Ecological Theory and Ethnic Differentiation Among Human Populations [and Comments and Replies]

Abstract

The formation and maintenance of distinct ethnic populations within multiethnic communities is proposed to be functionally equivalent to the process of species diversification in multispecies communities. This paper suggests that while these processes operate through different selective mechanisms-one social and the other genetic-ethnic boundaries, like species boundaries, function to regulate the behavior of potentially competing populations in relation to each other and to available resources. The similarities between these two boundary-formation processes are defined and explored in an attempt to place a traditional anthropological concern within a broader theoretical perspective.