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cognitive maps of the ethnic domain in urban Ghana: reflections on variability and change
Author(s) -
SANJEK ROGER
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1977.4.4.02a00020
Subject(s) - salience (neuroscience) , cognition , ethnic group , population , diversity (politics) , domain (mathematical analysis) , sociology , psychology , geography , social psychology , cognitive psychology , anthropology , demography , mathematical analysis , mathematics , neuroscience
Recent work on cognitive domains has stressed the themes of intracultural variability, “larger cultural informational systems,” the relationships between cognition and behavioral performance, and diachronic change in cognitive organization. These themes are taken up in an analysis of the domain of ethnic identities (“tribes”) among an urban Ghanaian population. It is shown that individual outlooks vary considerably; that few of the many ethnic terms have high salience; that alternative hierarchical and nonhierarchical modes of organization of the domain coexist; that a widely shared implicit structure of language groupings underlies surface diversity; that the domain “tribes” embraces a world‐wide array of ethnic identities; that cognitive salience and structure correspond closely, but not perfectly, with behavioral experience; and that change in cognitive organization may arise both “on the ground” through changing patterns of interethnic relations, and “from above” in state‐sponsored modes of organization of the ethnic domain. Twelve dimensions of cognitive variability that arise in the analysis are recapitulated in conclusion.