Middleman minority
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.
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
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,
Examples
- In Africa
- Indians in East Africa[4]
- Igbos in Nigeria
- In South Asia
- In North America
- Chinese Americans[5]
- Japanese Americans[6]
- Korean Americans[7]
- Greek Americans[4]
- Lebanese Americans[4]
- In South America
- Japanese in South America[4]
- Lebanese in South America[8]
- 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".[9]
- In West Asia
- Armenian
- Armenians in the Ottoman Empire[14][15]
- Armenians in Baku during the Russian Empire[16]
- Persian Armenians in Safavid dynasty[17][full citation needed] [14]
- Armenian Americans[4]
- Azerbaijani
- Azerbaijanis during the Imperial era of Iran (16th–20th centuries)[18]
- Azerbaijanis in the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire[18]
- Azerbaijanis in contemporary Iran[18]
- Azerbaijanis in contemporary Russia[19][18]
- Jewish
- American Jews[4]
- European Jews[4]
- Ottoman Jews[4]
- Radhanite Jews[citation needed]
- Elsewhere
- Chinese in Southeast Asia[4]
- Chinese and Vietnamese in Russia and Eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union[20]
See also
- 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
- S2CID 158296209.
- ^ Douglas, Karen Manges; Saenz, Rogelio. "Middleman Minorities" (PDF). International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (2nd ed.). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2010-06-22.
- ^ Hoover Press.
- ^ JSTOR 2094409.
- ^ "The Chinese in America: A Narrative History"
- ^ "Japanese Americans: The Development of a Middleman Minority"
- ^ "The Middleman Minority Characteristics Of Korean Immigrants In The United States"
- ^ Essays on Twentieth-Century History p.44
- JSTOR 1007473
- ISBN 978-0-19-829388-0. Archivedfrom the original on 10 March 2021. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
- OCLC 53226033.
- JSTOR 1596090.
- OCLC 732958389.
- ^ a b Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks & White Liberals; about the book: Black Rednecks and White Liberals
- ISBN 978-0-19-927356-0.
- Suny, Ronald Grigor. "Eastern Armenians Under Tsarist Rule" in The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997, p. 125.
- ^ Blow; p. 213.
- ^ ISBN 9780521522458. Archivedfrom the original on 2021-12-02.
- ^ Braux, Adeline (3 December 2013). "Azerbaijani Migrants in Russia" (PDF). Caucasus Analytical Digest. 57 (5): 5–7.
- ISBN 9781134063819.
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.
- Cobas, José A. (Apr 1987). "Ethnic enclaves and middleman minorities: alternative strategies of immigrant adaptation?". Sociol Perspect. 30 (2): 143–61. S2CID 28038205.
- Pál Nyíri, Chinese in Eastern Europe and Russia: A Middleman Minority in a Transnational Era, 2007, ISBN 0415446864