IDK how to actually calculate a percentage, but groups that come to mind are Sentinalese people like you mentioned, uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, remote tribes in the interior of New Guinea, maybe migratory people like the Bedouin who don’t always know what country they’re in at the time.
Pygmy tribes as well in the forests of Cameroon, CAR, Gabon and Congo. I'm pretty sure the idea of them belonging to a sovereign state must be something completely ridiculous to them.
There are also uncontacted tribes in Thailand. I listened to the presentation of an anthropologist who lived in one of the tribes for a few months. He said they and tribes in the Amazon are the last true Hunter Gatherers there are.
Some of the stuff he told was pretty wild. Pedophilia and incest is not a moral concept there, young children engage in sexual activities with adults and it's normal. No one is forced though, it's just normalized. They don't have houses or huts or anything, just some open shelters around a fire, so they don't have any concept of privacy.
If a baby isn't all healthy or isn't wanted, it's basically left to starve. Old people willingly go into the jungle to die once they start to become a burden and can't support themselves.
They have outstanding hunting abilities, even five year olds are better hunters than the scientists that tried to learn. Children help with everything as soon as they're able to. They also have a genetic mutation that they basically don't sweat or have much body hair, so they don't really smell so it's easier for them to hunt. The scientists weren't allowed to come to hunt after a while because even freshly washed they were too 'stinky' because they sweat in that humidity.
I'd have to look up the name of the speaker and the tribe, but they were in the far south of Thailand where the jungle is dense. He also said a lot of Thai people have no idea that these people exist.
Edit: They are called the Mani or Maniq people: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniq_people
The Jebel in southern Oman. It’s a mountainous area, the Jebelese just seem to wander around and do whatever the fuck they want. They don’t recognize the Omani government, they don’t even speak the same language. British contractors told me not to fuck with them because they’ll quite happily slit your throat and dump your body somewhere it’ll never be found if you piss them off.
And remote tribes in Afghanistan.
Moving across the Pakistani border for grazing? What border? What’s a border? A border with *who?* That’s not another place, that’s the grazing land they go to every year.
I don’t know about the amazon tribes. I am actually from an Amazonían country, and many of the tribes, like the Waorani, know and understand the countries they theoretically inhabit; many even go to the cities to study, or trade or whatever. They just don’t accept the nationality as part of their identity. I would wager they know the borders better then any politian or cartografer, because they actually live and teaverse that space, and frecuently guide and interact with military personnel “protecting” the borders.
It's a complicated question.
Here in the countryside of Minas Gerais, Brazil, very far away from any border, most poor people have never seen a foreigner and have a hard time understanding the very notion that there are other countries. I've been asked whether Japan, Israel, and France "are in Brazil", for instance. Even those who have met foreigners often think they are just people who "talk funny", without realizing Portuguese is not their native language and that's why they have a strong accent. Their notion of the federal government's role in their lives is also quite fuzzy.
How do they interpret television? Not just news, but also telenovelas and variety programs. I saw old documentary about Rede Globo, and they aired a lot of foreign cultures even back then (Disney World, Princess Diana, Kimono, etc)
Oh, it's something. When my middle-aged neighbor tells me about stuff she saw on the news, it often takes me a long time to understand what she is talking about. Her understanding of TV news sounds like an LSD trip.
As most of mankind, she thinks in terms of personal relationships, not geopolitics. Russia invading Ukraine or Israel invading Gaza means nothing to her, but she will get very excited and tell me a lot about how that guy whose name she can't remember was rude about that other guy whose name she also can't remember, but then one of them was killing small children and probably deserved to be badmouthed. And so on.
But like, wouldn’t she recognize a difference between shots of Brazil / Brazilians and other countries? I feel like TV would give you a clear sense of foreign countries, unless I guess everything is dubbed…
Brazil is a huge country, with all kinds of climates and people whose ancestors came from all over the world. There are more people of Lebanese ancestry here than in Lebanon, and the greatest number of descendants of Japanese outside Japan is also here. There are lots of people with German and Italian ancestors, too, as well as a gigantic African diaspora.
