Abstract
People often signal their membership in groups through their clothes, hairstyle, posture, and dialect. Most existing evolutionary models argue that markers label group members so individuals can preferentially interact with those in their group. Here we ask why people mark ethnic differences when interethnic interaction is routine, necessary, and peaceful. We asked research participants from three ethnic groups in southwestern Madagascar to sort photos of unfamiliar people by ethnicity, and by with whom they would prefer or not prefer to cooperate, in a wage labor vignette. Results indicate that southwestern Malagasy reliably send and detect ethnic signals; they signal less in the marketplace, a primary site of interethnic coordination and cooperation; and they do not prefer co-ethnics as cooperation partners in novel circumstances. Results from a cultural knowledge survey and calculations of cultural FST suggest that these ethnic groups have relatively little cultural differentiation. We concur with Moya and Boyd (Human Nature 26:1–27, 2015) that ethnicity is unlikely to be a singular social phenomenon. The current functions of ethnic divisions and marking may be different from those at the moment of ethnogenesis. Group identities may persist without group conflict or differentiation.
Résumé
Les gens montrent souvent leur appartenance à un groupe à travers leurs modes vestimentaires, leur style de coiffure, leur posture et surtout leur dialecte. La plupart des modèles évolutifs existants soutiennent que les marqueurs caractérisent les membres du groupe afin que les individus puissent interagir de manière préférentielle avec les membres de leur groupe. Nous nous demandons ici, pourquoi les gens marquent les différences ethniques lorsque l'interaction interethnique est routinière, nécessaire et pacifique. Nous avons alors demandé à des participants issus de trois groupes ethniques du Sud-Ouest de Madagascar de trier des photos de personnes inconnues en fonction de leur appartenance ethnique, et en fonction des personnes avec lesquelles ils préféreraient ou non coopérer, dans une vignette hypothétique. Les résultats recueilli indiquent clairement que les Malgaches du Sud-Ouest émettent et détectent de manière fiable les indicateurs ethniques; ils émettent moins de signaux indicatifs sur la place du marché, dans un site primaire de coordination et de coopération interethnique; et ils ne préfèrent pas les co-ethnies comme partenaires de coopération dans des circonstances nouvelles. Basé sur les résultats obtenus d'une enquête réalisée sur les connaissances culturelles et les calculs du FST culturel suggèrent que ces groupes ethniques présentent une différenciation culturelle relativement faible. Nous partageons l'opinion de Moya et Boyd (Human Nature 26:1–27, 2015) pour dire qu'il est peu probable que l'ethnicité soit un phénomène social singulier. Les fonctions actuelles des divisions et du marquage ethniques peuvent être différentes de celles du moment de l'ethnogenèse. Les identités de groupe peuvent persister sans qu'il y ait conflit ou différenciation de groupe.
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Data Availability
Data and R code are available at https://github.com/erik-ringen/HUNA_markers.
Notes
The green beard example probably was not meant to infer that men, who are more likely than women to grow beards, are more likely to be altruistic!
We use southwestern Malagasy orthography throughout.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS 1733917). Special thanks to the Université de Toliara, and to Gervais (Veve) Tantely, Alhayess Jean-Claude, Théodore Tsitindry Ramavontsoa, Repapa Pamphil de la Patience, and Eric Rambelonson for assistance during fieldwork, and Niaina Patrick Randriamboavonjy for translating drafts of this manuscript and the abstract into French (thanks, Alex Courtiol, for checking our French). Special thanks to the anonymous peer reviewers for their thorough and constructive comments. Thanks to Craig Hadley for connecting BT and EJR, and to Walter Little for information about highland Guatemalan markets. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Manantsoabe, a generous friend with whom an archive of Mikea oral history passed.
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National Science Foundation, USA. BCS 1733917.
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Tucker, B., Ringen, E.J., Tsiazonera et al. Ethnic Markers without Ethnic Conflict. Hum Nat 32, 529–556 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09412-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09412-w