COURSE TITLE:

NIGERIA AND THE WIDER WORLD

COURSE CODE:
NWW 111

Lecturer:

Dr. Malachy Chuma Ochie,

Department of International Relations,
Maduka University, Ekwegbe-Nsukka

Purpose of the Course

This course is designed to introduce student to the evolution of the Nigerian state and how the
country has interacted with the wider world; and how it has used the experience of such
interaction for national development and growth. It is a truism that progressive societies draw
inspiration from experiences of their past in leadership, education, science and technology and
other parameters of life to recalibrate their societies for greater efficiency and development.

Among the poor countries, this appears not to be so. They make little effort to remedy the
development deficit apparent in their societies on the assumption that recourse to their past
would evoke a sense of animousity and shame. This attitude tends to explain the progressive loss
of the sense of history. This is why this course seeks to explore Nigerian history in the context of
the wider world. We are gradually losing our sense of history and it is important that we reinvent
our history as a nation for the benefit of younger generations and to know, in the words of
Chinua Achebe “where the rain began to beat us”

The Intention of this Course

This course intends to trace the development of the contemporary Nigerian state from the
atomistic kingdoms and ethnic nationalities. The course will progress to addressing the challenge
of nationhood in the country as well as the participation of Nigeria in the wider web of
globalization. .

Modules and Study Units

We have 4 Modules and 21 Units in this course as follows:

Module 1: Conceptual Clarifications

Unit 1: Kingdoms
Unit 2: Ethnic groups
Unit 3: Nations
Unit 4: Countries
Module 2: Peoples and Kingdoms of Nigeria

Unit 1: The Bini Kingdom

Unit: 2: Hausa Kingdom
Unit 3: Yoruba Kingdom
Unit 4: Igbo Kingdoms
Unit 5: Kingdoms of the Niger-Delta
Unit 6: Pre-colonial inter-group relations in Nigeria

Module 3: External Influences

Unit 1: The Trans-Saharan Trade

Unit 2: Early contacts with Europe
Unit 3: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Unit 4: The British Colonialism

Module 4: Nationalist Movement

Unit 1: Independence Movement in Africa

Unit 2: Fathers of Nigerian Independence
Unit 3: Post-colonial leadership and Military interventions
Unit 4: The Nigerian Civil War
Unit 5: Nigeria and the Oil Economy
Unit 6: Nigeria and Regional Integration in Africa; and the Commonwealth
Unit 7: Nigeria in the age of globalization

Module 1: Conceptual Clarifications

Unit 1: Kingdoms

A kingdom is a territory that is ruled by a king or a queen. A kingdom is often called

a monarchy, which means that one person, usually inheriting their position by birth or marriage,
is the leader, or head of state. Kingdoms are one of the earliest types of societies on Earth, dating
back thousands of years. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of different kingdoms
throughout history. Kingdoms can be huge, such as the United Kingdom. During the 19th
century, the United Kingdom, ruled from London, England, stretched over five continents.
Kingdoms can also be small, such as the kingdom of Brunei, which is smaller than the U.S. state
of Delaware.

Kingdoms are rarely ruled by an absolute monarchy, a single king or queen who makes all
decisions for the entire state. Kingdoms are usually broken into smaller territories, such as city-
states or provinces that are governed by officials who report to the monarch. Most modern kings
and queens do not control the government. Elected leaders and constitutions establish laws for
most kingdoms today.
Early Kingdoms

The world’s earliest kingdoms developed thousands of years ago when leaders began conquering
and controlling cities and settlements. Rulers of early kingdoms provided protection to their
residents, or subjects. In return, subjects paid taxes or services to the monarch. Kingdoms also
had the power to create and enforce laws. The first kingdoms were established about 3000
B.C.E. in Kengir, also known as Sumer, and Kemet, also known as ancient Egypt. Sumer was a
kingdom that existed between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what-is-now Iraq. The
Sumerians had their own written language and undertook complicated construction projects, such
as irrigation canals and large temples called ziggurats. There is also evidence that the Sumerian
kingdom traded and fought with neighboring peoples. A few thousand years later, the kingdom
of Teotihuacan developed in North America. The kingdom was centered in the city of
Teotihuacan in modern Mexico City, Mexico. Teotihuacan probably had more than 100,000
inhabitants, making it among the largest ancient kingdoms in the world at that time.