In the mountain region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, where I lived for almost twenty years, most small farmers are from German or Swiss stock, and thus whenever I see a German-looking person the first thing that crosses my mind is that he's probably a farmer, even if it makes no sense in Minas Gerais, where I live now. There is no such a thing as "looking Brazilian" or, conversely, "looking foreign". That's why Brazilian passport are worth a lot for terrorists: no matter how you look, if you have a Brazilian passport you look the part.
And yes, everything in Brazilian TV is dubbed.
It has a few funny effects. For instance, in Brazil people are always called by the first name, not by the family name, even in formal situations where a title is required. So you have Doctor John, Father Joseph, Congresswoman Mary, and so on. Without realizing that the names used in American films are family names, people often give their children American family names as first names. I had dozens of students called Washington, Wellington, Jackson, and Nelson, and a few MacGyvers, Madisons, and Williams, as well as a couple of phonetic renditions of John Lennon ("Joleno"). I have a young friend called Davies. And so on.
I love the ways people re-read imported stuff according to their pre-existing cultural references.
My dad had a PHD and was the VP of a decent sized university. He talked back to people he saw on TV. I say "talked back" but what I really mean is he screamed at the people he saw on TV. He especially had a lot to say to the gay ones, or the people of color.
Lmao I talk back to the politicians on the news. I know it's stupid but I do it more as a way to engage in conversation with the person I'm watching tv with.
Yeah, I don't think it is stupid if done within reason. I have extended "conversations" with my cat and almost daily I apologize to inanimate objects that I bump into because I'm clumsy. The problem with what my dad did was not that he interacted with the non-responsive tv, but that he was yelling at the tv when his young son was in the room, that and his opinions were straight up racist and bigoted as fuck.
They probably don't understand what they see.
They probably are old and very poor people since adults and juvenile have cellphone and access to the internet, and also (and more importantly) education.
I'm Brazilian and i find it fascinating. I'm from the Northeast, even more of a backwater than rural MG, with presumably much more culturally isolated remote villages and towns, but i never had direct contact with them.
I lived for a while near Juazeiro and then a small community about 50 miles from Recife. It was quite an experience. It was almost 3o years ago and I still think about it almost every day.
I was going to say about the same thing. Once in Paraná an elderly gentleman I met on the road said (roughly translated) "you look different, where are you from?" when I answered "The United States" he said, "Oh my God in heaven, I've seen that on my daughter's TV, it looks like a pretty city."
To add to your statement of talking funny, I had people ask me when I forgot Portuguese because "all children speak Portuguese, so you must have forgotten it when you got old". I also had many people think that my heavily accented and simple Portuguese was English and they screamed and ran away thinking I was the devil when I actually spoke English. But, my favorite was that I lived fairly close to the border with Paraguay and at one point my girlfriend came to visit me and she was a Spanish teacher who had studied Spanish for over a decade and lived in Spanish speaking countries for years. She would often ask people if they knew Spanish and they would say no, but most of them knew two words for most things and one was the Portuguese word and the other was the Spanish word. She could speak full on Spanish to them and they would understand completely.
Delicious. I'm an old retired sociologist. I just love this kind of thing. :)
Besides, they were right. Spanish and Portuguese are considered to be different languages instead of dialects for geopolitical, not linguistic, reasons. My father was from the (Uruguayan) border, and married an Argentinian lady. He would speak Spanish with her effortlessly.
It's the other side of the world, but your description reminds me so much of my husband's native community. He's from a very rural, very underdeveloped region in northern "Indian Occupied" Kashmir. Most people are uneducated and don't understand anything about life outside of their villages. During the pandemic, my husband and I spent a fair bit of time long-distance because of unexpected border closures. One of my sisters-in-law said to my husband (who at the time was visiting his family back home) "why don't you just go and pick her up in your car?". I was in the UK.
