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Placing Bergne: A Sociological Analysis

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Primordial sentiments may arise from an individual's language, place of birth, a particular religion, culture, or traditions and or rituals, but mainly it is derived from an individual's ethnicity. It is important to know that primordialists believe that each individual is born into a nation or ethnic group. A nation is an entity which has been in existence since the beginning to time. According to primordialist theorists, these feelings of attachment of an individual to their ethnic group provides a foundation for a bond with others of the same or similar racial background or geographic origin. An example of this in real life is when two Japanese exchange students who come from different prefectures meet at the University of …show more content…

[2] Bergne was born in the Belgian Congo and lived in occupied Belgium during World War II. During this time, and in his time doing fieldwork around the world, he was able to experience the ethnic conflict and racism. Placing Bergne's explanation on primordialism can be seen through the lens of sociobiology. He claims that ethnic groups and nations should be seen as forms of extended kin groups. He even refers to early ethnic groups as 'inbreeding superfamilies' (Smith 147), and states that genetic 'relatedness' is the determining factor of human cooperation. The question that comes up from this way of thinking is how humans can differentiate between their own kin and the others. The answer that Bergne gives is that humans use cultural markers to identify blood and 'others'. These markers may include language, religion, customs, dress, mannerisms, or …show more content…

Often in many societies, superficial qualities such as the color of one's skin, hair or eyes, and other physical qualities reinforce the common belief of common ancestry. This may be reinforced by a common culture, enemy, or language, these are some of the strongest factors which define a group's identity. These common factors reinforce each other over several generations, and a myth of the race is created. A notable example is the Ancient Romans. Despite being the product of several tribes coming together in the early days of their civilization, they developed the creation myth of Romulus and Remus, which they could use to explain their beginnings of a race despite the fact this story probably didn't happen. However, after several generations, there were 'Romans' who looked a certain way, spoke a specific language, and had a unique culture, and more importantly, the myth or Romulus and Remus were held as the true origin of their civilization. The Romans became a powerful ethnic group which was the regional power for centuries because they were able to create an ethos of their own ethnic group to motivate Romans to fight, kill and die for their cause. Primordialism would look at the Romans and state that the external appearances as well as their shared history, and language is what made the Romans, Romans. This is the strength of the

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The Romans emerged from Italy and formed their culture that can find its roots among an array of native tribes and Greek colonies that populated Italy. There are two parts of the foundation of a Roman’s identity that stemmed from the cultural influences that produced the Romans, their culture and their ideals. The first component of the foundation of the Roman identity is the usage and the incorporation of others’ myths into their own etiological myth. The second part stems from these myths that made the Romans believe that their existence and success was the result of fate. By looking into Virgil’s Aeneid and Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline one can see that this two-part foundation produced a society and people that embodied this idea that they were the best parts of all the cultures

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Experiences with people, places and/or things, shape and affect an individuals choices, either to strengthen or break connections and relationships. Through past and new memories and experiences, we are able to reflect, assess and explore our owns concept of connections. There are however, obstacles and barriers one must meet to fully understand our selves and the complicated world of connections and belongingness. The environment or culture we are exposed in since we were infants for instance, greatly affects our identity- behaviour, values and actions- as we get older. Imagine two people from different countries, one grew up in Cambodia and the other grew up in the US.

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In ancient history Romans have always been the dominant force that would build itself back up and strengthen into a major civilization for hundreds of years to come. Although, what a lot of people don’t know is how the Romans initially began or perceived to be created as a people that was born from mythological stories that tied into their own culture at the time. Titus Livius (Livy) was an historian that wrote many books on the history of Rome, but today we will only go through an English translation from 1919 of Livy’ first book. We will be discussing what happened (what was written down as the origin of Rome), some interesting points in the text, and analyze the way Livy wrote/structured his work. Let’s start with a summary of what the book is about.

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