Many, but not all, ancient kingdoms were empires. Empires are geographically large political
units made of many different cultural or ethnic groups. Empires were often headed by monarchs,
making them kingdoms. Kemet was a kingdom ruled by a monarch called a pharaoh, for
instance. The Kemetan Empire reached its height in the so-called “New Kingdom” period, under
the leadership of the pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BCE). Kemet in the New Kingdom
stretched from modern-day Egypt, along the Mediterranean coast to modern-day Turkey in the
north, and modern-day Eritrea in the south. Many empires did not have monarchs, however, so
empires and kingdoms are not always the same thing.

Medieval Kingdoms

The Middle Ages was a period in history that lasted roughly from about 500 to 1500. It is also
referred to as the medieval period. During the Middle Ages, countless kingdoms formed
and collapsed throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. In Europe, many small kingdoms were
formed and fought over by tribes following the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476. Tribes
such as the Ostrogoths, from modern Romania, and the Franks, from modern Germany, were
among those that formed small, unstable kingdoms in the early Middle Ages.

Perhaps the most famous European kingdom of the Middle Ages was that of Britain’s legendary
King Arthur. Arthur may not have existed at all. Accounts of his kingdom were written hundreds
of years after it supposedly existed. If there was a King Arthur, he probably lived during the fifth
century, after the Romans left Britain and before the emergence of actual, historical British kings
in the eighth century. King Arthur would have been one of dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of kings
in Britain at the time. Even if King Arthur did not exist, his legend suggests kingdoms played a
role in the Middle Ages.

At around the same time tribes and small kingdoms were warring over parts of Europe, the
African kingdoms of Ghana and Mali were among the strongest of the Middle Ages. The Ghana
Empire, also known as the Wagadou Empire, formed about 790. It found success as a major
trading center. The Ghana Empire, located in the modern countries of Mauritania and Mali, was
a kingdom on the southwest edge of the Sahara Desert. Caravans with hundreds of camels would
travel across the Sahara like ships crossing a sandy sea.

The kingdom emerged as a trading center for gold and salt. (Salt, a valuable preservative for
food, was nearly as valuable as gold.) The trade of ideas also flourished in the kingdom, as
the religion of Islam spread westward from the Arabian Peninsula to the western coast of Africa.
The Ghana Empire was weakened and eventually collapsed because of rapid growth, drought,
and weakened trade.

About 1200, the Mali Empire rose out of what was once Ghana. Mali became a strong kingdom
under the leadership of King Sundiata. Sundiata’s kingdom stretched from the Atlantic coast of
the modern countries of Senegal and Mauritania to the inland area of southeast Mali. Like
Ghana, the Mali Empire depended on trade routes through the Sahara. Unlike Ghana, this
kingdom actually had its own gold mines within its borders. One of the kingdom’s major cities
was the trade hub of Timbuktu, in the modern nation of Mali. Timbuktu was the major trade city
on the edge of the Sahara for hundreds of years, trading gold, ivory, salt, and enslaved people.

Later Kingdoms

After many centuries of war and turmoil, stronger and more sophisticated kingdoms began to
develop throughout the world. In Europe, the kingdoms of Portugal, France, and England
expanded across vast territories after the discovery of the Americas in the late 15th century.

Kingdoms established stronger diplomatic ties with neighboring governments to reduce conflict.
They relied on treaties and, often, marriages to create strong alliances. Many monarchs of
Europe during this period were related to each other. The British Queen Victoria had many
grandchildren who were married to people across Europe, a fact that may have contributed to
mostly peaceful times during her reign.

