middleman minority
{{Short description|Minority whose main occupations link producers and consumers}}
A middleman minority is a minority population whose main occupations link producers and consumers: traders, money-lenders, etc. A middleman minority, while possibly suffering discrimination and bullying, does not hold an "extreme subordinate" status in society.{{cite journal|title=Middleman Minority Concept: Its Explanatory Value in the Case of the Japanese in California Agriculture|first=David J.|last=O'Brien|author2=Stephen S. Fugita|journal=The Pacific Sociological Review|volume=25|issue=2|date=April 1982|pages=185–204|publisher=University of California Press|jstor=1388723|doi=10.2307/1388723|s2cid=158296209}} The "middleman minority" concept was developed by sociologists Hubert Blalock and Edna Bonacich starting in the 1960s but is also used by political scientists and economists. This idea was further developed by American economist Thomas Sowell.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://www.shsu.edu/~kmd007/documents/WinFSHD2Userskmd007ArticlesMiddlemenMinorities.pdf |title=International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences |edition=2nd |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100622002756/https://www.shsu.edu/~kmd007/documents/WinFSHD2Userskmd007ArticlesMiddlemenMinorities.pdf |archive-date=2010-06-22 |chapter=Middleman Minorities |first1=Karen Manges |last1=Douglas |first2=Rogelio |last2=Saenz }}
Overview
There are numerous examples of such groups gaining eventual prosperity in their adopted country despite discrimination. Often, they will take on roles between producer and consumer, such as trading and moneylending. Famous examples such as Jews throughout Europe even at times when discrimination against them was high, Chinese throughout Southeast Asia and North America, Muslims and Parsis in India, Igbos in Nigeria, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, and many others.{{cite journal|title=Is Anti-Semitism Generic?|first =Thomas|last=Sowell|journal=Hoover Digest|volume=2005|issue=3|publisher=Hoover Press|url=http://www.hoover.org/research/anti-semitism-generic|year=2005}}
Middleman minorities usually provide an economic benefit to communities and nations and often start new industries. However, their economic aptitude, financial success and clannishness, combined with social prejudices by other groups against businesses and moneylending, can cause resentment among the native population of a country. Middleman minorities can be victims of racist violence, terrorists, bullying, genocide, racialist policy, or other forms of repression. Other ethnic groups often accuse them of plotting conspiracies against their nation or of stealing wealth from the native population.
Examples
; In Africa
- Indians in East Africa
- Igbos in Nigeria
- Syrians and Lebanese in West Africa
; In South Asia
- Kashmiri Pandits in India
- Parsis in India
; In North America
- Chinese Americans{{Cite book |last=Chang |first=Iris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1a7gXiXnKF0C&dq=Middleman++%22chinese+americans%22&pg=PT9 |title=The Chinese in America: A Narrative History |date=2004-03-30 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-101-12687-5 |language=en}}
- Japanese Americans{{Cite journal |last=Kitano |first=Harry H. L. |date=1974 |title=Japanese Americans: The Development of a Middleman Minority |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3638430 |journal=Pacific Historical Review |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=500–519 |doi=10.2307/3638430 |jstor=3638430 |issn=0030-8684}}
- Korean Americans{{Cite journal |last1=Min |first1=Pyong-Gap |last2=Kolodny |first2=Andrew |date=1994 |title=The Middleman Minority Characteristics of Korean Immigrants in the United States |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43783305 |journal=Korea Journal of Population and Development |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=179–202 |jstor=43783305 |issn=1225-3804}}
- Greek Americans
- Lebanese Americans
; In South America
- Japanese in South America
- Lebanese in South America[https://books.google.com/books?id=mQovr42wLOwC&q=Essays+on+Twentieth-Century+History Essays on Twentieth-Century History p.44]
- The majority of the 19th and early 20th centuries Middle Eastern immigrants to Brazil (Lebanese, Syrians, etc., collectively called "arabes" or "turcos", the latter term because they came from the Ottoman Empire) were peddlers, merchants and other types of non-"producers".Jeffrey Lesser, "(Re) Creating Ethnicity: Middle Eastern Immigration to Brazil", The Americas Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jul., 1996), pp. 45-65 {{JSTOR|1007473}}
; In West Asia
- Ottoman Greeks
