Ethnic nepotism
In sociology, the term ethnic nepotism describes a human tendency for in-group bias or in-group favouritism applied by nepotism for people with the same ethnicity within a multi-ethnic society.
The term was coined in the 1960s in the context of the ethnic (tribal) tensions and rivalry in the then-recently independent states in Sub-Saharan Africa such as Nigeria.[1]
Sociobiological theory[edit]
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The theory views ethnocentrism and racism as nepotism toward extended kin and an extension of kin selection. In other words, ethnic nepotism points toward a biological basis for the phenomenon of people preferring others of the same ethnicity or race; it explains the tendency of humans to favor members of their own racial group by postulating that all animals evolve toward being more altruistic toward kin in order to propagate more copies of their common genes.
"The myth of common descent", proposed by many social scientists as a prominent ethnic marker, is in his view often not a myth at all.[clarification needed] "Ethnicity is defined by common descent and maintained by endogamy".[2]
To guard one's genetic interests, Frank Salter notes altruism toward one's co-ethnics.[3]
J. Philippe Rushton has complemented kin selection and ethnic nepotism by his genetic similarity theory which proposes that "genetically similar people tend to seek one another out and to provide mutually supportive environments such as marriage, friendship, and social groups. This may represent a biological factor underlying ethnocentrism and group selection".[2]
In Rushton's interpretation it is not clear whether the proposed genetic likeness that supports ethnic nepotism is limited to external appearance, or it also includes other loci.[citation needed] If that is the case, it would be difficult to deduct how similar blood types or creatine levels, or others, among the multitude of invisible phenotype traits, contribute to determine the bonding behavior towards people carrying the alleged similar alleles. Also, there is no clue offered as to which of these specific alleles are the most important for expression of ethnic nepotism. Hamiltonian kin selection (in itself very controversial) refers exclusively to defined sets of discrete behaviors that are innate, not learned[4] and increase the reproductive fitness among very close kin, whereas ethnic nepotism would appear to depend heavily on social interactions and on morphology, or physical characteristics.
According to research by Van der Dennen, "ethnocentrism-cum-xenophobia" seems universally present in preindustrial societies (and in many primate and social carnivore species).[2]
Tatu Vanhanen in his 1999 book Ethnic Conflicts Explained by Ethnic Nepotism empirically examined the relationships between the degree of ethnic homogeneity, the degree of ethnic conflicts, and the degree of democratization in the nations of the world. He found that more ethnically heterogeneous nations had more ethnic conflicts. The degree of democratization explained very little of the degree of ethnic conflicts except that very authoritarian states such as the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia could suppress ethnic conflicts. Ethnic conflicts were only slightly less common in more economically developed countries. They appeared within all racial groups, cultures, and geographical regions. In Vanhanen's view, people have a genetic tendency to easily learn ethnic attitudes and psychological mechanisms leading to prejudice, scapegoating, and discrimination.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Cf. The Journal of modern African studies 7 (1969), p. 23 in reference to "ethnic nepotism" among the Mbaise in Nigeria; Audrey C. Smock, Ibo politics: the role of ethnic unions in Eastern Nigeria, Harvard University Press, 1971.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 van der Dennen, Johan M.G. (2000), "Book review of Vanhanen 'Ethnic Conflicts'", Human Ethology Bulletin, 15 (3): 12–14.
- ↑ Salter, Frank, On Genetic Interests, p. 125.
- ↑ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
Further reading[edit]
- Axelrod, Robert, "The Evolution of Ethnocentric Behavior," Midwest Political Science Convention, April 16, 2003.
- Brigandt, Ingo, "The Homeopathy of Kin Selection: An Evaluation of van den Berghe's Sociobiological Approach to Ethnicity," Politics and The Life Sciences, Vol. 20, September 2001.
- De Dreu, Carsten K. W., "Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan. 10, 2011.
- Lehmann, Ernst, "Genes contribute to patriotism and group loyality," Innovations Report, Nov. 15, 2005.
- Lima, Francisco W.S., Hadzibeganovic, Tarik & Dietrich Stauffer, "Evolution of ethnocentrism on undirected and directed Barabási-Albert networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications Vol. 388: 4999-5004, December 15, 2009.
- MacDonald, Kevin, "An integrative evolutionary perspective on ethnicity," Politics and the Life Sciences, Vol. 20(1): 67–80.
- Rushton, J. Philipe, "Ethnic Nationalism, evolutionary psychology and Genetic Similarity Theory," Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 11, Oct. 2005.
- Salter, Frank, "Estimating Ethnic Genetic Interests: Is It Adaptive to Resist Replacement Migration?," Population and Environment, Vol. 24, Nov. 2002.
- Salter, Frank, On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration (2007).
- Salter, Frank, Risky Transactions: Trust, Kinship and Ethnicity (2002).
- Salter, Frank, "Urban begging and ethnic nepotism in Russia," Human Nature, Vol. 11, June. 2000.
- Salter, Frank (ed.), "Welfare, Ethnicity, and Altruism: New Findings and Evolutionary Theory," (2004).
- Silverman, Irwin, "The Role of Ethnic Nepotism vs. Economic Pragmatism in Inter-group Conflict: Data on the Yugoslavian Civil War," Journal of Bioeconomics, Vol. 3, May 2001.
- Smith, Lars Christian, "Discrimination and Ethnic Nepotism," Conservation Finance, Sept. 13, 2006.
- Vanhanen, Tatu, "Domestic Ethnic Conflict and Ethnic Nepotism: A Comparative Analysis," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 36, 1999.
- Vanhanen, Tatu, Ethnic Conflicts Explained by Ethnic Nepotism (1999).
- van den Berghe, Pierre L., The Ethnic Phenomenon (1981).
- Wade, Nicholas, "Depth of the Kindness Hormone Appears to Know Some Bounds," New York Times, Jan. 10, 2011.
External links[edit]
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