Kingdoms of this period increased trade with distant kingdoms and built strong fleets for
overseas exploration. The Portuguese Empire, for instance, established ties with the Kingdom of
Siam, in the modern country of Thailand. Portugal’s fleet was able to travel around the continent
of Africa and along the coast of Asia to reach Siam. Portugal, which dominated trade routes in
the Indian Ocean, traded for valuable spices.

The Kingdom of Siam was exposed to European technology and politics. While some Asian
kingdoms, such as Japan, rejected the influence of European powers, Siam used European ideas
to modernize the country. Siam reached its peak under King Mongkut, who ruled from 1851–
1868. King Mongkut helped establish the first newspaper in the kingdom. King Mongkut
also introduced the idea of free trade. Subjects in the kingdom could manufacture their own trade
goods, such as rice or tea, for trade with foreign businesses.

Modern Kingdoms

A few kingdoms are still ruled absolutely by a monarch. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of
Saudi Arabia, King Mswati III of Eswatini, and King Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei are absolute
monarchs. All of these kingdoms have legislatures and sets of laws. The monarch remains the
final authority.

However, most of the kingdoms that exist today are constitutional monarchies. The king or
queen acts as a ceremonial head of state, with public responsibilities such as
promoting tourism and interest in the nation’s history and culture but no real political authority.
Under a constitutional monarchy, the nation is governed by a constitution, or set of laws,
executed by a president or prime minister elected by the country’s citizens. In England, for
example, Queen Elizabeth II is the official head of state—but the nation is governed by a prime
minister and parliament.

The Kingdom of Thailand, formerly the Kingdom of Siam, is an example of a modern kingdom.
The kingdom ended its absolute monarchy in 1932, and today it is a democracy with elected
leaders and courts of law. However, the king of Thailand, Maha Vajiralongkorn, has reigned
since 2016 after the death of his father Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was the longest-serving king in
Thai history. King Adulyadej had tremendous public support and had been known to intervene in
politics. His son seems to be less popular and his role somewhat uncertain. Other modern
kingdoms ruled by a constitutional monarchy include Sweden, Belgium, Japan, and Morocco.

Unit 2: Ethnic Groups

Ethnic Groups
An ethnic group is a distinct category of the population in a larger society whose culture is
usually different from its own. The members of such a group are, or feel themselves, or are
thought to be, bound together by common ties of race or nationality or culture. The nature of an
ethnic group’s relationships with the society as a whole, and with other groups in it, constitutes
one of the main problems in describing and analyzing such societies. As Ruth Benedict said of
race conflict, it is not race that we need to understand, but conflict; so, for an understanding of
ethnic groups in a social system, it is not on racial or cultural differences that we need to focus
our attention, but on group relations.

Historical outline

The existence of distinct ethnic and cultural groups within societies is widespread and ancient
and occurs at most levels of culture, ranging from the Bushmen of the Kalahari, who live within
the framework of Tswana society, to modern Europe and America. Ethnic groups in the Near
East were recorded by Herodotus almost 2,500 years ago and remained a persistent feature of the
Byzantine, the Ottoman, and other Near Eastern empires. Similar situations also occurred in
ancient India and in Chinese civilization at all stages of its expansion.

Although scholars in the past have often noted the existence of multiracial and multicultural
societies, systematic examination of the sociological consequences of the phenomenon did not
begin before the eighteenth century. And then it was principally in connection with the concepts
of race and race relations as developed in the next century by writers such as Gobineau (1853–
1855) and Chamberlain (1899). Linguistic scholars like Sir William Jones, the Grimm brothers,
and Max Miiller not only examined the construction and development of Indo-European
languages but also inadvertently encouraged the growth and elevation of the idea of race as an
ideology and as the most significant index distinguishing culturally different groups from one
another.

