Collective violence nearly always activates a we-they boundary from among multiple available identities

Evidence

A significant share of collective violence involves activation and reinforcement of boundaries. Claims to be or represent a certain “we” always identify a boundary separating us from “them,” whoever they are. Any individual or population, however, always has multiple identities—and thus multiple boundaries— available (Tilly 2005d). In India, many of the very same people can on different occasions act together as workers, women, Hindus, Gujaratis, villagers, or members of certain castes. Boundary activation singles out one of these shared identities and its opposition to other identities. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 769

Categorization

• QUESTION: This bears directly on the reader’s asymmetry test: if boundaries are what violence activates and regimes differentially make boundaries available, is the dominant group’s boundary the one whose activation gets institutional legitimacy?
• XREF: Feeds the reader’s question about whether institutional absorption defuses subordinate-group politicization while legitimizing dominant-group ‘rights defense’ as a salience-relevant activation. — connects to: Entrepreneurship, polarization, and rising uncertainty drive violence escalation across a boundary — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 773; Group isolation produces collective misperception and redirected violence against outsiders; Strong social ties also enable exclusion and violence toward outsiders — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 528 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Strong social ties also enable exclusion and violence toward outsiders #exemplifies (0.85) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 528
• Group isolation produces collective misperception and redirected violence against outsiders #expands (0.80)
• Reductive collective labels invent false identities and mobilize murderous conflict #complicates (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 48
• Group violence requires erasing the victim’s concrete individual identity #expands (0.78)