Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for,
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...
s or tribal lifestyles. Human evolution has primarily occurred in small
hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
groups, as opposed to in larger and more recently settled agricultural societies or
civilization
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).
Ci ...
s. With a negative connotation and in a political context, tribalism can also mean discriminatory behavior or attitudes towards
out-groups, based on in-group loyalty.
Definition
The word "tribe" can be defined to mean an extended kin group or
clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship
and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...
with a common ancestor, or can also be described as a group who share the common interest of mutual survival and preservation of a common culture. The proverb "
birds of a feather flock together
Birds of a feather flock together is an English proverb. The meaning is that beings (typically humans) of similar type, interest, personality, character, or other distinctive attribute tend to mutually associate.
The idiom is sometimes spoken or ...
" describes
homophily
Homophily () is a concept in sociology describing the tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others, as in the proverb "". The presence of homophily has been discovered in a vast array of network studies: over have observed ...
, the human tendency to form friendship networks with people of similar occupations, interests, and habits.
Some tribes can be located in geographically proximate areas, like
village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...
s or
bands, and although
telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
s in theory could enable groups of people to form tribe-like communities,
digital tribes and
social networking websites
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
are not quite tribes in that they do not inherently provide the mutual survival of both the individual members of the tribe and for the tribe itself, as tribes do.
In terms of
conformity
Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often choo ...
,
the word "tribalism" has been co-opted and stripped of its original meaning, and has been defined as a "subjectivity" or "way of being" social frame in which communities are bound socially beyond immediate birth ties by the dominance of various modalities of face-to-face and object integration. Ontologically, tribalism is oriented around the valences of analogy, genealogy and mythology. That means that customary tribes have their social foundations in some variation of these tribal orientations, while often taking on traditional practices (e.g.
Abrahamic religions
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran.
Jewish tradition ...
such as
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
,
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
, and
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
), and modern practices, including monetary exchange, mobile communications, and modern education.
Social structure
The social structure of a tribe can vary greatly from case to case, the relatively small size of customary tribes results in a social life which usually involve a relatively few significant political or economic distinctions between individuals. As a result, social hierarchy is uncommon, and deep bonds are made between individual members.
A tribe often refers to itself using its own language's word for "people", and refers to other, neighboring tribes with various words to distinguish them as other. For example, the term "
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
" translates to "people".
Types
Tribalism implies the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates one member of a group from the members of another group. Based on strong relations of proximity and kinship, as well as a relations based on the mutual survival of both the individual members of the tribe and for the tribe itself, members of a tribe tend to possess a strong feeling of identity. Objectively, for a customary tribal society to form there needs to be ongoing customary organization, enquiry and exchange. However, intense feelings of common identity can lead people to feel tribally connected.
The distinction between these two definitions for ''tribalism'', objective and subjective, is an important one because while ''tribal societies'' have been pushed to the edges of the
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania. , ''tribalism'', by the second definition, is arguably undiminished. A few writers have postulated that the human brain is hard-wired towards tribalism by its evolutionary advantages, but that claim is usually linked to equating original questions of sociality with tribalism.
Concept evolution
Tribalism has a very adaptive effect in
human evolution
Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of ''Homo sapiens'' as a distinct species of the hominid family, which includes the great apes. This process involved the gradual development of ...
. Humans are social animals and ill-equipped to live on their own. Tribalism and social bonding help to keep individuals committed to the group, even when personal relations may fray. That keeps individuals from wandering off or joining other groups. It also leads to
bullying
Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imba ...
when a tribal member is unwilling to conform to the politics of the collective.
Some scholars argue that
inclusive fitness in humans
Inclusive fitness in humans is the application of inclusive fitness theory to human social behaviour, relationships and cooperation.
Inclusive fitness theory (and the related kin selection theory) are general theories in evolutionary biology th ...
involves
kin selection
Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even when at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin altruism can look like Altruism in animals, altruistic behavio ...
and kin altruism, in which groups of an extended family with shared genes help others with similar genes, based on their
coefficient of relationship
The coefficient of relationship is a measure of the degree of consanguinity (or biological relationship) between two individuals. The term coefficient of relationship was defined by Sewall Wright in 1922, and was derived from his definition of th ...
