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GLOSSARY FOR TERMS USED IN IPSR SYMPOSIUM

By Fred W. Riggs



Code: -F Friedman; -H Hall; -R Riggs; -T Tehranian

See linked pages: [] preface || Friedman || Tehranian || Riggs || Hall || Bigo || Teune []

NOTE: A useful distinction can be made between using and mentioning terms. Normally we use words to express our ideas but sometimes we want to say something about the words themselves, like their forms, status or meanings. For example, we use 'ethnicity' when we compare its modern and ancient manifestations, but we mention it whenever we talk about what the word means. The glossary that follows contains terms that were "mentioned" in the four papers of this symposium. The distinction is not always clear, however, and sometimes a sentence will both use a word and also mention it, usually to say something about its meaning -- for an example, see ALTERITY . Key words used in the cited contexts are (or will be) linked to the full texts from which they are excerpted -- and links in these texts permit jumps to the relevant glossary entry. However, when a word used in one entry is mentioned in another (as its entry term), it is marked with an asterisk rather than a link because it is easy to find it in its alphabetical order, but readers who want to look them up will find that making a print-out is helpful. Readers who jump from a highlighted word in the glossary to the text from which it was excerpted should use the BACK button to return to the glossary -- no links are needed for the return jump. However, highlighted words in the papers support jumps to the entry where they are defined (mentioned). Italicized words marked with an asterisk have entries in the glossary, but links are only provided in contexts where these words are mentioned.

Contexts excerpted from the four texts to support the inclusion of terms in this glossary often mention them, but when no textual definitions can be found, texts illustrating their use are given. The editorial notes that follow the entries are intended not only to clarify some of the differences between the way key words are used by different authors from different disciplines, but also to sharpen the distinction between their use in propositions and the definitions which mention them. Normally we use words on the assumption that, in context, their intended meanings will be apparent to our audience, but when we want to make sure that we are understood, we often insert phrases or sentences that mention them to illustrate or describe the concepts we want to use. Remember that most words have several possible meanings and can be understood clearly only in context. When the context fails to make our intentions clear, we often insert an explanatory phrase or sentence. Sometimes we use a synonym pleonastically or add a modifier to sensitize readers to which of the possible meanings of a word we have in mind.

This glossary is also an index: the codes following each entry term specify the author cited, and a key word used in the context is linked to the paper where it occurs to support quick reference to the full text where the intended concept is used. The principles of alphabetization seen in a library catalog are used, rather than those found in telephone directories. In some cases, terms are inverted to bring related concepts together --e.g., imperialism, industrial rather than industrial imperialism. As explained in the Introduction, all four authors undertook to discuss contemporary ethnic problems in a long-term historical context, but they bring different disciplinary and philosophical points of view to their work, and their vocabularies reflect the intellectual/academic traditions ("tribes") in which they have been working. Sometimes this can lead to confusion and this glossary offers a tool that may help readers discover when the authors reinforce or contradict each other.



ALTERITY -F

Foundational for modernity as an identity space is precisely its alterity... This implies everything from voluntaristic life style politics to increasingly collectivist identifications as expressed in communitarianism*, ethnic and religious movements and the like.

....Ed Note: In this context, alterity is used in the first sentence but mentioned in the second which describes the concept represented by the word. Readers who may not be familiar with alterity can nevertheless understand the sentence.


ANARCHIAN - R

A blend of 'anarchy' and 'authoritarianism': it points to weak authoritarian regimes that are unable to control or serve large areas within their formal boundaries where war lords, gangs, and ethnonational movements flourish. A related concept, quasi-state, is used by Jackson (1990) to refer to de jure states that, in fact, lack the essential (de facto) properties of a modern state.

....Ed Note: anarchian is a blend, a type of neologism formed by combining parts of two words -- such as motel or guestimate. Anyone who rejects this form can, of course, easily replace it with a phrase such as "anarchic authoritarianism." Riggs uses it to facilitate frequent references to a wide-spread type of quasi-state in which weak dictatorships are unable to control the countries they try to rule.

ANASPORA -R
In order to talk clearly about these phenomena, we need to distinguish between each ethnic nation* as a whole, and its main components: i.e., the members of its diaspora and those who remain home. Unfortunately, 'diaspora' lacks an antonym, but we could easily coin a neologism, like anaspora* to refer to members of any ethnic nation who are not in diaspora -- they are the people who remain at home.

AUTONOMY, ADMINISTRATIVE AUTONOMY -R

Their concrete goals range from demands for independence or the reunification of divided nations to the acceptance of autonomy (a nation within a nation) as an acceptable goal.... Administrative autonomy within the boundaries of an existing state promises a better solution for problems of ethnic cleavage than secession and independence.

....Ed Note: Like many other words, autonomy means different things depending on its context. Modifiers, as in the phrase, administrative autonomy, can be used to reduce such ambiguity when the context fails to clarify an author's intentions, as mentioned in the introductory note.

COMMUNITARIANISM

These variations are predicated on a well developed individualization in which community, tradition, gemeinschaft, become essential aspects of the modern fantasy of the world we have lost. Real.communitarianism in this sense a phenomenon of modernity rather than a left over from the past..

....Author's Note -T: Communitarianism may be juxtaposed with libertarianism in economic, political, and social theory. Whereas in libertarian thought, the individual is the main locus of analysis, in communitarian theory, the community as a collectivity becomes the center of attention.

