Wimmer, who provides the most advanced version of the boundary-making approach in more recent literature on ethnicity and nationalism, defines its main features as follows:
[In the boundary-making approach] ethnic distinctions result from marking and maintaining a boundary irrespective of the cultural differences observed from the outside.… Researchers would no longer study “the culture” of ethnic group A or B, but rather how the ethnic boundary between A and B [is] inscribed onto a landscape of continuous cultural transitions. Ethnicity [would be] no longer synonymous with objectively defined cultures, but rather [would refer] to the subjective ways in which actors [mark] group boundaries by pointing to the specific diacritics that [distinguish] them from ethnic others. (2013, 22–23)
Thus, focusing on the role of intergroup processes and dynamics in the social construction (production and reproduction) of ethnic boundaries and so in ethnic-group formation, this approach provides a dynamic, practical, processual, and situational understanding of ethnicity and nationhood (Brubaker 2009). Therefore, this perspective treats ethnic or national boundaries as “fluid, policed, crossable, movable” (Lamont 2014, 815; see also Wallman 1978; Lamont 2000; Eriksen 2010). Sharing the Barthian framework, Wallman (quoted in R. Jenkins 1986, 175), for instance, notes that “ethnicity is the process by which ‘their’ difference is used to enhance the sense of ‘us’ for purposes of organization or identification.… Because it takes two, ethnicity can only happen at the boundary of ‘us,’ in contact or confrontation or by contract with ‘them.’ And as the sense of ‘us’ changes, so the boundary between ‘us’ and ‘them’ shifts. Not only does the boundary shift, but the criteria which mark it change” (see also Esman 1994; Terrier 2015).
The Notion of Boundary
Before going further, some discussion on the key term of this approach (i.e., the notion of boundary) will be useful. A boundary refers to “simultaneously where something stops and something else begins, and something that indicates where something stops and something else begins” (R. Jenkins 2015, 13–14). For Conversi (1999, 564), “The point of contact between different others, the domain—imaginary or real—where in-group and out-group meet and face each other is called boundary” (see also Wallman 1978, 206). Quite importantly, Conversi (1999, 564) warns against the interchangeable use of the terms boundary and border by noting, “the latter may simply refer to a line drawn between two spaces, whereas the former may be used to stress the binding quality of what, and who, is included on this side of the fence.”2
Boundaries serve key functions in sociopolitical life. As Tilly (2005, 133) suggests, social boundaries “interrupt, divide, circumscribe, or segregate distributions of population or activity within social fields.” Likewise, Conversi also lists several functions of social boundaries. A boundary, for Conversi (1999, 565),
does not simply refer to the outward-looking practice of delimitation, but also to the inward-looking process of self-definition. A boundary can encircle, enclose, contour, and outline, as well as frame, fix, set, assign, and establish. In other words, boundaries are made to bind.… And, although a boundary may be an hindrance or a barrier, it is also a tie and a connective liaison, its metaphorical next of kin being the bridge. Boundaries circumscribe separate realms, as well as delimit and mark out distinct values, behaviours, and laws. Their restrictive and exclusive power is compensated by their inclusive character vis-à-vis what and who lies within the boundary. Boundaries are normative insofar as they have the power to restrict, prescribe, and proscribe.
As this quotation also implies, other than separating in-group members from out-group members, boundaries also divide “the meanings that are attached to the identities on either side” (Cornell and Hartmann 2007, 84). In brief, the notion of boundary in this study does not refer to territorial, physical borders but rather to ideational, symbolic, and social structures, which “enclose, mark, and signal” belonging to an ethnic category or movement (Conversi 1999, 553).3
Symbolic and Social Boundaries
The boundary approach conceives ethnicity as an intangible, imagined, cognitive boundary with two main aspects or dimensions: symbolic and social (Lamont and Molnár 2002; Alba 2005, 22). Lamont and Molnár (2002, 168) define symbolic boundaries as “conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and space. They are tools by which individuals and groups struggle over and come to agree upon definitions of reality.… Symbolic boundaries also separate people into groups and generate feelings of similarity and group membership” (emphasis added). Social boundaries, on the other hand, are conceptualized as “objectified forms of social differences manifested in unequal access to and unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial) and social opportunities” (Lamont and Molnár 2002, 168; emphasis added). The authors suggest that the former operates at the intersubjective level and the latter concerns groupings of individuals.4 These definitions imply that symbolic boundaries are more about the subjective, ideational components of an ethnic category (the ideas, values, norms, and/or symbols that constitute a particular ethnicity) because social boundaries are related to relatively more objective social interactions and encounters, such as the inclusion and exclusion of actors (who should belong to an ethnic group or movement, who is an in-group member, who is an out-group member).5 It is emphasized that both of these aspects are real, substantially shaping sociopolitical processes and outcomes (see also Fuller 2003).
As indicated previously, the earlier version of the boundary approach was more concerned with the impact of interactions and transactions on social boundaries, neglecting symbolic boundaries (i.e., the cultural content of ethnic categories). For instance, separating symbolic and social boundaries from each other, Barth (1969b, 15) suggests that the focus of investigation should be on “the ethnic boundary that defines the group” rather than “the cultural stuff that it encloses.”6 Thus, earlier versions of the boundary approach focused on “what goes on at the boundary” rather than “what is inside the boundary” (R. Jenkins 2015, 15). In other words, for the boundary approach, we should study the boundaries of ethnic groups from “the outside in” rather than “from the inside out” (Conforti 2015, 142). It was believed that developments and social interactions at and across boundaries have determining impacts on internal structures and dynamics (i.e., the cultural content of ethnic identity). Thus, in such an account, the “cultural stuff” becomes “an effect and not a cause of boundaries” (Eriksen 2010, 46). As R. Jenkins (2008, 13) observes, “Shared culture is, in this model, best understood as generated in and by processes of ethnic boundary maintenance, rather than the other way round: the production and reproduction of difference vis-à-vis external others is what creates the image of similarity internally, vis-à-vis each other” (see also Wallman 1978).
This orientation (i.e., focusing on social boundaries rather than ethnic substance or cultural contents), however, constitutes a major limitation. It makes sense to treat social boundaries and cultural content as analytically distinct dimensions of ethnic categories or movements; however, it is problematic to assume and focus on only a one-way relationship between them. Since shifts in symbolic boundaries (i.e., the substance and content of ethnicity) also directly affect social boundaries (see also Conversi 1995; R. Jenkins 2008), it is more realistic to assume a constant, mutual interplay between the symbolic and social boundaries. In other words, what goes on within the boundary also affects what goes on at and outside the boundary. As Jackson (2015b, 193) also notes, “The cultural content demarcated by different boundaries is manipulated and politicized in diverse ways and across contexts, in order to maximize, or in some cases reduce, the distinctiveness between different population categories.”
Given such a limitation of the earlier versions of the boundary approach (i.e., the tendency