摘要：Boundary-keeping is a necessary function of any human community, large or small. The human group may be liberally inclusive or radically exclusive. But boundary-keeping is simply the way by which that community knows itself. It helps shape and sustain the distinctive identity of the community. As such, boundary-keeping is not intrinsically a negative activity that isolates the community from the outside world. It is the recognition that every structured (however loosely) human community has its distinctive identity, even if that identity cannot be fully articulated by its own members. Its ideas and practices function to tell itself and others who it is and why it exists. Boundary-keeping, put simply, is a group’s identity with reference to its wider environment, a way of distinguishing itself within the world.
