Schismogenesis

Schismogenesis is a term in anthropology that describes the formation of social divisions and differentiation. Literally meaning 'creation of division', the term derives from the Greek words σχίσμα (skhísma, 'cleft'; borrowed into English as schism), and γένεσις (génesis, 'generation, creation'). The term was introduced in the 1930s by anthropologist Gregory Bateson and has been applied to various fields.

Concepts

In anthropology

Gregory Bateson developed the concept of schismogenesis in the 1930s in reference to certain forms of social behavior between groups of the Iatmul people of the Sepik River in New Guinea. Bateson first used the term in a publication in 1935, but elaborated on the concept in his classic 1936 ethnography Naven: A Survey of the Problems suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe drawn from Three Points of View (reissued with a new epilogue in 1958). The word "naven" refers to an honorific ceremony among the Iatmul whereby certain categories of kin celebrate first-time cultural achievements. In a schematic summary, Bateson focused on how groups of women and groups of men (especially the honorees' mothers' brothers) seemingly inverted their everyday, gendered-norms for dress, behavior, and emotional expression. For the most part, these groups of people belonged to different patrilineages who not only did not regularly renew their marriage alliances, but also interacted through the mode he called schismogenesis. Men and women, too, interacted in this mode. And thus the naven ritual served to correct schismogenesis, enabling the society to endure.