Groupism is a theoretical approach in sociology that posits that conformity to the laws/norms of a group such as family, kinship, race, ethnicity, religion and nationality brings reciprocal benefits such as recognition, right, power and security. It is the principle that a person's primary or prioritised identity is that of membership in a social network. Groupists assume that individuals in a group tend to have stronger affinity and obligation to a particular group when the influence of an authority figure brings a common goal. The concept of groupism can be defined and criticized in varied ways for disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, anthropology, political history and philosophy. Group-ism is defined in most dictionaries as the behavior of a member of a group where they think and act as the group norm at the expense of individualism. The term originated around mid 19th century and the first known use of the word recorded was in 1851. It is a general definition often used in Indian English as the tendency to form factions in a system setting. The term had also been used for "the principles or practices of Oxford Group movement" which is now historical and rare.
Perspectives: criticism
Social groupism "The tendency to take discrete, sharply differentiated, internally homogeneous and externally bounded groups as basic constituents of social life, chief protagonists of social conflicts, and fundamental units of social analysis" Groupism has been a deeply entrenched and fundamental aspect of social analysis of nationalism, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexuality, age, class or even groups with combination of these categories but with a common interest in other universal categories like sports, music and values. It is commonly seen on everyday context in media reports and even academic research leading to policy analysis. According to Brubaker, it is the view that division among humans such as ethnicity is an absolute, unchanging entity rather than a changing conceptual variable subject to time and context. It is the tendency to take discrete groups as chief protagonists of social conflicts, to reify such groups as if they were unitary collective actors. It is considered a "process in which individuals are reduced to specific group characteristic which are politicised as boundaries". Conceptual groupism involves essentialising groups without taking into account that such habit of giving groups performative character taken into account in ethnopolitical conflict analysis could lead to intentional/unintentional framing of conflict between groups. In the example of ethnic groups, it involves viewing an individual in the group as the collective representative of the values or conflicts associated with the social norm of that group. American sociologist Rogers Brubaker has criticised conceptual groupism for its stereotypical approach in social and political analysis which leads to decisions that trivialize individual need to protect the labelled collective interest of a political group or institution. Brubaker suggests that instead of taking "groups" as substantial entities, social and political analysis of the "groupness" should be brought about in terms of political, social, cultural and psychological processes listed below
Distinguishing practical categories and groups Group making as a sociopolitical and cultural project From categories to cognitive schema Discursive frames Organizational routines Institutional forms Political projects Contingent events According to Norwegian anthropologist Fredric Barth, ethnicity, race and nationality categories are a matter of factors such as self identification/external categorisation, at individual/institutional level or formal/ informal context. Research on how ethnic, racial and national groups are classified and categorised began through studies on the colonial and post colonial societies. Brubaker suggests that there should be a focus on categories so that ethnicity, race and nationhood can co exist without ethnic 'groups' as separate entities as transforming groups into categories reduces the extent to which misleading political and legal analysis based on groupism turns to a framed reality.
Legal groupism Legal groupism is the construction of groups in legal matter as defined by the German legal scholar Susanne Baer. Legal groupism also posits that equal right should be given to groups hence assuming that people always belong to a "distinguishable" group rather than many. This concept is regarded as problematic because most groups have unclear and shifting boundaries due to individuals living multiple identities and group characteristics. Therefore, Legal groupism come into conflict with the idea of individual rights when human rights issues are constructed as group issues in law and complete autonomy given to major religious institution in the name of religious freedom then curtail individual human right issues. For example, when constitutional law allows churches and religious communities to self determine matters conflicting with human rights without considering the rights of diverse individuals within a seemingly homogeneous group, such overlapping between human rights and religion has led to lack of legal intervention in matters like sexual discrimination. For example, religious authority power to internally handle child abuse cases, the European Union's exemption of religious organisation from fundamental rights in the EU proposal for a new Directive against discrimination 2008.
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