Middleman minority

A middleman minority is a minority population whose main occupations link producers and consumers: traders, money-lenders, service providers, etc. This often results in the minority having a disproportionately large role in trade, finance or commerce, without holding the significant political power associated with a dominant minority.

A middleman minority does not hold an "extreme subordinate" status in society, ^[1] but may suffer discrimination and bullying for being perceived as outsiders to both elite and majority populations. ^[2] Middleman minorities are more likely to emerge in stratified or colonial societies, where significant power gaps may exist between dominant elites and subordinate consumers, thereby fulfilling a niche within the economic status gap. ^[1]

Middleman minorities often are associated with stereotypes of greed or clannishness. ^[3] During periods of economic or political instability, middleman minorities often arouse the hostility of their host society or are used as scapegoats, which has been theorized by Bonacich to perpetuate a reluctance to assimilate completely. ^[4] Economic nationalism or exclusion from gainful employment can further reinforce tendencies to start businesses or create new economic value outside of existing value chains. ^{[5] [6]}

The "middleman minority" concept was developed by sociologists Hubert Blalock and Edna Bonacich in the 1960s and by following political scientists and economists. ^[7]

Examples

In Africa

• Indians in East Africa, especially British Commonwealth countries ^[4]
  • Indians in Uganda
  • Indians in Kenya
  • Indians in Tanzania
• Igbos in Nigeria
• Syrians and Lebanese in West Africa ^[4]

In South Asia

• Kashmiri Pandits in India ^[4]
• Gujaratis in India ^[4]
• Marwaris in India
• Parsis in India ^[4]
• Bohras in India

In North America

• Jewish Americans ^[4]
• Armenian Americans ^[4]
• Indian Americans
• Japanese Americans ^[8]
• Korean Americans ^[9]
• Chinese Americans ^[10]
  • Chinese Americans in the Mississippi Delta ^[11]
• Greek Americans ^[4]
• Lebanese Americans ^[4]

In South America

• Japanese in South America ^[4]
• Lebanese in South America ^[12]
• 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". ^[13]

In West Asia

• Ottoman Greeks ^[4]
• Arab Christians in the Arab world ^[14]
• Hadhramis ^{[15] [16] [17]}
• Armenians in the Ottoman Empire ^[18]
• Armenians in Baku during the Russian Empire ^[19]
• Persian Armenians in Safavid dynasty ^{[20] [ full citation needed ]}
• Azerbaijanis during the Imperial era of Iran (16th–20th centuries) ^[21] and in contemporary Iran ^[21]
• Azerbaijanis in the Tsardom of Russia, in the Russian Empire ^[21] and in contemporary Russia ^{[22] [21]}
• Ottoman Jews ^[4]
• Radhanite Jews ^[23]

Elsewhere

• Chinese in Southeast Asia ^[4]
  • Chinese Filipinos ^[24]
  • Thai Chinese
  • Chinese Indonesians
  • Malaysian Chinese
  • Peranakan Chinese
• Indians in Southeast Asia.
• European Jews ^[4]

See also

• Colonialism, particularly exploitation colonialism and plantation colonies
• Dominant minority
• Minoritarianism
• Model minority
• Neocolonialism
• World on Fire , which discusses the similar concept of "market-dominant minorities"
• 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

