ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that considerations of taxonomic consistency underwrite the classification of groups as material objects. It discusses the ontological status of groups, explaining that social groups are to be distinguished from corporations. People who insist on the existence of social facts, but who do not say whether they are governed by sociological laws, are like people who claim to have discovered an unclassified animal but who do not tell us whether it is tame or dangerous, whether it can be domesticated or is unmanageable. The right of a people to self-determination has become enshrined in international law. The needs of communities and cultures are articulated in the public space of political debate about the proper allocation of resources and administrative structure.
