For Europeans, is Tribal identity now supplanted by national identity? See details.?

Question

In Africa there are thousands of tribes. Examples... Mandinka, Wolof, Fula, Jola and so on, In North America, they have the Utes, the Navajo and so on. Asia thousands of tribes, Punjabi, and so on. Australia, Aboriginal tribes. White people, in the past, three such tribes include the Celts, the Goths and the Visigoths. Now, if you ask Europeans and people of European descent living elsewhere, what tribe they belong to, they just look at you.

Can Anthropologists explain this phenomenon? I suspect this had to do with the rise of the nation state in 18th century Europe. Tribes... replaced by nationality?

Answer 1

I don't know if there have ever been tribes in England  Certainly there haven't been if you're going to be pedantic about it, since "England" the nation rather than the land was created around 900.  The angles, saxons and jutes who came to Britain around 400 might have been described as tribes I suppose, but they seemed to merge pretty quickly into separate kingdoms (Mercia, Wessex etc) which I suppose could have been described as tribes, if it wasn't for the fact that they were all part of one larger, anglo-saxon "tribe" which was in itself made up of 3 different "tribes" (the angles, saxons and jutes).  

I suppose it depends on what your definition of a tribe is.

Anyway, all these little kingdoms were made into England by Alfred in about 900.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_...

I think Europe stopped being tribal thousands of years ago.

Answer 2

Interesting question. Indeed, we humans have a natural tendency to form groups and this doesn't appear to be changing with material progress, therefore it is perfectly legitimate looking for the modern equivalent of tribes in our society.

But I think a nation is too a large human group to replace the tribe in our natural mindset. In a nation there are so many persons and so many differences that you can hardly find a reasonable base of shared values, purposes and objectives.

I think that the right group to replace the tribe function in our society is more a medium-size set of neighborhoods, sharing some kind of common pursuit. For instance, a Company, a religious association, a sport club, an interest group, a  small political party, etc. Yes, all these are "tribes" in a functional sense.

Of course, genetics is not an issue here. The requisite to have a tribal identity is to share common values, not common genes. That used to be in ancient times for the merely practical reason that people didn't travel as we do now.

Answer 3

There has been so much intermigling between the people Europe over the centuries due to rise and fall of empires and population displacements as a result, that to a lot of people are a mix, rather than genetically related to one particular "tribe".

Answer 4

In America, we have Southerners, Northerners, Midwesterners, Texans and Californians.

You'd think we were tribal if you'd ever seen the way some of them talk about the others.

(Not to mention the great Democrat v Republican or Conservative v Liberal wars.)

Answer 5

no, ice cream doesnt have wheels; therefore, a computer mouse cannot block the radiation of a paper clip, unless it is a thursday, or the sky isn't not sometimes gray, sometimes.  Otherwise, no, you cannot paddle a garbage can up a rollercoaster, unless you are using a hands-free cellular device.

Answer 6

what happened in the then Yugoslavia shows us that people indentify with their ethnic or religious background  first

in Belgium people identify themselves as Flemish or Walloons, in France some people such as the Bretons or the Basque want a certain degree of autonomy or full independence

Do Albanians, Kosovans, Macedonians etc see themselves as Europeans first and foremost?  My guess is that they don't

A lot of Western people have a fascination with tribal piercings, tattoos and shaman beliefs which rather makes me feel they long for a tribal identity