....Ed Note: Although Tehranian's contrast between "communitarianism" and "libertarianism" resonates with a traditional vs. modern contrast between "communalism" and "individualism," Friedman reminds us that both values are more modern than traditional. Here he uses modernity in a temporal rather than transhistorical sense, pointing to the irony that communitarianism represents a contemporary fantasy rather than a pre-modern (traditional) phenomenon.

COSMOPOLITANISM -F

[...an elite identity] combines a rather self-assured and superior cosmopolitanism with a model of hybridity, border-crossing and multiculturalism* (even if there is much inconsistency in this). The cosmopolitanism of the elite is not modernistic, it is not devoid of cultural identification, but, on the contrary, is post-modernist in its attempt to encompass the world's cultures in its own self-definition... The cosmopolitan multicultural world is a model of how things ought to be and it is part of a concerted struggle against the red-necked rural essentialist-nationalist "people".

....Ed Note: Whether or not cosmopolitanism identifies a modern, pre-modern, or post-modern point of view, it highlights a sense of multiculturalism* that is inclusive of many cultures rather than exclusive, pitting one culture against others.


DEMOCRACY -R

the acceptance, in principle, of political legitimacy based on the popular election of representatives able to maintain the accountability of public officials to representative institutions.

....Ed Note: This definition presupposes modern democracy inasmuch as ancient

democracies lacked bureaucracies, and bureaucratic empires were not democratic. Since all modern states have bureaucracies that are, in principle, capable of dominating the state, any definition of democracy that fails to include the capacity of representative institutions to maintain control over them omits a crucial element in the concept. Incomplete concept descriptions are often misleading and lead to paradoxes. For example, a definition of bachelor as a single man that fails to mention his availability for heterosexual marriage is incomplete and creates false puzzles, such as whether a priest or a homosexual could be classed as a "bachelor." A polity that holds elections but is dominated by military officers (a ruling bureaucracy) is surely not a "democracy."

DEVELOPMENTALISM -F

Modernity is a kind of identity space or field of alternative identities that is structured by certain parameters such as individualization and developmentalism which are themselves generated by the rise of a hegemonic power or zone in a system based on commercial reproduction... . Modernism which dominates in periods of hegemony is based on rationalist developmentalism where both the cultural and the natural are regarded as problems to be overcome.

....Ed Note: Here the idea that humans can shape their own destiny is linked to the notion of developmentalism which is explained by the prevalence of hegemony in a world-system ruled by commercial priorities. In this perspective, developmentalism explains modernity more than modernity explains developmentalism. If hegemony is declining in the contemporary world system, one could assume, by definition, that developmentalism would also decline. One may well ask here whether such assertions define a concept or use it on the assumption that readers will understand the meaning of "developmentalism" even if the word is not defined. Thus the boundary between using and mentioning words is often fuzzy -- it is hard to know whether an author is explaining what a word means or using it in a proposition. Use of the verb, is, is especially tricky because sometimes it links the definiendum and definiens in a definition, but more often it asserts a proposition: thus, ethnicity is rooted in cross-cultural interactions might be a proposition explaining the occurrence of ethnicity, or a definition defining what the word means.

DIASPORA - R

All three forms of modern ethnicity are linked to diaspora communities, both as causes and consequences. Virtually every ethnic nation contains not only a core of people living in the territory they think of as their homeland [an anaspora*], but also others who have migrated, sometimes as refugees but often as emigrants, seeking better opportunities elsewhere [a diaspora*].

....Ed Note: This text illustrates the fuzziness of the use/mention distinction. It defines a diaspora as a community of persons living outside their homeland*, but it also offers propositions about the reasons for diasporization*

DIASPORIZATION -F

... the diasporization process is simply the ethnification of transnational connections, so that communication, social relations and economics become organized and even institutionalized across boundaries rather than immigrant groups becoming transformed into separate minorities. Diasporization is simply the ethnification of the immigration process.

....Ed Note: A difference in focus between the use of diasporization by Friedman and Riggs is apparent here: both identify the process with emigration from a homeland and immigration to a hostland. However, F. stresses the subsequent identification of immigrants as ethnics, whereas R. talks more about links between emigrants and their homelands. Both are, of course, important. It is not always easy to see the distinction, perhaps because writers typically focus on only one of the janus-faces of diasporas -- their homeland or their hostland orientations.

.ETHNIC CLEAVAGE -R

modern ethnicity* in which the subjects of a state reject citizenship and demand independence or autonomy creates political controversies that are far more insoluble than those caused by ethnic diversity.*

....Ed Note: Although the words used in this phrase are familiar, the concept is not -- most works on "ethnicity" ignore the differences between minorities who seek acceptance as citizens of a state, and those who reject this identity and demand a separate political status based on self-determination. Among writers who do make this distinction, moreover, there seems to be no consensus on the terms to use when discussing the matter.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY -R

The term, ethnic diversity has come, increasingly, to represent a normal condition and problematic for the majority of citizens and subjects who see themselves as members (nationals?) of a modern state. Actually, "diversity" often refers to inter-cultural relationships in which conflicts are minimal or non-existent

....Ed Note: Most scholars analyzing ethnicity focus on situations involving ethnic diversity rather than ethnic cleavages*. They also tend to exclude from notice situations of diversity marked by inter-ethnic harmony -- referred to here under the neologism, neo-ethnic*


ETHNIC HIERARCHY -F

...history of empires and segmentary states: such social organizations, however multi-ethnic, were also ethnic hierarchies is, perhaps, the latter aspect of such societies that is the secret of their relative ethnic peace. Significant, from our point of view, is that multi-ethnicity is a phenomenon that emerges and disappears and not merely a type of organization.