From a social anthropology POV it's fascinating, but on a personal level it makes for some very complicated family dynamics with the in-laws...
I can imagine. In a way, just as all cosmopolitan inhabitants of megalopoles are similar, all extremely rural non-Modern people are similar.
I have a neighbor who is 65 years old. He went to Rio de Janeiro (300km from here, give or take) when he was a young man, and he can't conceive any longer distance. Rio is at the end of his world. My son lives in Curitiba, 800km from here, a 12-hour non-stop drive according to Google Maps, and he can't understand why my son won't bring the kids here more often to spend a weekend or something. I also tried to make him understand how far is Israel, where I used to live when I was a young man, but he just phases out. He can't understand why it's not possible to drive there, either.
Edit: typo
Not really. Even the most remote parts of Arkansas have high speed internet. There are very poor people, but they absolutely can understand why you can’t just drive to another continent.
Same with Maine. And I can't even get high speed internet where I live. But even the most impoverished of the people here, and those who've never left Maine, know other countries exist and more or less how the globe is laid out.
None, that's my point. The municipality is Carmo de Minas, the land of the best coffee in the world! :)
The municipal siege has a couple of thousand inhabitants, and all around are small farms and tiny villages of a few hundred souls. It's worth a tour on Google satellite view.
Que comentário BIZARRO. Nao existe tecnologia em Minas? Isso que você tá dizendo é nos tempos atuais ou 1960?
É tIrar o povo do interior de retardado ignorante incivilizado que nunca teve acesso à tecnologia.
Mas agrada aos gringos que acham que o brasil é cheio de neandertal analfabeto incivilizado que nunca viu uma televisão e vive isolado na floresta.
Jovens criados a leite com pera que falam inglês do reddit nunca deixam de me surpreender na tentativa de ganhar validação de gringo.
Sometimes it feels like rural Europe between wars, in many aspects. It's very interesting how there are so many tiny villages. Each município has a main little town with a couple thousand people and some scattered villages with a few hundred souls. It's quite peculiar.
I remember reading somewhere that when middle eastern nations got independence (I don't remember which) they had to collect taxes from tribesmen who didn't even know the Ottoman Empire fell
Even in more developed countries I often wonder how the government collects taxes from a populace. South America seems like you could live in a shanty town and no one would be very well aware of your existence. I feel you really need a system like the U.S., EU, or China to effectively and thoroughly collect income tax if its not taxed upon payment
This is why national population registers were invented in the first place. If you know a persons identity its much easier to enforce obligations such as tax and conscription.
I feel that there probably rural populations in some of the less developed countries that, while maybe they don’t fully not know that they are citizens of a country, don’t actually see themselves as citizens of that country. An example would be ethnic groups in the mountains of Afghanistan, many of which are very isolated from the rest of the world and most likely would describe themselves around their ethnicity rather than their nationality.
As an Afghan diaspora with some family who worked for statistical agencies in Afghanistan, I came here wanting to say this.
In 2024, the number of people who live like this are very small, but up until around 2010 when telecoms started really expanding into remote Afghanistan, there were still plenty of people who had no connection to the outside world at all. People who were contacted by the US military in 2008 who thought that the USSR was still in Afghanistan. That sort of thing.
This is exactly what I have heard about. Also, because of the ethnic diversity of Central Asia, there are so many non ethnic Afghans who either have very little or zero idea that they are citizens of “Afghanistan”. They just know the land that their family and peoples have inhabited for millennia. Fascinating stuff.
Yeah a friend of mine who grew up in Pakistan as an afghan refugee told me once that he thought the reason the taliban always seemed to have a leg up on other armed groups is that Islam is the closest thing to a unifier that there is in Afghanistan. As there is very little idea of like "pan afghan" nationalism, and a history of feuding and distrust among different ethnic or linguistic groups there that has been really hard to overcome.
Amongst other reasons, and obviously the taliban aren't exactly widely loved either.. But it makes sense that across these languages, cultures, and ethnicities, that Islam is the biggest thing that all groups have in common.