(the amount of genes they have in common). Other scholars argue that
fictive kinship
Fictive kinship is a term used by anthropologists and ethnographers to describe forms of kinship or social ties that are based on neither consanguineal (blood ties) nor affinal ("by marriage") ties. It contrasts with ''true kinship'' ties.
To ...
is common in human organizations, allowing non-kin members to collaborate in groups like
fraternities
A fraternity (from Latin ''frater'': "brother"; whence, "brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity in ...
.
Socially, divisions between groups fosters specialized interactions with others, based on association: altruism (positive interactions with unrelated members), kin-selectivity (positive interactions with related members) and violence (negative interactions). Thus, groups with a strong sense of unity and identity can benefit from
kin selection
Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even when at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin altruism can look like Altruism in animals, altruistic behavio ...
behaviour such as common property and shared resources. The tendencies of members to unite against an outside tribe and the ability to act violently and prejudicially against that outside tribe likely boosted the chances of survival in genocidal conflicts.
Modern examples of tribal
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
rarely reflect the defining characteristics of tribes existing prior to the
Neolithic Revolution
The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an incre ...
; for example, small population and close-relatedness.
According to a study by
Robin Dunbar
Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar (born 28 June 1947) is a British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist and a specialist in primate behaviour. He is currently head of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group in the Department o ...
at the
University of Liverpool
, mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning
, established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...
, social group size is determined by primate brain size. Dunbar's conclusion was that most human brains can really understand only an average of 150 individuals as fully developed, complex
people
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
. That is known as
Dunbar's number
Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. This ...
. In contrast, anthropologist H. Russell Bernard and
Peter Killworth
Professor Peter D. Killworth (27 March 1946 – 28 January 2008) was an English scientist known for his work on oceanography and on the study of social networks. A prolific writer, he published more than 160 scientific papers over the course o ...
have done a variety of field studies in the United States that came up with an estimated mean number of ties, 290, roughly double Dunbar's estimate. The Bernard–Killworth
median
In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic fe ...
of 231 is lower because of upward straggle in the distribution, but it is still appreciably larger than Dunbar's estimate.
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...
expanded on this conclusion sociologically in his book, ''
The Tipping Point
''The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference'' is the debut book by Malcolm Gladwell, first published by Little, Brown in 2000. Gladwell defines a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling po ...
'', where members of one of his types, ''Connectors'', were successful by their larger-than-average number of close friendships and capacity for maintaining them, which tie together otherwise-unconnected social groups. According to such studies, then, "tribalism" is a hard-to-escape fact of human neurology simply because many human brains are not adapted to working with large populations. Once a person's limit for connection is reached, the human brain resorts to some combination of hierarchical schemes,
stereotype
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
s and other simplified models to understand so many people.
Negative outcomes
Anthropologists
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and v ...
engage in ongoing debate on the phenomenon of
war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
fare among tribes. While fighting typically and certainly occurs among
horticultural
Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...
tribes, an open question remains whether such warfare is a typical feature of hunter-gatherer life or is an anomaly found only in certain circumstances, such as scarce resources (as with the
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
or
Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Wester ...
) or only among food-producing societies.
Tribes use forms of subsistence such as
horticulture
Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...
and
foraging
Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's Fitness (biology), fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Optimal foraging theory, Foraging theory is a branch of behaviora ...
that cannot yield the same number of absolute calories as
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
. That limits tribal populations significantly, especially when compared to agricultural populations. Jesse Mathis writes in ''
War Before Civilization
''War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage'' (Oxford University Press, 1996) is a book by Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor of archaeology at the University of Illinois at Chicago who specialized in prehistoric Europe. The book de ...
'' that examples exist with low percentage rates of casualties in tribal battle, and some tribal battles were much more lethal as a percentage of population than, for example, the
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Po ...
. He concludes that no evidence consistently indicates that primitive battles are proportionately less lethal than civilized ones.
