To the manner born

The Strategy Toolkit - April 2022 edition

Excerpt:  Strategy and Ethnicity, part one

An individual is born.  As they grow and are educated, they are nurtured and supported by family and community, developing through this experience a sense of kinship and belonging.  They incorporate in their self-identity some combination of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, culture, nation, religion, or social treatment, typically bounded by some regional or geographic area.  This community, or group, becomes part of who they are.  Some refer to this as their ethnicity, and, depending on where in the world this individual resides, this self-description is one of thousands upon thousands of ethnicities (1300 ethnic groups in Indonesia alone).  And, as we observed in the chapter on strategy & religion, this attribute can be a source of strength and it can be a source of conflict.  It is a social science concept (again, like religion, law and politics) and, as such, lends itself to an exploration of strategy given its importance to power and status between individuals and groups.

            For the purposes of this study, we will use ethnic terminology in common, respectfully accepted use by the groups and members themselves.  These vary by nation, and some groups are multinational in scale and scope.  The existence and definition of inter-group boundaries also vary, with the added note that these can and do change over time (at the individual and the group levels).

            The reason we study strategy and ethnicity is straightforward – some groups appear to survive and thrive, in very interesting ways.  Understanding why deepens our set of strategic insights from which we can create and assess new strategic options.  These insights can be used in beneficial or in harmful ways.  We hope that you, the reader, like us, choose the former, not the latter.