Globalization and the Erosion of Geo-Ethnic Checkpoints: Evolving Signal-Boundary Systems at the Edge of Chaos

• In Event: 2166 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 5: The Subjectivity of Racial Identity

Abstract

In lieu of identifying “ethnicity” and “race” as discrete bundles of empirically verifiable group characteristics, this research adopts an eco-cybernetic perspective that examines racial and ethnic signals within evolving socio-ecological systems. These signals determine whether the signified—the tagged individual—either passes over or fails to permeate spatially grounded racial-ethnic boundaries. Specifically, the proposed framework applies complexity theory to agro-industrial systems processing racial-ethnic signals in the context of resource extraction. Synthesizing evolutionary, ecological, and cybernetic perspectives, two interrelated hypotheses are formulated. First, if rivalrous resources are inseparable from a specific geo-physical location, ethnic groups pitted in sustained zero-sum (territory-controlling) contests over these resources are subject to potentially racialized cleavages. Within the signal-boundary system, these cleavages are defined as contested boundaries marking ethnic and racial hierarchies. Second, when the signal-boundary system is more evolved (achieving greater complexity), algorithmically-driven non-territorial adaptation will overall diminish these cleavages. Both of these hypotheses suggest that ethnic-racial boundaries do not emerge from inherent qualities of signified entities—i.e. ethnic groups or so-called “races.” Unlike physical or material objects viewed as discrete entities, signals convey information about system dynamics and only derive meaning from the systems that process them.

Author

• Christopher S. Girard, Florida International University