Neotribalism

Neotribalism (also neo-tribalism or modern tribalism) is a sociological concept which postulates that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constituting new tribes.

This article is about the sociological concept of neotribalism and not the reemergence of ethnic identities that followed the end of the Cold War.

Sociological theory

French sociologist Michel Maffesoli was perhaps the first to use the term neotribalism in a scholarly context. Maffesoli predicted that as the culture and institutions of modernism declined, societies would embrace nostalgia and look to the organizational principles of the distant past for guidance, and that therefore the post-modern era would be the era of neotribalism.[1]

Work by researchers such as American political scientist Robert D. Putnam and a 2006 study by McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Brasiers published in the American Sociological Review seem to support at least the more moderate neotribalist arguments.[2]

See also

• Anarcho-primitivism
• Communalism
• Evolutionary psychology
• Kinism
• National anarchism
• Neofascism
• Tribalism

References

1. Maffesoli, Michel (1996). The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London: Sage.
2. McPherson, M.; Smith-Lovin, L.; Brashears, M. E. (2006). "Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades". American Sociological Review. 71 (3): 353–75. doi:10.1177/000312240607100301.