....Ed Note: This concept is not familiar, but it provides a useful contrast with modern ethnicity* based on equalitarian norms. In addition to empires and segmentary states where ethnic hierarchy prevailed, it could also be found in "democratic" societies, notably in the United States where, during its early years, slavery was constitutionally recognized. Although slaves had grievances and sometimes fled, they could scarcely organize to claim equality or sovereignty on the basis of their "civil" or "human" rights. In the prevalent rhetoric of "white" Americans, a distinction was made between "ethnics" who could become citizens and socially constructed "races" (especially "black" and "red") whose members could not. The anachronism of the phrase, "race and ethnic," unconsciously perpetuates the idea of ethnic hierarchy in a "modern" society where every minority has, in principle, been ethnified as eligible for citizenship, making all "racial" minorities ethnic.

ETHNIC NATION -R
Virtually every ethnic nation contains not only a core of people living in the territory they think of as their homeland, but also others who have migrated, sometimes as refugees but often as emigrants, seeking better opportunities elsewhere.

ETHNIC NATIONALISM -R, ETHNONATIONALISM -H

Ethnic nationalism prevails among marginalized communities in modern states who reject citizenship and demand sovereignty. They normally have a territorial base or "homeland" which, in fact or fantasy, can anchor the state they wish to establish (Riggs).

... ethnonationalism* remains a convenient ideology for rationalizing seizure of power and property. That is, the ideal of ethnically homogeneous states can be marshaled for other political causes (Hall).

....Ed Note: No doubt, semantic distinctions can be made between "ethnic nationalism" and "ethnonationalism" but, as used by Riggs and Hall, they appear to be equivalents -- in both cases members of an ethnic community claim the right of a "nation" to establish a state for their own people -- they aspire to the status of an "ethnically homogeneous state" ("national state*) -- see entries under "state" below.

ETHNIC PLURALITY - R

Ethnic plurality applies to situations in which citizenship is not available to the subjects of a modern state who also lack the historic and territorial basis for claiming sovereignty. ...under the rule of industrial empires, a third form of modern ethnicity has evolved, one that resists granting citizenship rights to ethnic minorities, but also lacks a territorial basis for ethnic nationalism. I refer to this condition as one of ethnic pluralness, a neologism offered because both "pluralism"* and "plurality"* have other meanings that would make their use here misleading.

....Ed Note: Hall correctly points to the use of pluralism* to refer to Furnivall's notion of a "plural society" as unfortunate, but the phenomenon of migrant workers and traders settled in their imperial possessions by the industrial empires has created residual problems in most of the successor states that urgently need attention and study. Because of the ambiguity the use of pluralism for this concept generates, it is important to use some other term. Riggs use of "ethnic plurality" or "pluralness" is a proposal but one that, admittedly, has not been accepted in the literature.

*ETHNICITY -F

Ethnicity here is situational. It is about the practice of social relations with particular people in a particular place. It is not a question of "life-style"..."today I think I'll be Balinese". Nor is it a question of "blood" or any other traits that are inherited from generation to generation. The subject is not the bearer of several different essential identities because ethnicity is not located in the body, but in the social context

ETHNICITY - H

Ethnicity is a publicly recognized, shared feeling of belonging to the same group defined by kinship or biology. Race is the same thing, but typically marked by one or more phenotypical manifestations. To anticipate many comments, these markers are clearly socially constructed... I must note here, however, I have an important disagreement with the usage of Fred Riggs. For me ethnicity existed in the ancient world, albeit in substantially different forms. Here I follow the discussions of Smith and Tamir on nationalism. "ethnicity" solely to the modern version.

....Ed Note: Hall refers to Riggs' suggestion that ethnicity be used for modern, state-oriented concepts by contrast with culture to refer to communal phenomena in pre-modern times. He wrote: "To study the emergence of a new or changing social process we must be careful not to build explanations of those changes into our concepts. Let me hasten to add that I fully concur with Fred Riggs's claim that "modern", or contemporary ethnicity is very different from ancient ethnicity. But precisely because I seek to understand how the modern version emerged from the ancient version, I do not wish to restrict the term "ethnicity" solely to the modern version.

Riggs agrees with Hall, but there is a terminological point here that can be illustrated by the meanings of technology. Any "Institute of Technology" will use this word to refer only to modern technology without denying that all pre-modern societies also had technologies. For many anthropologists, a reference to "technology" always refers to pre-modern technics. If contemporary engineers were asked to say "modern technology" every time they used this concept, they might well protest that it's very inconvenient. In a broad historical context, as in this symposium, the focus is on modern ethnicity is contextualized by looking also at pre-modern ethnicity. The word by itself can be used unambiguously only when its intended context is clear.

A relevant distinction between culture and ethnicity should also be noted: only primitive communities can be thought of as having just one culture making all civilizations (and cities) for thousands of years multi-cultural by definition.

The notion of ethnicity introduces a sense of difference, of otherness, typically represented by ethnonyms, i.e. names used by members of any one culture to identify themselves and to refer to those who embrace a different culture. In any mono-cultural society, there cannot be a concept of "ethnicity" since, by definition, such a society is not multi-cultural. Cultures become "ethnic" only when juxtaposed against each other.

In the modern world, distinctions based on cultural (ancestral, linguistic, religious) differences have become politically salient, but in pre-modern societies they were typically secondary and the socio-political distinctions stressed by Friedman and Hall were far more important. Incidentally, insofar as ethnicity, by definition, implies contrasts between different communities, the term, multi-ethnic, is an oxymoron -- there cannot, by definition, be a "mono-ethnic" society. Multi-cultural societies must have ethnicity, and ethnicity can only exist in multi-cultural contexts. Both pre-modern and modern-societies, therefore, experience ethnicity, but it becomes a great political problem only where modern (state-oriented, democratic, and equalitarian) values prevail, just as modern technology evolved only in the context of the industrial revolution.