The
realistic conflict theory
Realistic conflict theory (RCT), also known as realistic group conflict theory (RGCT), is a social psychological model of intergroup conflict. The theory explains how intergroup hostility can arise as a result of conflicting goals and competition ...
is a model of
intergroup conflict, arguing that in a real or perceived
zero-sum system, conflicts arise over shared interests for
finite resources. The 1954
Robbers Cave Experiment involved researchers putting 12-year old boys into groups, where they formed their own
ingroups, before then developing hostility and negativity towards the other group during simulated conflict over
finite resources in a
zero-sum game
Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is e ...
.
Criticism
Various authors, such as
Aidan Southall
Aidan Southall (11 September 1920 – 17 May 2009) was a British cultural anthropologist recognised for his fieldwork in urban settings in post-war Africa. Often identified as a pioneer in the study of African cities, Southall is said to have pla ...
, have attacked the notion of
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...
as a tool of
colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
ideology, and identified modern tribalism as a product of colonial governance in Africa. The
Africa Policy Information Center
Africa Action is a nonprofit organization that is based in Washington, D.C., working to change U.S.–Africa relations to promote political, economic and social justice in nations of Africa. They provide accessible information and analysis, and ...
describes the term, and ''tribalism'' in particular as a byword for ethnic strife, as invoking negative
stereotypes of Africa
Stereotypes and generalizations about Africa, its inhabitants, and their culture have evolved in the Western world since the years of colonial settlement. The idea of Africa's negative stereotypes come from historical and media interactions. Man ...
as a land of primitive and territorial peoples.
An April, 2021 article published in The
Journal of Hospital Medicine titled "Tribalism: The Good, The Bad, and The Future" by Zahir Kanjee and Leslie Bilello of Harvard Medical School was retracted due to protest from readers over the use of the terms ''tribe'' and ''tribalism''. The article was then republished with the title "Leadership and Professional Development: Specialty Silos in Medicine" along with an apology from the editor-in-chief.
The revised version of the article substituted the terms ''groups'' and ''medical specialties'' for ''tribes'', and ''siloed'' and ''factional'' for ''tribalism''.
See also
References
External links
*
*
James, Paul; et al.,
Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Development Other Paths for Papua New Guinea'' (2012
pdf download* Sow, Adama:
Ethnozentrismus als Katalysator bestehender Konflikte in Afrika südlich der Sahara, am Beispiel der Unruhen in Côte d`Ivoireat:
European University Center for Peace Studies
The European University Center for Peace Studies offered postgraduate political studies from 1990 to 2013 in Stadtschlaining, Austria.
The institution was founded in 1988 by Gerald Mader in his capacity as president of the ASPR, with the suppor ...
(EPU), Stadtschleining 2005
"The New Tribalism"by
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
president Dave Frohnmayer, condemning a "new tribalism" in the traditional sense of "tribalism," not to be confused with "
new tribalism New tribalism is a theory by queer Chicana feminist Gloria E. Anzaldúa to disrupt the matrix of imposed identity categories that the hegemonic culture imposes on people in order to maintain its power and authority. Anzaldúa states that she "appr ...
".
"Tribalism in Africa"by Stephen Isabirye
"Kenya: It’s the economy, stupid (not just “tribalism”)" An
IRIN article on post election violence in
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
– January 2008
*
Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield (born September 1, 1943) is an American author of historical fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays, including his 1995 novel ''The Legend of Bagger Vance'' and 2002 non-fiction book '' The War of Art''.
Early life
Pressfie ...
,
https://web.archive.org/web/20100516030351/http://www.stevenpressfield.com/vblog/ "It's the Tribes, Stupid"">!-- current version of this URL links to different content -->https://web.archive.org/web/20100516030351/http://www.stevenpressfield.com/vblog/ "It's the Tribes, Stupid"(five part video series)
Episode 1: "It's the Tribes, Stupid"Episode 2: "The Citizen Vs. The Tribesman"Episode 3: "Tribes Are Different From You and Me"Episode 4: "Fighting a Tribal Enemy"Episode 5: "How to Win in Afghanistan"
{{Ethnicity
Group processes
Sociological terminology
Political science theories
Forms of government
Tribes