(no subject)

[teddywolf]

Today I was in my Imperialism class. The discussion went around the pre-modern empires and the notion of tribe. Historical tribe, by my professor's definition, is bound by bonds of blood. He brought up the Jews as the first historical pre-modern empire and, among other things, said that this was based on Jewish tribal notions which had no conversions until the modern era.

I decided I had to speak up at this point. I mentioned we had a strong history of conversions, even though they were less common before the modern era. I brought up Ruth, I brought up the Khazars, and mentioned that a number of converts were notable in our history. He then said, "Then why are you a tribe? You can't be G-d's Chosen People by blood while allowing others to join your tribe, it's not logical." I mentioned the distinction between religiously Jewish and Jewish by birth; he said the notions were still incompatible.

Do bear in mind I like my professor. He makes me think and is academically rigorous.

His definition of tribe is as something immutable, you are born to it or not, or might get forced into it by conflict.

I want to present to him examples of tribes that accepted in outsiders to become "of the tribe". I will be doing some research into this because I want to present it to him - yes, I have been looking. If any of you know of an historical example, off the top of your head, something not involving a marriage or slavery, I would appreciate a pointer. It could be somebody joining a Native American tribe, or brought into a particular African tribe, or a Chinese family, a Germanic village, what-have-you - in fact, the more diverse the better. I want to show that a tribe may have been primarily about blood but also could be something a person chose and, under exceptional circumstances, be accepted into.

Please feel free to signal boost this.

Comments

[thespian.livejournal.com]

Simply (though likely harshly) put, I think he's misinterpreting Morton Fried's work for his own bias. The issue is that if you accept Fried's concept, tribes bond/are created out of kinship. He's making an assumption that kinship MUST equal blood kin (consanguinity), and not sympathetic kinship (affinity), which even in pre-modern times, was simply not the case.

Oddly, I find this is refuted not by historical proof (of which there is plenty, and I suspect if your professor was female, and therefore part of the half of the gender that got swapped around like trading cards by these tribal states to avoid inbreeding, he would recognize more readily). Instead, it's more readily disproved by Dian Fossey, who was accepted, eventually by the mountain gorillas not because of any sort of modern conversion, but instead because eventually, the primate brains recognized her as a benefit to their tribe, and as a result, 'one of us'. That was not a 'modern conversion', but in point recognition that when a group recognizes an advantage to inclusion, they will absorb. It's an instinctual movement, not an intellectual one, as modern conversions are.

The problem isn't the stories that will convert his PoV are not the big showy stories like Ruth...they're the more day to day issues of genetics that pushed for the alliance theory of anthropology (if you interpret Fried's work under the work of Levi-Strauss' usage of kinship, you get a better idea of how blood kinship is often put aside for practical reasons, like not wanting to sleep with your sister).

[thespian.livejournal.com]

uhm. I don't get to talk anthropology much, and I was really into it once.

Just sayin'.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I will ask him about Morton Fried; and I think he might be interested to hear about Dian Fossey, because that sounds like an *excellent* data point. Thank you!