Modernity and Ethnic Violence in Africa, Asia, and Latin America

Abstract

This chapter examines the link between modernity and ethnic violence by focusing on Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Modernity interacts with and depends on the local social environment, and the social environments present at the onset of modernity varied by region. Two of modernity's most influential social carriers were colonialism and missionaries, whose biases and ulterior motives often promoted forms of modernity that fostered environments conducive to ethnic violence. The chapter first considers how colonialism promotes ethnic violence, with emphasis on how different combinations of insulation, competition, and stratification made possible “a remarkably stable system of [colonial] rule.” This is followed by a discussion of how missionaries contributed to ethnic violence by promoting ethnic consciousness, using Burma, Assam, and Vietnam as examples. The chapter concludes with an analysis of ethnic violence in the Americas.