ETHNICITY, CIVIC - R

Civic ethnicity primarily involves members of marginalized communities who wish to become integrated as citizens in the country where they live, but it also pertains to citizens of a dominant community whose attitudes and relationships with members of the marginalized communities serious affect their behavior and, reciprocally, their own comfort and well-being.

....Ed Note: Riggs' use of "civic ethnicity" is just a suggestion -- it has not been accepted in the literature. In his mind, the concept includes not only marginalized minorities who, nevertheless, seek equality and citizenship in the country where they are living, but also cultural minorities who feel themselves to be fully integrated as expressed by the notion of neo-ethnicity.*

ETHNIFICATION -F

...individualist modernism in which voluntary identification and an instrumental view of the state is dominant, [contrasts with] an ethnified version in which the nation is dominant, where the nation state is converted from a contractual to a familistic-ascriptive model. The question of national solidarity and the experience of "organic" belonging are central to this phenomenon. European nations with the possible exception of Great Britain are ethnic states, in which a particular "rooted" population or peoplehood is associated with statehood. I have suggested that the degree of ethnification of such states is dependent on globally determined conditions of existence... In periods of ethnification even such groups seek collective identities, as in the recent middle class hybrid and mixed race movement in the US.

....Ed Note: As used by Friedman, ethnification refers to increasing consciousness or acceptance of a pre-established ancestral connection, rather than the formation of a new ethnic community by ethnogenesis* as when a Navaho or Sioux identifies herself as an "Indian." Of course, both processes can occur simultaneously -- see the next two entries.

ETHNIFICATION, IMMIGRANT -F

Immigrant ethnification: The optimism with respect to regional identities in Europe was identical to assimilationist/integrationist predictions with regard to immigrant minorities, especially in the United States. What seemed to be a trend toward integration was broken and reversed in the late 60's when multi-ethnicity of Black and then Red power movements were supported at both grass roots and elite levels.

ETHNOGENESIS - H

I will argue two fundamental points in this paper. First, the processes by which ethnic groups are created (ethnogenesis), transformed, and destroyed cannot be understood without attending carefully to the larger, interstate context within which these processes occur.

....Ed Note: The terms, ethnogenesis and ethnification* sound synonymous and may be difficult to distinguish from each other. However, as used by Hall, "ethnogenesis" refers to a process whereby ethnic communities come into being, while in Friedman's vocabulary, the degree of "ethnification" of a community refers to the extent to which its members view themselves as having an organic (ancestral, national, rooted) association with each other rather than more instrumentalist (voluntary, individualistic) relationships based on choice or convenience. This distinction may be tested by its application to the idea of immigrant ethnification* since, in principle, all immigrants share common origins that distinguish them from prior residents of their hostlands*. Less ethnified immigrants seek to advance their personal fortunes as individualists whereas they are more ethnified if they view themselves and are viewed by others as organically bound to their newcomer communities.

ETHNONATIONALISM - H -- see ETHNIC NATIONALISM

ETHNONYM -R

... the ethnonyms used to identify communities (do they have positive or negative connotations?) and whether or not it is acceptable to make ethnic jokes ... An ethnonym can become not just a tag to mark one's origins but, rather, a flag to celebrate one's distinctiveness.

....Ed Note: Members of a mono-cultural community lack ethnonyms -- although they may think of themselves as "the people" and everyone else as "others," the outsiders. Multi-cultural contact generates consciousness of cultural identities, both "ours" and "theirs." The ethnonyms we apply to others are exonyms and those we use to refer to ourselves are endonyms. Predictably, the former carry negative connotations and the latter favorable ones. Precisely because of their strongly negative and positive connotations, scholars avoid using ethnonyms, or pride themselves on their sensitivity by using only endonyms. Anyhow, they need to be noticed as markers -- their use establishes the existence of ethnic distinctions.

FAMILISTIC-ASCRIPTIVE -F

an ethnified version in which the nation is dominant, where the nation state is converted from a contractual to a familistic-ascriptive model. The question of national solidarity and the experience of "organic" belonging are central to this phenomenon.

....Ed Note: We are often confronted by the need to choose between familiar metaphors that are misleading, and unfamiliar technical terms for the same concept -- pleonastic phrases like "familistic-ascriptive" permit us to use both in order to escape this catch 22 dilemma. To see how this concept has been used here, look at the entries for "ethnification" and "ethnogenesis."

GHETTOES -T

.... two types of ghettoes lock the privileged and the poor safely into separate times, spaces, and identities.... the rich ghettoes of gated residential communities [are] cordoned off by private police and electronic surveillance. A third type of gated ghettoes are appearing in a new guise as "gated factories."

....Ed Note: The use of familiar words as metaphors to designate phenomena similar to yet different from their original meanings is well illustrated here. Provided the context shows which type of ghetto one has in mind, it is helpful to use modifiers to avoid ambiguity: Thus one might speak of restrictive ghettoes, privileged ghettoes, and subvisible ghettoes to designate the three forms mentioned by Tehranian. Of course, other distinctions can also be made, e.g. between walled and open ghettoes, between urban, rural and sub-urban ghettoes, etc. Such distinctions cut across the three noted above. They help us talk about how, within a modern state, despite the ideals of equality and mobility, sub-populations are privileged and marginalized by more or less well demarcated territorial boundaries.