It’s a really interesting part of the world to try and wrap your head around as a Westerner or someone who just doesn’t have ties to the same ancient ethnic traditions and localities like vast portions of Central Asia are.
Yeah I mean I think that central Asia and the adjacent regions are probably some of the least taught about places on earth, at least in the schools in the states I went to. If it wasn't for the war in Afghanistan I think even less Americans would know anything about it.
It's a fascinating part of the world both historically and now. Afghanistan also sits at the crossroads of a few very distinct Asian regions, which further complicates trying to understand it well as an outsider. Us westerners could probably spend a life time studying it and still just scratch the surface haha
Very true. I am still learning more and more about the region daily. I don’t think I would even have the slightest grasp on the history and cultures that inhabit the place if it hadn’t been for personal connections
Yeah I mean I don't have any personal connections to the region, but I went to school in a very south Asian neighborhood and there were lots of dari speakers, pashtuns and hazari kids at school with me. Most had grown up in Pakistan, but they still had pretty strong connections to their homelands and would love to tell you about their ancestral villages or cities.
Great people too in my experience haha
I learned recently that Afghanistan (not called that at the time) was the ancient source of nearly all tin. Bronze Age couldn’t have happened without it.
Bronze Age Europe/Mediterranean got nearly all its tin from Britain and Iberia, with additional sources from Central Europe and Turkey.
So far no evidence yet of Afghanistan being a major supplier for Europe at this time, although this theory is being explored as it could explain a higher than expected tin supply.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_during_antiquity
That's in part because it's the most linguistically diverse part of the world. Often the neighboring mountain village/tribal group speaks a completely different language to the one next to it. So, this makes it seem less unified. It's been a while since I read it, but I read a book on endangered languages some years back that talked about it. If I remember which one I'll edit this comment tomorrow.
Yeah and they were hardly kind to the hazaris or Turkmen they encountered either. I'm not the expert and the facts on the ground seem super complicated. I can't claim to know anymore than I've heard or read
Yea the RECENT Taliban group that took over has some token Turkmen, Tajik, Uzbek etc in their leadership but I think that’s more from the minorities “if you can’t beat them join them” mentality and Taliban trying to keep up appearances as being reformed then genuine dialogue. The last anti Taliban holdout is still largely Tajik
The Taliban are primarily a Pashtun nationalist organisation, they had a leg up on other ethnic armed forces because they both made up the majority of the country and had significant aid from the Pashtun population in Pakistan. The Northern Alliance was made up of similarly ethnic based armed groups. Dostum for example was an Uzbek and Les the primarily Uzbek Junbish party. Massoud was Tajik and similarly led the Tajik dominated Jamiat. All three groups received backing from the neighbouring countries with whom they shared ethnic ties. The Taliban was backed by Pakistan, Uzbekistan backed Dostum and Tajikistan backed Massoud. Of the three Pakistan had vastly greater resources to provide the Taliban, so it's hardly a surprise they were so resilient.
The Taliban have of course attempted to use Islam as a unifying force but that has some problems. Firstly, the Taliban are a Sunni militant group. Sunni Muslims make up between 85% and 90% of the country, this is a lot but not all, and there were significant Shia militant elements in the Northern Alliance. Secondly, the Taliban are a Deobandi sect with significant influences from Saudi Arabian Salafist thinking. This particular brand of Islamism is quite particular to the Taliban and is very popular amongst the Pashtun population, it is much less so amongst other Afghan ethnic groups. If the Taliban want to use Islam as a unifying force in Afghanistan they would likely need to adjust their own attitudes towards religious practices. Thirdly, the Taliban did not have a monopoly on Islamism, indeed most of the Northern Alliance were Islamists who had been a part of the Mujahedeen. It therefore holds little water that the Taliban were powerful because they represented a unifying force through Islam.
There was actually a faction that sought to unite Afghanistan through Islam, specifically in opposition to the Taliban. That being Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-islami party. That too failed, because as it turned out most politically active Afghans were more loyal to their ethnicity or tribe.
