Primordialism is the idea that
nations
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective identity of a group of people understood as defined by t ...
or
ethnic identities
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
are fixed, natural and ancient.
[Jack Hayward, Brian Barry, Archie Brown (2003) p 330] Primordialists argue that each individual has a single inborn ethnic identity independent of historical processes.
While implicit primordialist assumptions are common in society and much academic research, primordialism is widely rejected by scholars of nationalism and ethnicity, as individuals can have multiple ethnic identities which are changeable and socially constructed.
Primordialism can be traced philosophically to the ideas of
German Romanticism, particularly in the works of
Johann Gottlieb Fichte and
Johann Gottfried Herder. For Herder, the nation was synonymous with language group. In Herder's thinking,
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
was synonymous with thought, and as each language was learnt in
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...
, then each community must think differently. This also suggests that the community would hold a fixed nature over time.
Primordialism was widely discredited after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, with many scholars of nationalism coming to treat the nation as a community constructed by the technologies and politics of
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of Reas ...
(see
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
).
[
Primordialism, in relation to ethnicity, argues that "ethnic groups and nationalities exist because there are traditions of belief and action towards primordial objects such as biological factors and especially territorial location".
This argument relies on a concept of kinship, where members of an ethnic group feel they share characteristics, origins or sometimes even a blood relationship. Seen through the ]Igbos
The Igbo people ( , ; also spelled Ibo" and formerly also ''Iboe'', ''Ebo'', ''Eboe'',
*
*
* ''Eboans'', ''Heebo'';
natively ) are an ethnic group in Nigeria. They are primarily found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. A siz ...
of Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, following what they felt was their origin as descendants of the Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
.
While acknowledging that "primordialism is admittedly not without its own flaws and problems," much like all conceptual and theoretical traditions in the social sciences, political scientist Khalil F. Osman[ Khalil F. Osman, Sectarianism in Iraq: The Making of State and Nation since 1920 (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 36. ] argues that "Primordialism, as an approach that stresses the workings of sub-national loyalties and solidarities operative in the collective consciousness of communities, is still capable of furnishing an epistemological and conceptual tool informing and opening up a unique space for inquiry and into social and political action."
See also
* Essentialism
* Ethnic conflict
*Modernization theory (nationalism) Modernization theory is the predominant explanation for emergence of nationalism among scholars of nationalism. Prominent modernization scholars, such as Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawn, say nationalism arose with modernization ...
*Nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
*The Primordial Tradition
The Primordial Tradition is a school of religious philosophy with origins in perennialism, or perennial philosophy, which is in turn a development of the prisca theologia of the Middle Ages. The Primordial Tradition seeks to establish a fundame ...
* Jus sanguinis
*Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people' ...
*Social constructionism
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theor ...
References
Further reading
* Jack Hayward, Brian Barry
Brian Barry, (7 August 1936 – 10 March 2009) was a moral and political philosopher. He was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford, obtaining the degrees of B.A. and D.Phil. under the direction of H. L. A. Hart.
Along with David Braybrooke ...
, Archie Brown (2003) ''The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth Century,'' Oxford University Press,
* Yehouda A. Shenhav (2006) ''The Arab Jews: a postcolonial reading of nationalism, religion, and ethnicity,'' Stanford University Press,
* Dominique Jacquin-Berdal (2002) ''Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Horn of Africa: A Critique of the Ethnic Interpretation'' ELewiston, New York
Lewiston is a town in Niagara County, New York, United States. The population was 15,944 at the 2020 census. The town and its contained village are named after Morgan Lewis, a governor of New York.
The Town of Lewiston is on the western bord ...
: Edwin Mellen Press {{ISBN, 0-7734-6954-0
* Bayar, Murat, ‘Reconsidering Primordialism: an alternative approach to the study of ethnicity’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32.9, (2009), pp. 1–20
* Gryosby, Steven, (1994) ‘The verdict of history: The inexpungeable tie of primordialityhuth – A response to Eller and Coughlan’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 17(1), pp. 164–171
* Harnischfeger, Johannes
"Secessionism in Nigeria"
ECAS 4 conference, Uppsala, (2011)
* Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, ‘Primordialism’, in Nationalism and Political Identity, (Cornwall: MPG Books Ltd, 2003), pp. 19–35 (p. 19).
* Sambanis, Nicholas, ‘Do ethnic and nonethnic Civil Wars have the same causes? A theoretical and Empirical Inquiry (Part 1)’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 45 (2001), 259-282
* Spencer, Steve, Race and Ethnicity: Culture, Identity and Representation (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006)
* Barth, Fredrik 1969: Ethnic Groups and Boundaries
* Smith, Anthony D. 1998. Nationalism and modernism: a critical survey of recent theories of nations and nationalism, London; New York: Routledge.
* Özkırımlı, Umut 2000. Theories of Nationalism, London: Macmillan Press.
* Espiritu, Yen Le: Asian-American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities.
* Appadurai, Arjun 1996: Modernity at Large
Nationalism
Politics and race