Earlier historians, including the writers of the Old Testament, had noted that ethnic groups might
be found in a society as a result of the gradual migration of either whole populations or of
segments, such as religious refugees, traders, craftsmen, or manual laborers. They also observed
that military conquest might bring in its train soldiers and civilians, who either settled
permanently in the area or administered their conquests for a period of years before retiring and
being replaced from the homeland. Or, again, ethnic groups might be incorporated into a society
by altered political boundaries. Sometimes a combination of processes was at work; but however
a multiracial or multicultural system came into existence, the types of society in which ethnic
groups could be found varied as widely as the processes that brought them into being.

Most investigations of ethnic groups have been made in connection with studies of race relations
and stratified societies such as are found in Africa (MacCrone 1937; Patterson 1953), the
southern states of the United States (Dollard 1937), parts of the Caribbean (Smith 1955; 1956),
Central and South America (Freyre 1933), and in the plural societies of former colonial areas of
Asia (Furnivall 1942). Ethnic groups that are not an integral part of a system of over-all social
stratification are also found in countries like Switzerland and Nigeria, where they form units in
the political system which, although perhaps internally stratified, are not ranked in relation to one
another. Other types of multiracial and multicultural situations, as, for example, in northern Laos,
Thailand, Burma, and India, have as yet hardly been examined. Frequently in these countries
adjacent villages, or even sections of one village, may be linguistically and culturally different
and yet be held together in a traditional system of social relations that is not part of the apparatus
of a central government (Leach 1954). Similar conditions have been observed, although seldom
analyzed, in the Indonesian archipelago, New Guinea, and parts of Africa.

Definitions: At this point it would be wise, for the sake of clarity, to make the distinction
between a social group and a social category. By a group, sociologists usually mean an
aggregation of people recruited on clear principles, who are bound to one another by formal,
institutionalized rules and characteristic, informal behavior. Unless a group is to be no more than
a temporary aggregation, it must in addition be organized for cohesion and persistence; that is to
say, the rights and duties of membership must regulate internal order and relations with other
groups. Members usually identify themselves with a group and give it a name. In practice social
groups vary in the degree to which they are corporate; and in certain situations one of the
principal difficulties of analysis may be to decide whether a particular social entity is in fact a
social group or a mere category of the population, such as red-haired people, selected by a
criterion that in the context is socially neutral and that does not prescribe uniform behavior. For
any study of group relations this distinction is essential.

In east Africa, the African, the Arab, the European, and the Indian elements of society are closer
to being categories of the population than social groups. Although, for example, a fully
institutionalized Indian group, recruited from the general category of Indians, is likely to act in
the Indian sphere of life, there is no certainty that it will; relations between the ethnic categories
may therefore become blurred. The sections of an ethnically and culturally divided population
may, according to circumstances, be institutionalized groups related to one another in a system of
stratification, or they may be groups living side by side and related in other ways. Ethnic
divisions may simply be categories of the population, as are Welshmen and Scotsmen living in
England, or Indians, Chinese, and Creoles in Mauritius, who are beginning to lose a sense of
ethnic separateness. It is, therefore, always important to be sure what is the exact sociological
status of an ethnic or cultural division. Clarity in analysis depends upon it.

Ethnic groups in stratified societies

The division of society into broad strata, which form a hierarchy of prestige, wealth, and power,
is a feature common to most societies and is one that has been used for classification. A few
societies, mostly primitive or small in size, may not be stratified; social positions may not be
sufficiently numerous or diverse to be easily grouped into strata or aggregates of individuals
sharing an equivalent status that would differentiate them from members of other similar
aggregates. This is not to say, of course, that statuses in such small societies may not be ranked
but is merely to point out that they do not constitute groups. Sociologists traditionally classify the
types of stratification as caste, estate, or class systems. As ethnic and sub-cultural groups may
form the basis of a system of stratification, a closer examination of the matter is needed.

In any system of social stratification the following apply: (1) Individuals belong to strata that
are groups in the sense that everybody in them shares some obligatory ways of acting that are
typically and intentionally different from those in other strata. (2) Strata must be exclusive, so
that nobody may belong to more than one at the same time. (3) Strata must be exhaustive, so that
everybody in the society belongs to one. (4) Strata must be ranked. In using this criterion,
differential access to political and economic resources is taken to be the most significant aspect
of the ranking. These criteria do not distinguish different types of stratification, any one of which
may be exemplified in a society where ethnic groups are a component element of the system.