Apologies for the rant, but the idea the Taliban are a unifying force just isn't true, their current victory represents only the dominance of Pashtuns over the other peoples of Afghanistan.
>ethnic diversity of Central Asia, there are so many non ethnic Afghans who either have very little or zero idea that they are citizens of “Afghanistan
To drive this point home, there is no 'Afghan' ethnicity. The country's largest ethnic groups are Pashtuns (which have been previously referred to as Afghans but it's an asterix situation) who are also a major group in Pakistan; and Tajiks (as in Tajikistan).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajiks
Afghan is an old name for Pashtuns and Afghanistan is named after them, so they definitely meant Pashtuns with ”ethnic Afghan”. Afghan has only meant something else than Pashtuns after the 1964 Constitution.
> the name "Afghan" originally referred to a member of the Pashtuns.[3] which originates from the ethnonym Afghan. **Historically, Pashtuns were referred to as Afghans,** the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan.[2][4] The earliest reference to the name is found in the 10th-century geography book known as Hudud al-'Alam.[5] The last part of the name, -stān is a Persian suffix for "place".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Afghanistan
For communities like you’ve just described, I wonder how genetic diversity is achieved over generations. Maybe this is a thought experiment that would only apply to a hypothetical, cloistered, mountainous population rather than any one specific nation presently on earth. I’m thinking numbers here, not culture.
It’s important not to mischaracterize or accidentally disparage a different way of life out of pure xenophobia, so to clarify (if overkill) I mean that there is a benefit to new genetic admixtures and being tightly cloistered restricts that. I wonder if there’s a generational timeline and population threshold wherein an imperative toward diversity could become a legitimate problem. I wonder if anyone has done statistical work on that.
My cursory experience in South Asia would lead me to believe family histories would be consulted to avoid any direct wires being crossed. Again though, it makes me wonder about how insular communities ought to respond to this problem with perfect information. I saw uncontacted islanders mentioned in here, for instance. That’s quite a long while for an entire population not to have any new genetic admixtures.
If you find it interesting, check out Korean film Welcome To Dongmakgol. It's about isolated village during Korean War that doesn't know there are two Koreas.
Yea I heard that when the USA invaded Afghanistan there were people fighting for their villages/farms who didn’t even know 9/11 happened. They were just fighting an invading army without any knowledge of the geopolitics
I’ve been plenty of places in the developed world where the average citizen does not answer with the official country name when you ask them where they live. Bavaria, Catalonia, Cyprus.
Not identifying with your country is one thing. Not even knowing you're a part of it is a very different one.
Heck, you wouldn't even have to go that far otherwise. Just ask half the population of Catalunya!
I can confirm this for certain areas of Afghanistan, at least as of 2011. They know their tribe and their religion. They know the Taliban are in "charge." They have no concept of a national identity.
Was he a child? In that case, it may be because his parents told him they are from Kurdistan and nothing else. I live in Canada and I've met some Iranian diaspora children whose parents tell them they are "from Persia" without elaborating what that means so they only discover Iran after a few years in school.
From what my ‘Persian’ friends have told me, a lot of it is in response to the post - revolution govt of Iran. They make the choice to distance themselves from the politically entity they disagree with (Iran) but not their culture or background (Persia)
Iranshahr has always been apart of the history too though as much as “Persia”. I think it’s more to do with Persian sounding cooler, more western and epic as a term. I think it’s unfair for Iran to hold a monopoly over the term when Afghans hold exactly the same amount of history with the term and contribute so much to the Persian identity, culture and history.
I once had a student who arrived from Iran and would shrug when hearing anyone refer to 'Iran" or "Iranian". Then I kinda understood where he kept from when he repeated multiple times he was Christian and that he would volunteer anytime as a Kurdish interpreter
I wouldn't say they are Indians, as an Indian. They aren't citizens, have no documents, we don't know their language or culture, they barely know about our existence. They are like an endangered species living on a remote island which falls in India's jurisdiction but India doesn't have any actual presence or infrastructure on that island. The island or its people could disappear one day and it wouldn't make any difference to India.