1. Johnson, Vernon D. (2022-12-30). "Indian South Africans as a middleman minority: Historical and contemporary perspectives". New Contree. 89: 24. doi: 10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/03 . ISSN   2959-510X.
2. O'Brien, David J.; Stephen S. Fugita (April 1982). "Middleman Minority Concept: Its Explanatory Value in the Case of the Japanese in California Agriculture". The Pacific Sociological Review. 25 (2). University of California Press: 185–204. doi:10.2307/1388723. JSTOR   1388723. S2CID   158296209.
3. Min, Pyong Gap (2013). "Middleman entrepreneurs". Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies (1st ed.). Routledge. pp. 161–168. ISBN   9780203863299.
4. Bonacich, Edna (October 1973). "A Theory of Middleman Minorities". American Sociological Review . 38 (5). American Sociological Association: 583–594. doi:10.2307/2094409. JSTOR   2094409.
5. Johnson, Vernon D. (2022-12-30). "Indian South Africans as a middleman minority: Historical and contemporary perspectives". New Contree. 89: 24. doi: 10.54146/newcontree/2022/89/03 . ISSN   2959-510X.
6. Haq, Muhibul; Johanson, Martin; Davies, Julie; Ng, Wilson; Dana, Léo-Paul (2024-07-03). "Bourdieusian and resource-based perspectives on ethnic minority microbusinesses: The construction of a culture-induced entrepreneurship model". Journal of Small Business Management. 62 (4): 1982–2015. doi:10.1080/00472778.2023.2192760. ISSN   0047-2778.
7. 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.
8. Kitano, Harry H. L. (1974). "Japanese Americans: The Development of a Middleman Minority". Pacific Historical Review. 43 (4): 500–519. doi:10.2307/3638430. ISSN   0030-8684. JSTOR   3638430.
9. Min, Pyong-Gap; Kolodny, Andrew (1994). "The Middleman Minority Characteristics of Korean Immigrants in the United States". Korea Journal of Population and Development. 23 (2): 179–202. ISSN   1225-3804. JSTOR   43783305. PMID   12288772.
10. Chang, Iris (2004-03-30). The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Penguin. ISBN   978-1-101-12687-5.
11. Banh, Jenny (2019-07-01). ""I Have an Accent in Every Language I Speak!": Shadow History of One Chinese Family's Multigenerational Transnational Migrations". Genealogy. 3 (3): 36. doi: 10.3390/genealogy3030036 . ISSN   2313-5778.
12. Essays on Twentieth-Century History p.44
13. Jeffrey Lesser, "(Re) Creating Ethnicity: Middle Eastern Immigration to Brazil", The Americas Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jul., 1996), pp. 45-65 JSTOR   1007473
14. Pacini, Andrea (1998). Christian Communities in the Arab Middle East: The Challenge of the Future. Clarendon Press. pp. 38, 55. ISBN   978-0-19-829388-0. Archived from the original on 10 March 2021. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
15. Boxberger, Linda (2002). On the edge of empire: Hadhramawt, emigration, and the Indian Ocean, 1880s-1930s. SUNY Press. ISBN   9780791452172. ISSN   2472-954X. OCLC   53226033.
16. Freitag, Ulrike (1999). "Hadhramaut: A Religious Centre for the Indian Ocean in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries?". Studia Islamica (89): 165–183. doi:10.2307/1596090. JSTOR   1596090.
17. Manger, Leif (2010). The Hadrami diaspora: Community-building on the Indian Ocean rim. Berghahn Books. ISBN   9781845459789. OCLC   732958389.
18. Bloxham, Donald (2005). The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. Oxford University Press. p. 8-9. ISBN   978-0-19-927356-0.
19. Hovannisian, Richard G. (2004-01-17). The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times, Volume II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 127. ISBN   978-1-4039-6422-9.
20. Blow; p. 213.
21. Swietochowski, Tadeusz (1985). Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of a National Identity in a Muslim Community. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521522458. Archived from the original on 2021-12-02.
22. Braux, Adeline (3 December 2013). "Azerbaijani Migrants in Russia" (PDF). Caucasus Analytical Digest. 57 (5): 5–7.
23. Gil, Moshe (1974-01-01). "The Rādhānite Merchants and the Land of Rādhān" . Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 17 (1): 299–328. doi:10.1163/156852074X00183. ISSN   1568-5209.
24. Masucol, Ethan; Jap, Jangai; Liu, Amy H. (2022-05-31). "Islands Apart: Explaining the Chinese Experience in the Philippines". Frontiers in Political Science. 4 836561. doi: 10.3389/fpos.2022.836561 . ISSN   2673-3145.

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. doi:10.2307/1388996. JSTOR   1388996. PMID   12315137. S2CID   28038205.
• Pál Nyíri, Chinese in Eastern Europe and Russia: A Middleman Minority in a Transnational Era, 2007, ISBN   0415446864