GLOBAL APARTHEID -T

a global apartheid does not provide a stable system. Requiring a free flow of goods, services, capital, labor, information, porous borders, and ethnic divisions across boundaries, the transnational world economy is vulnerable to sabotage, terrorism, recession, and protectionism. In creating a global apartheid, the new post-industrial, informatic imperialism has thus sown the seeds of its own destruction.

....Ed Note: Here apartheid is also used metaphorically. Like ghettoes, the word has a well-established sense, but here a new meaning is intended, moving from its older intra-state context to a new global system framework. The use of a modifier can disambiguate the metaphor.

GLOBALIZATION -F

Globalization is... the phase of decentralization... in which a hegemony is replaced by a period of increased competition, political decentralization and a shift of accumulation to a new region of the world system.... For largely technological reasons, not only transportation rates and costs, but the speed of financial transactions and the ability of capital to move quickly from one location to another, one might argue that the hegemonic periodicities of the system have become so short as to preclude the establishment of new hegemons... Globalization in institutional terms entails the formation of international "communities", however loosely knit, that share common interests. There is an interesting and still, I think, to be researched, connection between the larger transformation of the global system and the emergence of new cosmopolitan elites

....Ed Note: Friedman's use of globalize involves a qualitative politico-economic change in world-systems from a more centralized hegemonic pattern to one in which power and wealth are widely dispersed. The word is now popular and, in many contexts, it refers to a different though related concept, i.e. the extension of free trade zones accompanied by an increase in the power of multi-national corporations. Here, however, the word has a more specific meaning, and it should be distinguished from two other related notions referred to in the last sentence above: the global expansion of the contemporary world system and the growth of cosmopolitanism. The former is a geographical concept discussed below under world-system*, and the latter a social-psychological notion considered under cosmopolitanism*. As Tehranian points out, cosmopolitanism may not only involve elites but also the poor -- see the demographic entry: nomadism*

HEGEMONY -F

The world of hegemonic growth is one in which hegemonic classes tend to form as the elites of culturally homogenizing states and where the multicultural is spatially differentiated and hierarchical. The world of decline is a complex world, one that combines balkanization and globalization* of cultural and social identities, in which the multicultural* invades the center and the global and central state hierarchy disintegrates at the same time as new cosmopolitan* elites identify with the larger world instead of with the hegemon itself.

....Ed Note: Friedman does not explicitly mention hegemony, but he uses the word here in the context of world-systems theory in a way that links two general senses of the word: first, the dominant role of one state in a system of states; and second, the general idea of leadership by a group, an elite. Friedman links the rise of hegemony with the forces of homogenization* and hierarchic ethnicity* and its fall with the growth of heterogeneity* and cosmopolitanism*. We apparently lack a term for the antonym of hegemonization yet its decline is apparently a likely and important process -- perhaps something like de-hegemonization would be useful.

HETEROGENEITY -F

As communities that practice homogeneity expand into empires they also move toward a hierarchical heterogeneity. But as the latter [??] begins to decline, the heterogeneity begins to assert itself as a political force. This takes us to the central theme of this discussion, the relation between cycles of expansion and contraction in global hegemonies and the forms of transnational or trans-state relations.

....Ed Note: Broadly speaking, heterogeneity refers to the property of any system having quite dissimilar parts, by contrast with homogeneity*. Here Friedman uses these terms more specifically to point to the processes whereby homogeneous communities that expand their power cause heterogeneity among dominated peoples who, eventually, resist and undermine the hegemonic system. It seems difficult to detach the meanings of these words from the theoretical propositions in which they are used.

HOMELAND/HOSTLAND -R

Looking back to their homelands, however, they may also join externally driven movements to politicize and reinforce ethnic revolts in the countries from which they fled. Increasingly, members of ethnic diasporas are ambivalently torn between acceptance of citizenship in countries to which they have migrated and activism in the ethno-political movements of their original homelands.

....Ed Note: Complex migration patterns make the homeland/hostland dichotomy too simplistic for many situations, yet they provide an anchor for distinguishing between the places which migrants leave and the places to which they go -- refinements can then be stipulated for more complex migration patterns.. Moreover, since most settlers and their descendants eventually accept their hostland as a homeland, the categories merge with the passage of time. It is also useful to recognize intermediate zones of passage -- they may be called limbo lands -- through which migrants pass while trying to move from a homeland to a hostland. Both of these words have other meanings so it is important to remember their special significance in discussions of ethnicity.

HOMOGENEITY -F

The world of hegemonic growth is one in which hegemonic classes tend to form as the elites of culturally homogenizing states and where the multicultural is spatially differentiated and hierarchical... It is in city states and in nation states that one finds a strong tendency to both individualization and homogenization. In such states, there is a tendency of the state itself to be transformed from a ruling class to a governmental body

....Ed Note: The use of contraries like homogeneity and heterogeneity risks misunderstanding when they are used as contradictories. In most real life situations, normal conditions fall between the extremes, as they do between "hot" and "cold", whereas only contradictories (like "male/female") presuppose the lack of intermediate cases.

IMMIGRANT ETHNIFICATION -- see ETHNIFICATION, IMMIGRANT

IMPERIALISM -T

Agrarian imperialism was marked by the rise and fall of successive multinational empires that thrived on agrarian surplus economies, urban political centers, and capital accumulation through international trade in luxury goods. Industrial imperialism arose on the basis of industrial economies, nation-states, and large-scale immigration from rural to urban areas and from Europe to the rest of the world... Informatic imperialism is characterized by global, post-Fordist, flexible accumulation, information economy, and transnational regulatory regimes.