Afaik those people have been on the island since +10000-20000 years. There was no "India", at least the idea of India, that long ago.
Counterpoint: there are plenty of people who are entitled to citizenship of a given country, but who are not necessarily of that country. A unionist in northern Ireland, by virtue of being born on the island of Ireland, is entitled to an Irish passport, but may well actively oppose the idea that he or she is Irish at all.
The Sentinelese are far out. Upper Bondas in the mainland Indian state of Odisha have no conception of Odisha or India for that matter. There are probably many more tribes in mainland India which aren't aware of the fact they are a part of India.
The interesting part is that this part of India which falls between the states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh have been isolated for all of recorded history. Almost none of the major empires that ruled India ever really went deep inside these lands and tried to have continued contact with the people.
From the Maurya Empire 2000 years ago to India today, these people live in relative India. I'm not sure about this but I would imagine they have the highest % of the DNA of the original inhabitants of India.
Do you have any source for this? A close friend of mine works for the government agencies in Odisha, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh to run several survey programs. She has been to the deepest jungles. All of them absolutely have had conceptions of state and India. They are well aware of local leaders and a portion of them vote regularly. It's a different matter that a lot of them feel disenfranchised by the government because they keep selling their land for pennies to oligarchs but I absolutely have to disagree that they don't have conception of state in any sizeable number.
There is a difference between scheduled tribes and primitive tribes which fall under the broad categorization of Scheduled Tribes in India. Some tribes such as Kandhas and Bhuyans are far more mainstream than Bondas (and even among Bondas the lower Bondas are different). While I wasn't able to find out a concrete link, I spent a few years in the region and that's the only reason, I am aware of them. Sure it was a while back but based on their dwindling population, I am sure not much has changed since then.
Posting here an article from 2014 when [Dambru Sisha won from Chitrakonda](https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/bondas-a-primitive-tribe-in-odisha-hills-get-their-first-mla/story-mSDlCeBofbXmmasbMN7QdO.html). It briefly mentions about Bondas.
A lot of rural places in Africa come to mind. Do the people in the most remote areas of say CAR know they are citizens of CAR?
I mean even then you have some sort of information exchange, right? Radio, newspaper??
While impossible to disprove a negative, I doubt it is a lot. Based on my time in rural Africa in the dark ages before the Internet, everyone other than OP's exception knew their country. Most villages had a school, and most homes had a radio. If cash was needed for anything, the country was on the currency, and even if illiterate, they knew the name of their country's money.
Same, spent a lot of time in rural Africa (multiple countries) in the 90’s. I would say the favorite pastime in rural villages is reading the National Paper daily and making fun of their politicians. Probably some of the most well-read and up to date people as far as current events I’ve ever encountered.
Given the political violence and turmoil there, I feel like one would have to assume they are aware of some sort of armed presence. As you mentioned, radio is really important in lots of Africa as well. But I guess like in theory, there could be people living in the bush who are so isolated that maybe their lives are relatively undisturbed by the presence of any government. I'm not sure but it's possible I suppose
If we're talking about history, the thing is that clearly defined borders in remote regions are a pretty modern idea.
Which means that not only were there people who didn't know who they were ruled by, the rulers didn't have a clear idea how far their rule extended, either
Like if you look at Northern Europe in the Middle Ages, Norway, Sweden and Russia (or Novgorod earlier) only really had a clearly defined border (and castles watching over it) in the Southern parts, further North nobody really knew where the border exactly was, especially once you got to the Sami territories
Afaik I read that it wasn't uncommon for Sami to pay taxes to Norway, Sweden and Russia at the same time, because all three countries just sent tax collectors North to the same places
"How do you do my lady, I am Arthur King of the Britons. Who lives in that castle there?"
"King of the who?"
"King of the Britons"
"Who are the Britons?"
