"Can't we all just get along?" - Rodney King

"We've met the enemy and they is us." - Pogo
 

"We carry in our hearts the true country and that cannot be stolen,
We follow in the footsteps of our ancestry and that cannot be broken."

- Midnight Oil
 
 

• contrasted with neighboring/other tribes

• for hundreds of thousands of years, these were distinguishable societies

• other groups = competitors for scarce resources - hunting/gathering territory, etc.

• interethnic relations often marked by conflict because of competing reproductive interests

"They shoot without shame in the name of a piece of dirt,
For a change of accent or the colour of your shirt.
Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world,
Than the pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled."
- Rush
 
 

• competition for resources between ethnic groups

• in scarcity, competition intensifies, w/ violent conflict more likely

• in prosperity, competition and conflict decrease

• e.g., patterns of lynchings of blacks in rural areas and violence against blacks in urban areas in U.S. (late 1800s/early 1900s) closely tied to economic patterns

• lynchings and urban violence against blacks increased when economy worsened and decreased when economy improved

• interpretation: whites (esp. lower status) felt threatened by blacks when whites' own economic situation was precarious; this feeling more likely to escalate into violence against blacks

• relative size of competing ethnic groups

• interethnic conflict more intense when competing groups similar in size

• larger a group is the more of threat it is to other groups

• degree of perceived ethnic differences

• in multiethnic contexts, conflict tends to be greatest between those groups perceived to be least similar

• e.g., U.S. treatment of Germans, Japanese, German-Americans and Japanese-Americans during WWII

• only some Germans and Italians were our enemies, but all Japanese were:

• Roosevelt: enemies = "the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Japanese"

• Japanese-Americans treated much more harshly during war than German-Americans

• survey of U.S. adults post-WWII: German-Americans more "American" than Japanese-Americans (Laumann)

• evolutionary basis - ethnic markers of German-Americans more similar to dominant ethnic groups in U.S.; German-Americans more thoroughly interbred in U.S.

humans' ease of identifying with groups
 

• subjects randomly assigned to one of two groups, but do not know which of fellow subjects belong to which group

• subjects allocate monetary rewards/penalties to other anonymous subjects, one in own group (in-group) and one in other group (out-group)

• subjects reliably favor their own group (award more rewards and fewer penalties)

• not simply trying to get most for own group

• they reject allocations that maximize own group's rewards when other group would get higher reward - relative difference = key

• conclusion: we are primed/prewired to identify with groups, and think & behave accordingly

• throughout evolutionary history, these groups = kin groups

attempts to reduce ethnic conflict

"It has proved easier to smash the atom than to smash group and racial prejudices … " - Goodwin Watson
 

• dominant leaders counter ethnic conflicts to maintain power

• central authority co-opts leaders of different ethnic groups

• military threat against recalcitrant ethnic groups

• e.g., Tito in Yugoslavia; China; USSR

• strong cent. auth. = temp. damper