Caste groups: One sociological definition of a caste system is that it is a hierarchy of

endogamous groups in which status is rigidly ascribed by birth and in which mobility from one
group to another is not possible. Correct relations between groups are maintained and validated
by religious rules, especially the rule that improper contact between castes produces a state of
impurity that entails ritual, legal, and other penalties.

In this definition no careful distinction is usually made between the four-fold division of Indian
society into castes (varna) and sub-castes (jati). In early literature the varna (priests, soldiers,
businessmen, and laborers) are sometimes described in terms of what appear to be ethnic
differences; but in historical times they have not constituted more than categories of value
against which individuals and members of sub-castes could measure their own and other
people’s prestige. They were not groups, in the sense of imposing duties that were uniform
throughout India. In short, the varna were ranked categories, not stratified groups. Not dissimilar
arrangements are also found in some of the multiracial societies of Africa and the Caribbean.

Empirically, Indian society was made up of many small self-contained caste systems, each of
which was a hierarchy of sub-caste groups. Sub-castes in turn were organized so that social labor
was divided among them. Each sub-caste traditionally held a monopoly of a particular service, so
that all washer-men, for example, although not bound to that occupation, could prevent others
from practicing it. The essence of this division of labor was that it was cooperative and
complementary, not competitive. In these small, closed caste systems relationships between
individuals tended to be multiple in that two individuals could fill a number of roles in relation to
each other. This “summation” or “involution” of roles is an attribute of small-scale and not large-
scale social systems (Nadel 1957, pp. 64–72). The argument may be summarized thus: (1) Caste
groups must be recruited by birth, that is to say, they must be closed. (2) Relationships between
groups must be cooperative, not competitive.

In India sub-castes are not usually separate ethnic or cultural groups, but an understanding of
caste systems is essential in the analysis of society in Iran and parts of the Near East where a
multiplicity of ethnic and cultural groups appears to be organized in small-scale caste systems
(Barth 1960). It is possible, too, that society in certain parts of the southern states of the United
State is similarly arranged (Dollard 1937).

If we are content to say, as are many students, that South Africa and India both exhibit a caste
system, then no further distinctions need be sought. But writers on India do not usually agree that
“color-bar” societies are ipso facto caste systems. Although the population of India was always
very large, society there was characteristically composed of separate small-scale involute caste
systems. South Africa, although less populous, is typical of large-scale Western society where
relationships between roles are usually single-stranded and not the multiple ties of a small-scale
society.

In certain ways the system of closed groups in South Africa is nearer the model of an estate
system than that of a caste or social-class system, but the sociological status of “color-bar”
societies needs to be carefully re-examined. Studies of them have for the most part either used
the concepts of stratification without careful consideration or have directed attention to economic
functions (Boeke 1953) or to attitudes and other psychological concomitants of the existence of
ethnic groups.

Social Class groups: In some places, such as parts of the West Indies, ethnic groups are
regarded as, and may in fact be, social classes. Sociologists generally consider a class to be an
aggregate of people occupying roughly the same status, which is different from that of people in
other classes and which, unlike status in a caste or estate system, allows movement from one
stratum to another. It is never easy to decide to what degree a social class is an institutionalized
group or exactly how it is related to economic and political status and prestige. When some of
the qualifications for membership are also those for belonging to an ethnic category or group, the
difficulties of analysis may become very great indeed. An aggregate of people is not a social
class just because they think of themselves as one; it is a social class because some activities are
obligatory to all or most members and act as a sign that the people form a group and are eligible
for access (appropriately graded according to their class) to resources that are valued by the
society. When these activities are also qualifications for membership of ethnic or cultural groups,
then ethnic and class groups coincide.
The types of stratification that have been mentioned are, of course, models; and a particular
system, whether its constituent elements are ethnic groups or not, may not correspond with the
model. Racial differences used as insignia or badges to mark off groups from one another are not
different in kind from clothing, speech, manners, property, or other cultural emblems that may
serve the same ends. But since physical differences are permanent and may be strikingly visible
and may also carry much emotion, the understanding of societies such as are found in Mexico,
Nigeria, or Kenya has been made difficult by treating them as if they were altogether different
from those more familiar to sociologists. The fact that signs of a special kind are used for
distinguishing groups in multiracial societies does not mean that such societies are radically
different from others.