....Ed Note: In everyday usage, imperialism refers mainly, though not always, to industrial imperialism. Agrarian empires of the past, however, are well-known although the boundaries between them and their industrial successors are often not clearly marked nor represented in our vocabulary. By contrast, the characteristics of informatic imperialism, as Tehranian speaks of it, remain fuzzy and futuristic in character. However, they should be compared with those of hegemonic* heterogeneity* and cosmopolitanism.* See also the entry for post-modern*.

INDIGENIZATION -F

Indigenization: Where there are indigenous populations within state territories, these begin to reinstate their traditions and to claim their indigenous rights.

....Ed Note: The mobilization of indigenous peoples to claim rights of self-determination may be viewed as a natural sequel to the movements for independence from industrial imperialism that won freedom for most of the third world states during the past half-century. Similar movements are now developing not only among the victims of European settlement in the "New World," but also among many marginalized communities elsewhere, including those whose claim to be "indigenous" in the sense of autochthonous or original inhabitants can well be disputed. In Friedman's usage, they may or may not be included. If not, we need a more inclusive term that covers all enclaves where marginalized ethnic communities are mobilizing to make ethnonational claims -- see ethnic cleavage* and ethnification*.

INDIVIDUALIZATION -F

In more general and ideal-typical terms there are certain general and common characteristics of commercial civilizations. These are a function, also variable, of the degree of individualization, the degree to which the internal capitalization of society dis-integrates local kin, community and local-regional sodalities... Individualism is replaced increasingly by what is referred to as tribalism*, not only in its ethnic form, but as a form of social organization in which a fragmented public sphere becomes increasing divided into clientelistic hierarchies.

....Ed Note: In ordinary usage, to individualize means to adapt a product or service to the special needs of some person, or to recognize someone as a person rather than as part of a mass. In the usage given the term here by Friedman, it characterizes a loosening of social solidarities in favor of individual autonomy. This inverts the usual outside-to-ego relationship by assigning an ego-to-outside orientation. The concept requires an antonym, the reverse process of individualization -- could it be called tribalize*?

INDUSTRIALIZATION - R

industrialization: the appreciation and use of goods that have been mass-produced by means of inanimate power sources (notably coal, oil, and electricity),

....Ed Note: Two rather different processes of industrialization are discussed in the Riggs paper The formative stage, often called the Industrial Revolution, was made possible by the political empowerment of bourgeois capitalists and provided the basis for the rise of industrial imperialism, linked to democratization and nationalism,. It was also associated with the hegemonic structures and processes of homogenization Friedman calls attention to. It may also be the same concept Tehranian refers to as production capitalism*.

By contrast, contemporary modernization spreads the appetite for industrial products and paves the way for a kind of parasitic industrialism well expressed in the rise of subvisible industrial estates in many poor countries where low wages, tax avoidance, money laundering and environmental destruction enable multi-national corporations to profit at the expense of firms bound to respect the laws and safeguards familiar in industrial democracies. We lack a good term for this reactive form of industrialization that has become oppressively pervasive and parasitic as part of an increasingly non-hegemonic and heterogeneous world system -- it should be compared with pancapitalism* Desperately hopeful ethnic communities are enabled and motivated in this environment to mobilize and press their claims for self-determination.

INFORMATIC IMPERIALISM -- see imperialism, informatic-T

MIGRATION -T

Despite increasing barriers to immigration, massive population movements are taking place all over the world in two predominant forms. At the top of the social structure, as Jonathan Friedman also notes in this issue, a growing population of global nomads ... are roaming the globe as managers, producers, guardians, and celebrants of the global economy. At the bottom of the social structure, economic and political strife has forced an increasing number of refugees away from their homelands into the vortex of transborder migration. If we add the great exodus of rural population to urban centers in the less developed countries (LDCs), migration is a major source of the postwar economic growth, urban decay, and political upheavals.

MIGRATION, REVERSE -T

...reverse migration from the colonies to the mother countries. Millions of expatriates and their native allies had to leave their homes voluntarily or by force...

....Ed Note: As these entries illustrate, there are many forms of migration and our worldwide system,* modern technology and the decline of hegemony * (de-hegemonization?) suggest explanations. The direction of flow, the duration of residence in hostlands, the socio-political status of migrants, their motives for moving, are all variables that need consideration but our vocabulary for identifying them is quite inadequate.

MODERN -H

I follow the usage of Fred Riggs and Anthony D. Smith... using "contemporary" or "recent" rather than "modern," and using modernity for the constellation of recent, more-or-less democratic, industrialized, national states. Still, I must point out that in Wallerstein the "modern" in the "modern world-system" refers to approximately the last 500 years--most of which many scholars would not label "modern," or "recent," or "contemporary."

MODERN -F

My use of the terms modernity, modernism, post-modernity and post-modernism overlap with some of Fred Riggs' usages in this issue, but to avoid confusion I shall try to be more precise. All of these terms are, in my usage, structural rather than historical. That is, they are meant to be useful in transhistorical* analysis. This assumes that modernity emerges in the right kind of social conditions that have been replicated several times and in several places in world history. Modernity is a kind of identity space or field of alternative identities that is structured by certain parameters such as individualization* and developmentalism* which are themselves generated by the rise of a hegemonic power or zone in a system based on commercial reproduction....

