The name is absent

clearly and constantly articulated, individuals see themselves
’’standing in relation always to the same world”, ’’feeling that they
occupy a place of their own in the community”! (de Levita 1965:58).
Indeed it is essential for the harmonious working of the group that
■■

everyone has a place and is seen to have a place in it.

Berger and Luckmann (1966:154) point out that primary social-
ization in any world of meaning presents no problems of identification.
There is no possibility of choice of one’s parents.

Problems may arise in secondary socialization. The alternative
society of Strelley, however, ensures by its structuring of reality
that the significant others of primary socialization remain the
significant others of secondary socialization, people who assent
to the same social ’world’, which provides at all times the possibility
of functional constancy for securing identity.

16.11
*

(ii) Trust∕distrust
r

Trust of others,and the consequent typification that allows
*

the possibility of predicting behaviour (Berger and Luckmann,
1966:74, 75) necessary for ongoing social interaction, is emphasized
by Erikson (1977:222) as necessary for strength of identity.

In a situation where a people have been demeaned and degraded,
an appropriate generalized attitude, out of which typifications are
formed, might well be one of distrust. In actuality, one is struck
by the tolerance of a group that has endured so much at the hands
of white men, but is able to rise above stereotypes and offer (or
withhold) their trust at a personal level. There is no sense of
basic mistrust, nor is there a sense that trust is given lightly.

¹An exception to this occurs when members disobey the Law seriously,

for example, in the case where a marriage is not ’straight', that

is within the prescribed kinship groupings.  A child of such a

marriage has no place of his own in the community.   The Law does not

allow for such a circumstance. No-one is responsible for his
education. It is as if the child does not exist (Taped interview).

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