ABSTRACT

The affirmation is clearly tautological; in analytic terms, though, it will be evident that the reproduction of ethnicity, and the reinforcement of its pragmatic salience, is as much a function of efforts directed at its erosion as it is of activities that assert its positive value. In addition, under colonialism, where segmentary ethnicity developed, lower order ethnic groups often assumed the character of fractions of the underclass; fractions more or less exclusively associated—much as in the segmented labor markets of the industrialized world—with relatively stratified niches within the division of labor. In other words, by virtue of its dualistic quality, ethnicity itself became a factor in the maturation of a colonial and post-colonial capitalist order characterized by marked asymmetries. For, as the comparison of totemism and ethnicity has revealed, the thesis flows from a confounding not merely of two modes of consciousness, but also of quite separate levels of analysis.