- Arab Christians in the Arab world{{cite book|last=Pacini|first=Andrea|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KMfYAAAAMAAJ|title=Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1998|isbn=978-0-19-829388-0|pages=38, 55|access-date=21 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310101859/https://books.google.com/books?id=KMfYAAAAMAAJ|archive-date=10 March 2021|url-status=live}}
- Hadhramis{{Cite book|title=On the edge of empire: Hadhramawt, emigration, and the Indian Ocean, 1880s-1930s|last=Boxberger|first=Linda|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2002|isbn=9780791452172|issn=2472-954X|oclc=53226033}}{{Cite journal|last=Freitag|first=Ulrike|date=1999|title=Hadhramaut: A Religious Centre for the Indian Ocean in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries?|jstor=1596090|journal=Studia Islamica|issue=89|pages=165–183|doi=10.2307/1596090}}{{Cite book|title=The Hadrami diaspora: Community-building on the Indian Ocean rim|last=Manger|first=Leif|publisher=Berghahn Books|year=2010|isbn=9781845459789|oclc=732958389}}
; Armenian
- Armenians in the Ottoman EmpireThomas Sowell, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cgSqA0vGpcoC&q=Black+Rednecks+%26+White+Liberals Black Rednecks & White Liberals]; about the book: Black Rednecks and White Liberals{{cite book |last1=Bloxham |first1=Donald|author-link=Donald Bloxham |title=The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians|title-link=The Great Game of Genocide |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-927356-0 |language=en|page=8-9}}
- Armenians in Baku during the Russian Empire{{Cite book |last=Hovannisian |first=Richard G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s2ByErk19DAC&pg=PA125 |title=The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century |date=2004-01-17 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4039-6422-9 |pages=127 |language=en}}
- Persian Armenians in Safavid dynastyBlow; p. 213.{{Full citation needed |date=December 2021}}
- Armenian Americans
; Azerbaijani
- Azerbaijanis during the Imperial era of Iran (16th–20th centuries){{cite book|last1=Swietochowski|first1=Tadeusz|author-link = Tadeusz Swietochowski|title=Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of a National Identity in a Muslim Community|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=1985|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cozSOSsv7ZsC&pg=PA22 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20211202211519/https://books.google.com/books?id=cozSOSsv7ZsC&pg=PA22%23v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=2021-12-02 |isbn=9780521522458}} and in contemporary Iran
- Azerbaijanis in the Tsardom of Russia, in the Russian Empire and in contemporary Russia{{cite journal|last1=Braux|first1=Adeline|title=Azerbaijani Migrants in Russia|journal=Caucasus Analytical Digest|date=3 December 2013|volume=57|issue=5|pages=5–7|url=http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/pdfs/CAD-57-5-7.pdf}}
; Jewish
- American Jews{{Cite journal|last=Bonacich|first=Edna|journal=American Sociological Review|publisher=American Sociological Association|volume=38|issue=5|pages=583–594|jstor=2094409|title=A Theory of Middleman Minorities|date=October 1973 |doi=10.2307/2094409}}
- European Jews
- Ottoman Jews
- Radhanite Jews{{citation needed|date=May 2018}}
; Elsewhere
- Chinese in Southeast Asia
- Chinese and Vietnamese in Russia and Eastern Europe since the fall of Communism and collapse of the Soviet Union{{cite book |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290738169 |url-access=limited |first=N. |last=Pál |date=October 2007 |title=Chinese in Eastern Europe and Russia: A Middleman Minority in a Transnational Era |doi=10.4324/9780203933961 |isbn=9781134063819 }}
See also
- Colonialism, particularly exploitation colonialism and plantation colonies
- Dominant minority
- Market-dominant minority
- Minoritarianism
- Model minority
- Neocolonialism
- World on Fire (book)
- Yuri Slezkine's book The Jewish Century (2004) discussed the concept of "Mercurian" people "specializ[ing] exclusively in providing services to the surrounding food-producing societies," which are characterized as "Apollonians"
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- Silverman, Robert Mark. 2000. Doing Business in Minority Markets: Black and Korean Entrepreneurs in Chicago’s Ethnic Beauty Aids Industry. New York: Garland Publishing.
- {{cite journal | pmid = 12315137 | volume=30 | issue=2 | title=Ethnic enclaves and middleman minorities: alternative strategies of immigrant adaptation? | date=Apr 1987 | journal=Sociol Perspect | pages=143–61 | doi=10.2307/1388996| jstor=1388996 | last1=Cobas | first1=José A. | s2cid=28038205 }}
- Pál Nyíri, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Zu3POdhC0yIC&q=Middleman+Minority Chinese in Eastern Europe and Russia: A Middleman Minority in a Transnational Era], 2007, {{ISBN|0415446864}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Middleman Minority}}
Category:Sociological terminology