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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | Measuring ethnic identification and attachment in sub-Saharan Africa |
| Author: | Shaw-Taylor, Yoku |
| Year: | 2008 |
| Periodical: | African Sociological Review (ISSN 1027-4332) |
| Volume: | 12 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Pages: | 155-166 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Subsaharan Africa Africa |
| Subjects: | ethnicity social conflicts civil wars sociology ethnic conflicts |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/24487612 |
| Abstract: | Indices of weak States are generally based on models that relate collapses in the economy and civil society to major violent intercommunal conflict. State weakness, failure and eventual collapse are also catalysed by the proliferation of small arms. A latent variable in these constructs is ethnic differences. However, the role of ethnic differences or a certain ethnic enmity in intercommunal conflicts or wars is a puzzling one. If ethnic differences are to blame for intercommunal conflicts, it is predicated on a certain level of metaphorical social distance between social groups, or its proxy measures, ethnic identification and attachment. Using country-merged data from Afrobarometer surveys conducted from 1999 to 2001 and in 2004, the author considers the results of differences in terms of ethnic identification and ethnic attachment in a sample of countries in sub-Saharan Africa and what these measures indicate about the strength of ethnicity. The results indicate that the role of ethnicity or tribalism, or precisely, social distance between ethnic groups, as a factor contributing to community violence is nuanced. Tribalism or ethnocentrism cannot always be fingered singularly in intercommunal conflicts. At best, tribalism interacts with other factors to create conflicts. Bibliogr., notes. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
