Ethnicity and the geometry of power: One moment in the imagination of the polity
Date
1993-03-29
Authors
Thornton, Robert
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Abstract
Ethnicity, for those who subscribe to the concept, is understood to be one 'part' of a
polity that contains, at least, other 'ethnicities' and probably many other kinds of
groupings and 'parts'. This paper argues that in order to understand ethnicity, we
must seek to understand why it is that people believe that 'society' is composed of
'parts' and to understand how those parts are visualized and 'imagined'. [To say that
they are imagined does not means that they are thought of as merely 'imaginary', but
rather that they depend on images and beliefs]. In short, it is argued that 'ethnicities' are
conceptualised quite literally as maps, puzzles, blocks or masses, as groups or sets, as
levels or power 'bases'. Ethnicity can be also understood, at a higher level of
generalization as one moment, or part, of a complex visualization of other sorts of
social power such as 'state', 'family' 'economic', spiritual/ancestral', 'witchcraft/sorcery'
and so on. Ethnicity, seen in this way then, appears not as some special 'social
formation', but rather as a special case of the visualization (or objectification,
reification) and metaphorization of social relations. It is these visualizations that make
political rhetoric and recruitment possible. They are objectified in 'ethnic' dress, dance,
the built environment, bodily dispositions, ritual forms, and other cultural displays
Ethnicity, then, is an aesthetic phenomenon, and must be understood at least partly in
these terms. This approach permits us to reason about why special kinds of social
power are associated with certain 'ethnicities' and thus to understand the cultural basis
for an imagined, socially transmitted and sanctioned geometry of social power.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 29 March 1993
Keywords
Ethnicity. Congresses, Power (Social sciences). Congresses