What about racial groups and boundaries (and race and racism)?

• Main Author: Y. Okamura, Jonathan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Slovene Anthropological Society / Društvo antropologov Slovenije 2019
• Subjects: Race; racism; ethnicity; Micronesians; Hawai‘i; rasa; rasizem; etničnost; mikronezijci; Havaji; anthro-se; hist; sami
• Online Access: http://notebooks.drustvo-antropologov.si/Notebooks/article/view/6

This article begins by discussing the major theoretical contributions of Barth’s “Introduction” to Ethnic Groups and Boundaries and of a later essay he wrote on “Enduring and Emerging Issues in the Analysis of Ethnicity” (1994), which assessed the significance of his edited book. Among the principal contributions of Barth discussed are the greater sociological concern with ethnicity beginning in the 1970s, his emphasis on what “the actors themselves regard as significant,” which contributed to the understanding of the social construction of ethnicity and race, and his argument that ethnic groups organise interactions between people, which led to the view of ethnicity (and race) as an organising principle of social relations. Also reviewed are the primary shortcomings of Barth’s essays, including not mentioning the significance of race and racism and how race, rather than ethnicity, is the dominant principle of social organisation in many societies and thus serves as a boundary among groups. Članek obravnava glavne teoretične prispevke Barthovega Uvoda v zborniku Etnične skupine in meje ter kasnejšega eseja Trajna in nastajajoča vprašanja v analizi etničnosti (1994), ki je obravnaval pomen njegovega zbornika. Med glavnimi Barthovimi prispevki, ki so obravnavani, sta večja sociološka pozornost do etnične pripadnosti, ki se je začela v sedemdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja, njegov poudarek na tem, kar “akterji sami ocenjujejo kot pomembno”, ki je prispeval k razumevanju družbene konstrukcije etnične pripadnosti in rase, ter njegov argument, da etnične skupine organizirajo interakcije med ljudmi, kar je privedlo do pojmovanja etničnosti (in rase) kot organizacijskega načela družbenih odnosov. Obravnavane so tudi glavne pomanjkljivosti Barthovih esejev, vključno s tem, da ni omenjal pomena rase in rasizma in tega, kako je rasa, ne pa etnična pripadnost, prevladujoče načelo družbene organiziranosti v mnogih družbah in tako deluje kot meja med skupinami.