From Grievance to Ethnic Mobilization

Abstract

According to Daniel Posner (2005), Africa is the continent with the most ethnically divided societies. The number of ethnic groups range from a couple in countries like Rwanda and Burundi to more than 250 in countries such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Scholars who take a primordialist approach, such as Clifford Geertz (1963), Cynthia Enloe (1973), Walker Connor (1994), and Ernest Gellner (1998), contend that such ethnic identities are natural phenomena and that ethnogroups are natural networks into which people are born and find membership. Members of such groups, it is argued, share objective cultural attributes including language, religion, customs, traditions, cuisine, and music, among other things. In addition, ethnic group members are said to share subjective or psychological aspects of identity distinctiveness, including emotional satisfaction derived from group belonging, a shared belief in a myth of common ancestry, and a belief in the sacredness of social relations that include the dead.