Współdziałanie, władza, precedensy społeczne. Omówienie i uzupełnienie teorii granic społecznych

This text constitutes a discussion and addendum to the theory of social boundaries. With this theory’s methodological foundations in mind, I specifically address ethnographic fieldwork practice, case study approach, and present the outcomes of my own ethnographic study of a multireligious community living in the western part of Northern Macedonia. First, I elaborate the main questions and key concepts of this theory, especially the concepts of social boundaries and social boundary maintenance. Next, I distinguish types of processes for the maintenance of social boundaries: exclusion, stigmatization, conflict and separation of activities. In the context of debates pertaining to the analyses of the social conditions under which people maintain social boundaries, I discuss critically the works of Fredrik Barth and Andreas Wimmer. Finally, drawing on the ethnographic evidence from my own fieldwork research in Northern Macedonia, I specify my proposed contribution to the theory of social boundaries. According to my explanation, the maintaining of the social boundaries is a reaction to specific ‘precedents’ – the social situations, in which breaches of the generative principles, i.e. the principles that condition continuity of the specific social relations of power, occur. I conjecture that the process of social boundary maintenance diminishes the possibilities for establishment of such a precedent – and thus secures the continuity of the social relations of power.