Physical proximity makes intra-group conflicts more vitriolic than inter-group ones

Evidence

A second reason for the competitive intensity of intra-group contests is the proximity, even intimacy, of the disputants. This awards many intra-group conflicts an immediacy lacking in more segregated inter-group contexts. Segregation may help insulate conflicting communities from one another (Darby, 1986; Kaufmann, 1996). Intra-group conflicts may lack such a conflict-absorbing mechanism and polarize communities, workplaces and even families largely because they occupy the same physical and socio-political space. Violent intra-group feuding is often so bloody simply because targets are so accessible. — Cathy Gormley-Heenan and Roger Macginty, Ethnic Outbidding and Party…, 38

Categorization

• XREF: The proximity-vs-segregation distinction offers a lens relevant to the reader’s cross-identity comparison of outbidding mechanisms.