MODERN -R

No doubt the original meaning of "modern" was present day or contemporary, by contrast with past times. Nevertheless, some contemporary states are not seen as modern. This is because we think of modern states as polities characterized by industrialization and democratization combined with a sense of national identity. By contrast, all modern states are contemporary in the sense that they have evolved only within the last few centuries

....Ed Note: Hall and Riggs avoid using modern in its everyday sense of "contemporary" or "recent" but they both limit their use of this word to phenomena that have evolved during recent centuries. By contrast, Friedman uses "modern" to refer to qualities of life that emerged in ancient as well as recent times, though he admits that they are more pervasive in the world today than ever before. Friedman also conflates the basic meanings of "modern" found in several derivative terms, notably modernity* and modernism*, but Riggs stresses the distinctions between them: see their entries below. Nevertheless, "modern" can be viewed as a generic term that supports its various derivatives, and covers all their meanings.

When the suffix, post-, is applied to these words, however, Riggs claims that it normally implies rejection or negation of modern views and practices, although exponents apparently use these terms temporally, to speak about what will or has already replaced the modern. All four of the papers in this symposium address problems concerning the shape of the future world system, but they do not invoke "post-modernism" as a framework for this undertaking -- see pre-modern* and post-modern*

MODERN ETHNICITY -H

...a major difference between the modern world and the ancient world is volume and velocity of ethnic processes and the pervasiveness of states... Phrased alternatively, the very nature of ethnicity has changed in the contemporary world. This is precisely why there is so much contention about what it is and means, and why it is subject to so much postmodern deconstruction and reconstruction. This difference is the basis of Fred Riggs's argument that ethnicity is a (para-) modern* social phenomenon.

MODERN ETHNICITY - R

Following the rise of modernity, ethnicity became linked to the modern state in ways that make it a new phenomenon, taking the varied and overlapping forms of ethnic nationalism, civic ethnicity and ethnic plurality... The core feature of modern ethnicity involves citizenship, i.e. the state (existing or demanded) with which one can identify as a national. Modern ethnicity differs from traditional forms of polyethnicity because of the obligations and privileges modern statehood has created. The substitution of popular for royal sovereignty made the link between nation and state a crucial factor in everyday life: it was never fully acceptable to legitimize democracy by claiming that any set of humans who happened to live within an arbitrary array of boundaries had the right to govern themselves by majority rule and representative institutions.

....Ed Note: The main difference between the meanings of modern ethnicity found in Hall and Riggs is quantitative vs qualitative. Halls sees it as an intensification of forms of ethnicity found in pre-modern societies, more a matter of degree than of kind. By contrast, Riggs argues that the evolution of modern states in which national identity and citizenship play a decisive role in the life of most people makes modern ethnicity qualitatively different from pre-modern ethnicity* -- i.e., it's more like the transformation of water into steam than of cold water into hot water.

MODERN STATE - R

The notion of a modern state may be defined as a polity characterized by industrialization and democratization combined with a sense of national identity. In this usage, modernity refers to a condition rather than a time -- thus some contemporary states are not modern but all modern states are "contemporary" -- at least, post-Westphalian.

MODERN WORLD SYSTEM -F

Modernism reigns supreme in the hegemonic realms of the modern world system, but when hegemony declines, it is a difficult project to maintain. The concomitant of declining modernist identity is an increase in narcissistic tendencies... where collective identities become a solution to the threat of ego disintegration.

....Ed Note: Friedman's use of modern in this phrase is consistent with his transhistorical understanding of modernity: he views world-systems as variable, subject to fluctuations in their levels of hegemony* and de-hegemonization, or of homogeneity* and individualism which make them more or less modern. This means that other properties of a world-system such as its global extent or temporal status -- its space/time situation -- .are not implied.


MODERNITY -F

My use of the terms modernity, modernism, post-modernity and postmodernism overlap with some of Fred Riggs' usages...[but] in my usage [they are] structural rather than historical. That is, they are meant to be useful in transhistorical analysis. This assumes that modernity emerges in the right kind of social conditions that have been replicated several times and in several places in world history... [It] is structured by certain parameters such as individualization and developmentalism which are themselves generated by the rise of a hegemonic power or zone in a system based on commercial reproduction.

....Ed Note: Both Hall and Riggs use modernity to refer to a set of linked socio-economic-political and life-style changes widely distributed in today's world.: They include industrialization, democratization, and nationalism. Riggs claims that they became effectively interactive, reinforcing each other, only in recent centuries, but he also agrees that their main components have ancient manifestations, as stressed by Friedman, who also makes no distinction between "modern" and "modernity."

MODERNISM -F

Modernism is an identity that, paradoxically, denies all fixed and rooted identities in the sense of culturally defined and essentialist, i.e. ethnic. It may be national but in a political-territorial sense rather than an ethnic one .Modernism (which is not identical with "modern") is based on the notion of supersession, of growth and development as a general process for individuals and societies... Modernism which dominates in periods of hegemony is based on rationalist developmentalism where both the cultural and the natural are regarded as problems to be overcome.

In periods of decline there is increasing polarization in which neo-traditional investment in cultural roots and religious identity may tend to dominate tendencies toward a more naturalistic primitivism (as in youth cultures) and a more cynical postmodernism. This presentation stresses that traditionalism, primitivism, postmodernism as well as modernism are part and parcel of the culture of modernity rather than external to it. So when I use the term post-modernity I am referring to the decline or transformation of the entire space, i.e. the establishment of new "non-modern"conditions of identification.... The decline of modernism is closely related to the impossibility of maintaining a future orientation based on liberation from the past... In this decline, there is a turn to roots, to ethnicity and other collective identities, whether ethnic or religious, that replace the vacuum left by a receding modernist identity.

MODERNISM -R

Far-reaching changes in ideology, values and practices that have made modernization possible --i.e. modernism -- may also be viewed as interdependent consequences and causes of modernity.... Riggs uses modernism for attitudes and values associated with these transformations, whether as a "cause" or "consequence" -- typically as both.

