Shared arbitrary practices constitute a group’s collective identity

Evidence

Culture, writes anthropologist Marshall Sahlins, consists of “meaningful orders of persons and things.” Conventions explain not only why certain persons do certain things, but the origin of collective meanings and orders. To follow the same arbitrary rules as another individual is to be part of the same “collectivity.” As groups share certain practices, those practices form social bonds. The convention of wearing lederhosen and dirndl defines Bavarians as a people. Debutante balls are a rite of passage for wealthy WASP women. Russians don’t just drink vodka as a stiff tipple—it’s the lifeblood of the nation. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 137

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Sahlins’s ‘meaningful orders of persons and things’ as the essence of culture.
• XREF: connects to: People display originality within group conventions to signal difference safely — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 178; Humans shift collective preferences among arbitrary practices for no practical reason — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 14; Collective identity is a shared place in the social world (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Collective ways of life depend on embodied practice, not just recognition of group identity. #corroborates (0.85) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 868
• Shared spatial and temporal rhythms constitute group identity itself, not just its symbols #corroborates (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1341
• Commoning transforms participants’ identities even as it embeds practices of power and difference #expands (0.74) — Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, Institutional Bricolage and Commoning…, 15
• Collective identity is a shared place in the social world #qualifies (0.72)