I recently read Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment by journalist Ethan Watters, which is expanded from a NYTimes article. The book doesn’t offer an explicit definition of “urban tribe”, instead is gives an ostensive definition in the form of a case study of Watters’ tribe and anecdotes about other tribes. I’d like to attempt a more explicit definition here.
An urban tribe is a group of friends with the following characteristics:
- High clustering coefficient
- In graph theory, clustering coefficient is a measure of how cliquey (that’s the technical term, I’m not making this up) a network is: the relationship between two members is similar to the relationship between any two other members. The most striking consequence of this is that urban tribes can contain pairs of members who don’t really like each other but still invite each other to tribe events.
- Provides family functions
- Traditionally, families fulfill a number of social functions besides raising children: entertainment, emotional intimacy, etc. Young adults used to live with their families until getting married. Now they move to cities while still single and are discouraged from marrying immediately. Urban tribes exist so single young adults can receive the benefit of families without getting married or living with their parents.
- Homeostatic
- Cybernetics generalized the concept of biological homeostasis to describe systems that adapt to maintain their integrity. Watters’ research begins with an attempt to explain the low marriage rates in his cohort, his striking conclusion is that urban tribes discourage long-term romantic relationships, especially with people outside the tribe. This is because members with a “real” family will have no need for the tribe. This isn’t a conscious action of individual members, but an emergent behaviour of the tribe attempting to survive.
Watters says most tribes have around 8 members, but it’s not clear if there are minimum or maximum sizes.
One thing that was sad was people emphasizing...
karen
Is there a number to how small or large a tribe can be? Can you have a tribe with just two or three people?
Jared
Oh yeah, I forgot about that: fixed.
karen
I have been thinking about how tribe will break up relationships. I think there are three actions a tribe will do when someone pairs up. 1. They adopt the new gf/bf into the tribe and there is no friction. 2. They do everything in their power to get rid of the new gf/bf. 3. The tribe breaks apart as the couple pair up and only do boring couple things.
Jack
In our peer group “the tribe” has been known to survive marriages where “the couple pair up and only do boring couple things”.
karen
That’s because they don’t have children yet. It’s next to impossible to get boring couples out when they have an infant.
Also, did the tribe accept the new bf/gf into the tribe before the marriage? That would make a difference as the new person would already be considered to be apart of the tribe. I would think the tribe would get weakened once the boring couple pairs off.
Jack
No kids, thank God.
You’re probably right. I’ve heard children described as “the perfect drug”… Although not by a drug user.
Drugs cause isolation, so probably represent an equal threat to family and tribe. Though I guess families are immune to kidrugs… But what would Sick Boy and Allison have to say?
Jared
@karen: Say a tribe adopts a couple into the tribe. There’s always a chance that the couple would leave, either because they have kids or for some other reason. So adopting a couple is not the optimal self-preservation behaviour of a tribe. Therefore we should expect to see that less often than breaking the couple apart.
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