....Ed Note: Both Friedman and Riggs distinguish modernism from modernity though in a different way. For Friedman, in a transhistorical sense, modernism is linked with modernity whenever it has arisen in past world-systems. By contrast, since Riggs associates modernity with its contemporary evolution during recent centuries, he refers to "modernism" as the set of values or orientations associated with contemporary modernity. However, Friedman uses neo-traditionalism in a way that tells us he sees traditionalism* as something that is "pre-modern," i.e. not contemporary. These usages betray a flawed conceptual inconsistency. If "modern" is transhistorical, than so must "traditional" be transhistorical. Alternatively, both can express a contemporary time-frame. If they are to have a transhistorical content, we should view both modernism and traditionalism as orientations equally applicable to contemporary and ancient world-systems. But if they link these outlooks to a historical frame, then we need something like "neo-modern" to match "neo-traditional." A similar problem is discussed in the entry for ethnicity* where an instructive analogy with the meanings of technology can be found. I see this as a serious dilemma.

A solution might be found if we were willing to accept neologisms. For example, if we could adopt Sartori's term, novitism, as a synonym for the generic sense of "modernism" used by Friedman, then we could keep traditionalism as its obvious antonym. We could then also retain neo-traditionalism and modernism as terms for the contemporary forms of traditionalism and novitism. Alternatively, if we could accept both traditionalism and modernism as transhistorical antonyms, then we would need a new term to designate the contemporary forms of modernism. I can think of nothing better than neo-modernism but I doubt this suggestion will fly. To schematize, look at this table:

TRANSHISTORIC CONCEPT CONTEMPORARY FORM
FIRST OPTION 1a: traditionalism/modernism 1b: neo-traditionalism/neo-modernism
SECOND OPTION 2a: traditionalism/novitism 2b: neo-traditionalism/modernism

Perhaps better options can be found. However, so long as we put modernism in both the "1a" and "2b" cells, we will continue to confuse ourselves. See traditionalism* for comments on the antonymic terms.

MULTICULTURAL -T

This multicultural world is growing to be even more so because the same information technologies empower the voiceless to come to historical consciousness while asserting their cultural identities. Increasing ethnification is a direct consequence of this process.

....Ed Note: Tehranian points to the paradox that the information revolution which enhances cosmopolitanism* simultaneously enables minorities in contact to become increasingly aware of their distinct identities. His use of ethnification* in this context, however, suggests the different concept of ethnogenesis*, or perhaps both are involved..

MULTIETHNIFICATION -F

Cycles of assimilation and multiethnification occur in both cases, but the consequences have been somewhat different. The immigrant societies have been much weaker in their cultural assimilation than the ethnically based nation states. National identity in the US is very much about the State itself, the flag, international success, democracy and opportunity, while in Continental Europe it is more often a question of nature, community and national roots/history.

....Ed Note: Several overlapping and easily confused terms need to be disambiguated. First look at the entry for ethnification* to see it as contrapuntal with multi-ethnification. However, this term is also used in the context of ethnicity* and ethnic hierarchy*, as explained in the notes for these entries.

NATION STATE -T

Industrial empires began in the European nation-states with nationalist ideologies that attempted to homogenize their own population into ethnic uniformity. The rise of the European nation-state system provided a new political organization far more cohesive than the imperial orders of the past.

NATION STATE -F

The nation state, in this sense, is a product of the Western sector of the modern world system, but it has... its forerunners in the ancient world... [It is] based on a very different and historically more common construction of the individual subject in which abrupt weaning and a strong socialization to a cosmologically organized structure of authority located outside of the individual body generates a different kind of ethnic belonging in which there is a segmentary structure of encompassment leading from local kin groups to increasingly inclusive structures up to the State. These variations are predicated on a well developed individualization* in which community, tradition, Gemeinschaft, become essential aspects of the modern fantasy of the world we have lost.

....Ed Note: The degree of "homogeneity" or "encompassment" of citizens within a state is recognized by both Tehranian and Friedman as aspects of a nation-state. Unfortunately, this term is also used to identify an independent state, such as any member of the United Nations. In many, really most, of them, ethnic heterogeneity prevails and many feel themselves to be "subjects" rather than "citizens" of the state. The ideal type of an ethnically homogeneous state* or national state*, as it is also called, is rare if non-existent, but it identifies a goal ardently pursued in many countries. No doubt the number of "nation states" (independent states) has rapidly increased in recent decades, but few, if any, of them can be viewed as "nation states" (national states).

NATIONAL IDENTITY -F

The "liberation" process creates a vacuum with respect to collective identification. This vacuum is filled both with individualist modernism and national identity. The nation state, in this sense is a product of the Western sector of the modern world system, but it has, as I shall argue, its forerunners in the ancient world

....Ed Note: Ambiguity in the meanings of nation may prove problematic for the notion of national identity. It can refer to an ethic community in which case members identify with a construct rooted in ancestral claims, language or religion. However, in Friedman's usage here, the word seems to refer to a state* where citizenship (patriotism) is prized. Its counterpart in the ancient world would have been a sense of identity with the regime as represented by a king, emperor, or republic. No doubt, in the ideal type of a national state* the two notions merge -- but such cases are surely rare if they ever existed.

NATIONALISM, ETHNIC NATIONALISM - R


See linked pages: [] Onomantics || Ethnicity || ETHNIC-L

and the Turmoill among Nations project illustrating the onomantic approach

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Updated: 9 August 1999