In a study of early twentieth-century Burma and Netherlands Indonesia, Furnivall argued that
countries in which “there is a plural society, with different sections of the community living side
by side, but separately, within the same political unit” ([1948] 1956, p. 304) were “a distinctive
form of society with a characteristic political and economic constitution” (1942, p. 195). In such
a situation, he believed, members of society are unable to develop the common values and
demands generated by sharing common institutions. Another writer, M. G. Smith, regards
Furnivall’s concepts as essential to comparative sociology, arguing that a plural society is
composed of readily identifiable sections held together only by the fact that they are part of one
central political system. Such sections, it should be noted, are not necessarily ethnic groups. Each
is distinguished by having its own “core” of “basic” or “compulsory” institutions. Social systems
may therefore be placed on a scale ranging from those that are fully plural with distinct sections
fulfilling particular economic, political, religious, or other functions, to homogeneous systems in
which one set of basic institutions is shared by all members (Smith 1960). Models of this kind
have attracted anthropologists, historians, and economists, especially those working in
multiracial or multicultural areas; but most sociologists have found the concept of a basic core of
differentiating institutions even harder to define and handle than the concepts with which they
were more familiar, and they have preferred to rely on older and better tested theories of social
differentiation.

Ethnic groups in non-stratified societies

Not all societies having ethnic groups within their boundaries incorporate them into a unified
system of social stratification, and relations among ethnic groups may (to use a political
metaphor) be more of a “federal” nature than one of ranked access to social resources.

Societies with a single administrative system: In Switzerland or Canada, for instance, cultural
groupings are clearly differentiated and maintained, and each may be separately stratified; but
access to power in the wider society is not limited by either ethnic or cultural origins, nor is it
conditioned by a ranked evaluation of ethnic groupings within the society. In Malaya, too,
although there are distinct ethnic groups, they are not stratified in relation to one another. The
population is divided between Malays and immigrant Chinese and Indians. Constitutionally the
machinery of government is in the hands of people selected by voting. The workings of electoral
procedures and the staffing of the civil service and the armed forces have, in fact, placed most of
the political machinery in the hands of Malays, leaving economic power largely with the
Chinese. This distribution of the different kinds of power, with its open possibilities of real loss
or gain, has tended to consolidate ethnic categories into political parties (Freedman 1960).

In Mexico, on the other hand, ethnic criteria have, on the whole, been abandoned in the
formation of social groups because they no longer mark off differences considered significant.
The people who control political, legal, and economic matters attain their positions without
reference to race, although not without acquiring the dominant Spanish culture. In Thailand, too,
the balance struck between demographic, political, economic, and cultural factors is such that the
dominant Buddhist, Thai-speaking group is able to pursue a policy of assimilating ethnic
minorities. The policy has had a measure of success with Chinese immigrants, but no attempt has
been made to absorb the Muslim, Malay-speaking inhabitants of the southern provinces.

Where ethnic or cultural differences coincide with groups that tenaciously hold different
religious opinions, the relationships of one group to another and to the central government may
become very complex indeed and lead to serious conflict. But the problem is not one peculiar to
ethnically diverse societies. In the sixteenth century, the division of France into Roman Catholic
and Protestant Christians did not make it a plural society, even though some Protestants,
especially in the south, were culturally and linguistically separate. Nor did it mean that groups
that held these different opinions were different in kind from other groups that had been
competing for political power before the religious differences arose.

