As regular readers of this blog (hope that I haven't scared all of you off!) may have already noted, much of what I'm writing about, and observing here in China are fairly normal, routine things: food, dress, consumer habits, etc. This is seemingly strange territory for someone who is ostensibly doing political science research. "What does a long treatise on lamb kebabs really, have to do with ethnic politics?" you might ask. Such scholarship, it would seem, is more of the province of anthropologists, not political scientists. With this question in mind, I think it's probably best to have a word about "everyday ethnicity" and why I'm making it the focus of my research.
Normally, studies of ethnic politics focus on contentious politics. Ethnicity mobilizes splinter parties in elections. Ethnicity compels marginalized members of the populace to riot. Ethnicity mobilizes separatist militias. Ethnicity justifies heinous crimes (sometimes even genocide) perpetrated by extremists. Even when scholars invoke ethnicity in studies of public policy, the undertones of the study point toward contention: policies of segregation, discrimination, promotion of ethnic superiority, or the distribution of public goods along ethnic lines. In moments like these, the lines that divides people along ethnic cleavages is bright, clear, and unambiguous. Or, put another way, in these instances, ethnicity attains paramount salience in the minds of the people involved.
Such circumstances, however, are not the norm. Contemporary social scientists more or less share a constructivist understanding of social identities. What does this mean? In essence, constructivism contends that ethnicity is a socially constructed phenomenon. Being German, or French, or Chinese is not some immutable, primordial trait. Rather, people create these categories and invest them with meaning. Traits like a common language, or a common place of origin, or a shared set of cultural practices serve as markers that differentiate these groups from one another. Through a process of group contestation, members determine what the essential markers of an ethnic identity are (e.g. ethnically German people speak German, etc.), and how they may be distinguished from markers of another ethnicity. But, social scientists also recognize that individuals possess multiple, competing identities, of which ethnicity is only one. These identities wax and wane in salience. For instance, when in the United States, the fact that I am an American may be relegated to the background while other identities (male, graduate student, etc.) may be more relevant. In China, however, the salience of my American-ness may shift forward, as I am made more aware of the fact that I am a citizen of another country.
Like all other identities, then, ethnicity reaches peaks and valleys in relative salience. In the kinds of events that are the traditional subjects of studies in ethnic politics, ethnic salience reaches an apex. When people mobilize around ethncity as an organizing concept (whether in war, or in politics), ethnicity rockets to the forefront in the index of identities that we all possess. But instances like these are infrequent. Though there are exceptions (countries locked in ethnic civil war, countries which have codified race/ethnicity into social heirarchies or caste systems/nationalists or ethnic chauvinists who are members of ethnic parites, etc.) such moments of contenious ethnic politics are extraordinary. How do we experience ethnicity in th interim? That's where 'everyday ethnicity' comes in.
An ermerging body of scholarship examines ethncity as experienced in "quiet times," or those moments when people are not mobilized around ethnicity, and ethnic sentiment is not as peak salience. Some pretty exceptional work from people like John Fox and Cythia Miller-Idriss discusses the importance of what they refer to as "everyday nationalism" in maintaining a sense of national identity, even in moments that aren't contentious, and when the salience of national or ethnic identity are low. They talk about ways that people engage in normal activities (they talk about four categories of actions: talking, choosing, performing, and consuming) that help maintain a sense of ethnic identity. For example, a sense of obligation to "buy American" may lead consumers to buy a domestically manufactured automobile (though this may also happen for other reasons). In China, ethnic minorities may elect to educate their children in minority national languages (e.g. ethnic Mongolians teaching their children to speak and read Mongolian) in addition to standard Mandarin Chinese. Musicians or artists may choose to produce folk or traditional art rather than contemporary. These are but a few examples of how ordinary actions, choices, events, etc. may be important to defining a sense of ethnic identity.
They are not, however, overtly contentious. In spite of this lack of contentiousness, however, looking at everyday expressions of ethnicity does teach important lessons about ethnic politics. Viewing ethnic politics solely through the lens of contentious politics limits our ability to understand more about how ethnicity works, and how people coalesce around ethnic identities. Why? In moments of contention the boundaries that define ethnicity are drawn in bold. This means a lot of the subtle ways in which one ethnicity is distinguished from others get drowned out by the effect of conflict. The traits of one ethnic identity vis-a-vis another also become essentialized in service of mobilization. Much of the subtlety that is inherent to ethnic politics vanishes. Looking at everyday actions allows us to tease out the nuances in how ethnic identities differ and are distinguished. Understanding how and when patterns of speech, items of dress, dietary habits, etc. are imbued with ethnic significance may keep us from essentializing or caricaturing ethnicity, and may allow for a better understanding of why people invest emotion and effort into mobilization around ethnicity when moments of contention do arise.
Further, solely focusing on ethnic politics as contentious leads us to lose sight of the many non-contentious forces that impact and shape ethnic identity, like market economies and consumerism. In many ways, demand by consumers for ethnically branded goods or performances may also exert a heavy degree of influence on how people percieve and understand ethnicity and authentcity. The effects of such ethnorpreneurism may be incredibly profound in determining where ethnic boundaries are set, and how one ethnicity is distinguished from another. Matters of how such marketization is conducted, how such consumer demands are met have real, political import, and real, political consequences, especially when the state is a major player in the market. Likewise, the idea that ethnic politics are, by nature, adversarial ignores the many instances where ethnic politics provides a channel for positive community outreach, and civic programming (for instance, the Hui community in Jinan promotes its community outreach efforts that partner with the city government, such as food drives and charitable donations).
In this light, the seemingly banal stuff of everyday habit (like whether or not lamb kebabs are an identifiably Hui foodstuff in China) provides a critical window for examining and understanding ethnic political and economic structures. It might not seem like the traditional territory of political science, but it's territory that I hope members of my discipline will begin to explore in greater numbers. After all, there's still lots of room left for theoretical breakthroughs and developments in years to come!