goods, services, rights, recognition (e.g. in institutional use, institutional separation, social closure) that enhances/restricts the life choices

• legal examples: property rights, marriage/inheritance, education, government jobs, government services, elected representation, criminal law, affirmative action

• market: housing discrimination, job discrimination, restricting spaces (e.g. private clubs, gated communities)

• interpersonal: employer/employee relations; customer/client relations; formal/informal modes of address; non-reciprocity in forms of interaction; status hierarchy

cultural differentiation: the use of ethnic/racial categories to differentiate cultural practices (food, clothing, traditions), language, and religious belief.

Note: Sometimes cultural difference is used to define category membership. Sometimes cultural difference is a way to use categories:

examples: choice of alphabet/spellings; changing vocabulary (Hindustani vs Urdu vs Hindi)

marking: using category labels for some groups as distinct from a “reference” or “unmarked” category that is the unspoken default (e.g. in Canada, “white” is often an unspoken default)

groupness: using category labels to proclaim or invoke the existence and unity of a group (parades, mass performances, history, education, assigning blame)

explain behavior: using ethnic/racial category labels to explain behavior or outcomes (basically, stereotyping)

• you are group X, you must believe/do Y
• you did Y BECAUSE you are group X
• you are in status Y because you are in group X

exemption: use of ethnic/racial categories to claim or identify exemption (stereotypes by “exception proves the rule”):

• you are group X, but you are “all right” (implicitly group X is not “all right”)
• I am an X, so I can criticize other people within X (implicitly outsiders cannot legitimately criticize)

behavioral scripts: use of racial/ethnic categories to differentiate the “proper” or “default” way of interacting with a person

• e.g., policing, code switching, academic research (race vs racial practices)