Editing Tribe (section)

==Classification==
Considerable debate has accompanied efforts to define and characterize tribes. In the popular imagination, tribes reflect a primordial social structure from which all subsequent civilizations and states developed. [[Cultural anthropology|Anthropologist]] [[Elman Service]] presented<ref>{{Cite book|title=Primitive social organization : an evolutionary perspective|last=Service, Elman Rogers|date=1962|publisher=Random House|oclc=318447878}}{{page needed|date=February 2020}}</ref> a [[Sociopolitical typology|system of classification]] for societies in all human cultures, based on the evolution of [[social inequality]] and the role of the [[Sovereign state|state]]. This system of classification contains four categories:

* [[Hunter-gatherer]] [[Band society|bands]] that are generally [[egalitarianism|egalitarian]]
* Tribal societies with some limited instances of [[social rank]] and prestige
* [[Social stratification|Stratified]] tribal societies led by [[tribal chief|chieftains]] (see [[Chiefdom]])
* [[Civilization]]s, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments

Tribes are therefore considered to be a political unit formed from an organisation of families (including clans and lineages) based on social or ideological solidarity. Membership of a tribe may be understood as being based on factors such as [[kinship]] ("clan"), [[Ethnic group|ethnicity]] ("race"), language, dwelling place, political group, religious beliefs, [[oral tradition]] and/or [[cultural practice]]s.

[[Archaeology|Archaeologists]] continue to explore the development of pre-state tribes. Current research suggests that tribal structures constituted one type of adaptation to situations providing plentiful yet unpredictable resources. Such structures proved flexible enough to coordinate production and distribution of food in times of scarcity, without limiting or constraining people during times of surplus. [[Cultural Anthropology|Anthropologist]] [[Morton Fried]] argued in 1967 that bands organized into tribes in order to resist the violence and exploitation of early kingdoms and states. He wrote:

{{blockquote|In fact, there is no absolute necessity for a tribal stage as defined by Sahlins and Service, no necessity, that is, for such a stage to appear in the transit from a single settlement with embedded political organization, to a complex-state structured polity. Such a developmental process could have gone on within a unit that we may conceptualize as a city-state, such a unit as Jericho might have become in its later stages … tribalism can be viewed as reaction to the formation of complex political structure rather than a necessary preliminary stage in its evolution.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fried |first=Morton H. |title=The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology |publisher=Random House |year=1967 |location=New York |pages=169–70}}</ref>}}

===Controversy and usage deprecation===
The term "tribe" was in common use in the field of anthropology until the late 1950s and 1960s. The continued use of the term has attracted controversy among anthropologists and other academics active in the [[social science]]s with scholars of [[Anthropology|anthropological]] and [[Ethnohistory|ethnohistorical]] research challenging the utility of the concept. In 1970, anthropologist [[J. Clyde Mitchell]] wrote:

:The tribe, a long respected category of analysis in anthropology, has recently been the object of some scrutiny by anthropologists ... Doubts about the utility of the tribe as an analytical category have almost certainly arisen out of the rapid involvement of peoples, even in the remotest parts of the globe, in political, economic and sometimes direct social relationship with industrial nations. The doubts, however, are based ultimately on the definition and meaning which different scholars give to the term 'tribe', its adjective 'tribal', and its abstract form 'tribalism'.<ref name="MITCHELL-1970-83">Mitchell, Clyde J. (1970). "Tribe and Social Change in South Central Africa: A Situational Approach" in Gutkind, Peter C. W. Editor. ''The Passing of Tribal Man in Africa'', p. 83. [[Brill Publishers|Brill]].</ref>

Despite the membership boundaries for a tribe being conceptually simple, in reality they are often vague and subject to change over time. In his 1975 study, ''The Notion of the Tribe'',  Fried provided numerous examples of tribes that encompassed members who spoke different languages and practiced different rituals, or who shared languages and rituals with members of other tribes.  Similarly, he provided examples of tribes in which people followed different political leaders, or followed the same leaders as members of other tribes.  He concluded that tribes in general are characterized by fluid boundaries, heterogeneity and dynamism, and are not parochial.<ref>Morton H. Fried (1972). ''The Notion of Tribe''.  Cummings Publishing Company{{page needed|date=February 2020}}</ref>

Part of the difficulty with the term is that it seeks to construct and apply a common conceptual framework across diverse cultures and peoples. Different anthropologists studying different peoples therefore draw conflicting conclusions about the nature, structure and practices of tribes. Writing on the Kurdish peoples, anthropologist Martin van Bruinessen argued, "the terms of standard anthropological usage, 'tribe', 'clan' and 'lineage' appear to be a straitjacket that ill fits the social reality of Kurdistan".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Agha, shaikh, and state : the social and political structures of Kurdistan|last=Bruinessen, Martin van|date=1992|publisher=Zed Books|oclc=555395702}}{{page needed|date=February 2020}}</ref>

There are further negative connotations of the term "tribe" that have reduced its use. Writing in 2013, scholar Matthew Ortoleva noted that "like the word ''Indian'', ''[t]ribe'' is a word that has connotations of colonialism."<ref name="ORTOLEVA-2013-95">Ortoleva, Matthew (2013). "We Face East" in Goggin, Peter N. Editor. ''Environmental Rhetoric and Ecologies of Place'', p. 95. [[Routledge]]. {{ISBN|9781135922658}}</ref> [[Survival International]] says "It is important to make the distinction between ''tribal'' and ''indigenous'' because tribal peoples have a special status acknowledged in international law as well as problems in addition to those faced by the wider category of indigenous peoples."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://survivalinternational.org/info/terminology|title = Terminology - Survival International}}</ref>