Is the word "tribe" offensive?
Presented by ClearTrust Free for classrooms, newsrooms and the curious.
It depends on who is speaking and where. Many peoples use 'tribe' proudly, and it is an official legal term in India and the United States. Others, especially in Africa, find it loaded with colonial ideas of backwardness. The safest choice is to use a people's own name and follow their preference.
The objection is historical. European colonial writers used 'tribe' for societies they saw as less advanced, while calling similar groups in Europe 'nations' or 'peoples'. The word also suggested fixed, closed groups, when real identities were often flexible and overlapping.
For this reason many African scholars and journalists prefer 'ethnic group' or 'people', and object to phrases such as 'tribal violence' for conflicts that would be called political elsewhere. Some point out that a people of twenty million would never be called a tribe if they lived in Europe.
In other places the word is ordinary and respected. Native American governments call themselves tribes or nations. In India, 'tribal' and 'Scheduled Tribe' are everyday and legal terms, and many communities use them for themselves alongside 'Adivasi'. The Māori word iwi is likewise routinely translated as tribe.
Some uses are best avoided everywhere: 'tribe' as a joke for a group of friends or customers, and 'tribal' as a synonym for narrow-minded. When writing about a real community, name it, and use the collective word that community uses.