The point here is an essentially simple one. In any society the immediately effective
determinants of most social action lie in the political, legal, and economic spheres; and whether
or not the main component groups of the society are stratified in relation to one another, an
examination of the social system must be primarily concerned not only with relations between
groups but also more specifically with those between rulers and ruled. The latter problem is an
aspect of the former, but in a society with groups that differ ethnically, whose interests are in fact
opposed to one another, the ensuing conflict may be phrased in racial terms and thus provoke
more bitter hostility than in other struggles of the ruled against their rulers.

Societies without a single administrative system: In the examples considered so far, ethnic or
cultural groups have formed part of an organized administrative and political system.
Understanding the significance and range of such groups and their economic, political, religious,
and cultural importance has revolved around the problem of ascertaining the exact position that
they occupy in the system. In northern Thailand, Burma, and New Guinea, where small ethnic
and cultural groups are dispersed and mingled over a wide area without traditionally being under
the direct control of a single administrative system, it is also necessary to determine their exact
relationship to one another.

A number of such “tribal” groups have been studied, but because anthropological fieldwork
tends toward village studies and because the linguistic difficulties of examining such a
heterogeneous system are very great, students have seldom made the study of the wider system
the main focus of their attention. Groups of this kind appear to be linked to one another in a
network of political, economic, ritual, and marriage alliances about which little information is
available. But here, as in more politically unified systems, the balance struck in one place is
seldom exactly the same as that in another, where the weighting of economic, political, cultural,
and ideological forces may be different. The use of models of the kind that have been discussed
in this article is essential in the analysis of any society; and where useful models do not exist, as
is probable in the study of such tribally mixed areas as those just noticed, then they must be
constructed. But their usefulness must not be misunderstood. It is highly unlikely that any model
will correspond in detail with the complexity and variety of real life, especially that of
multiracial and multicultural societies.

Specialization of ethnic groups

This article is concerned mainly with the theoretical problems of describing and analyzing the
place of ethnic and cultural groups within social systems of different types. Most studies of
societies of this kind have dealt less with theoretical problems than with the consequences of
economic, political, or religious specialization of such groups within the wider society. Often
these consequences are the result of the structural position of the group, but this in turn may be
the result of the specialized tasks that it performs.

When Europeans first began to govern east Africa the difficulties of setting up an administration
and of stimulating the trade needed to produce revenue gave an opening to Indian immigrants,
who were ethnically and culturally very different from the African and Arab inhabitants of the
region. Even where common beliefs in Islam were held, this fact did not submerge ethnic or
cultural differences or the hostility to, and suspicion and fear of, the immigrants, whose interests
as middlemen and skilled workers brought them into conflict with all other ethnic categories of
the population. Such a conflict tends to make a structural alignment even more rigid and to
confirm and perpetuate associated attitudes.

The point can be illustrated in many parts of the world. Studies of Jewish ethnic groups have
long been concerned with the political and other social results of economic specialization and the
ways in which specialized minority groups, once established, are modified and maintained.
Similarly, in all parts of Southeast Asia, economic and political developments have produced
ethnic specialization with a wide range of conflict.

The political consequences of the specialization of ethnic groups by occupation, and therefore of
the kinds of power that they hold in society, is a problem of which all historians of colonial
empires, from that of the Romans and the imperial Chinese to the sixteenth-century Spanish and
the modern Europeans, are well aware. But it is also a problem that needs even closer attention in
postcolonial societies, where, although the structural alignment of groups within them may have
altered, the problems of cultural and ethnic diversity remain.

With the growth of good communications and the spread of travel, ethnically and culturally
diverse societies are likely, in the short term, to increase in number rather than diminish. As the
sociological study of society ceases to be solely a Western discipline, the need to find
appropriate conceptual tools for analyzing ethnic and cultural variation will undoubtedly become
a major preoccupation of the discipline.
Unit 3: Nations
Unit 4: Countries