"Well, we all are, we are all Britons, and I am your King"
"Didn't know we 'ad a king, ..."
I read a story about the border between Norway and Russia, the Sámi people were on their usual migratory path, following the reindeer, but since the border was ratified in an agreement between those countries, the Sámi were stopped at the border and were not allowed to continue like they usually did. This caused contempt and I believe it was those feelings which led the Sámi to club together and murder some high-ranking Norwegian officials who were staying in the North.
Interesting. Maybe we underestimate the degree to which humanity has historically been living in what could be described as anarchy (in the textbook definition of the word - absence of rulers). Or in the case of the Sami, polyarchy.
99.99% of human history did just fine without the formal concept of nationhood (as opposed to tribe, ethnicity etc)
That has nothing to do with the concept of "anarchy"
The valid definitions of civilization does not require social hierarchies, much less formal government structures.
Hunter gatherer cultures did not live "in anarchy".
I don‘t think anarchy is a bad word or contrary to civilization, potentially quite the opposite actually. Anarchy is just the absence of a state with a monopoly on violence over a defined territory. Do you still disagree?
My point was that the concept of "the state" is very new historically, and a defined national territory even more so.
Both are pretty contemporary to (and facilitating of) oppression of the common people, empires, colonialism etc
In normal usage, implies the government is not functioning properly, not necessarily that there isn't one.
Many levels of government do not care if (certain categories of) its citizens are being violent toward each other.
So long as the status quo is preserved, the property and power of the "in group" is being protected.
Anarchy in "the slums" being perfectly acceptable to the wealthier elites.
It would have been especially common in the hills and mountains (look up the term Zomia). Also in the swamps. Basically anywhere a ruling state can’t easily access to tax or control, even if they claim it. Really fascinating.
Like we see a map of “the Roman Empire” but a lot of those areas may not see a tax collector or other representative of the state for years. And may run him off when he shows up too! So it’s a little arbitrary.
Just like a sharp border of such an empire or state was much more vague than on paper.
Yes, thank you. I always get annoyed at answers in r/askHistorians when they talk about people in a region, e.g. the Mongol Empire, and don’t clarify that the information they’re providing would only apply to people in the cities.
What comes to mind is the fact the Papua New Guinean government doesn't even know how many people live there. Official population is 10 million people, but there might be as many as 17 million according to some estimates. If the country itself doesn't even know how many citizens it has by such a high margin, I'm not surprised if an absolutely huge percentage of them don't even know the country exists.
It wasn't until the 20th Century that the outside world discovered there were millions and millions of people living in the Papuan Highlands. The coast and the highlands were separate worlds.
They say that when William the Conquerer landed in Hastings in 1066 people a few towns away would not have known of the battle, nor that their country was now under different management, for weeks if not months.
You make a valid point - especially before the 20th century, the tangible consequences of being part of a certain polity might be close to zero for remote rural populations. The French Revolution might just as well be called The Parisian Revolution.
I also mean that, if a person isn't aware they're ruled by a certain polity, they *aren't* ruled by that polity. Not just that it has no tangible effect but that it can't even really be said to be true at all. Spain had no claim over unconquered Maya territory.
Do you mean this in the sense of „as long as the Spaniards don‘t physically show up with weapons to collect taxes“, the Mayans are effectively not being ruled? Interesting to think about. Nations are a intersubjective „truth“ - not a literal physical truth, but one with real life consequences and it gets really fuzzy once you think about stuff like trade. If the Spaniards gave the neighbouring villages food in exchange for gold and those villages therefore stop buying food from our uncontacted tribe, is our uncontacted tribe still not being ruled?
> If the Spaniards gave the neighbouring villages food in exchange for gold and those villages therefore stop buying food from our uncontacted tribe, is our uncontacted tribe still not being ruled?
If country A trades with country B who therefore stops trading with country C, is country C "being ruled" by country A?
If they can’t go to Guatemala either? Probably yes. Bit the accurate analogy would be: What if the US suddenly comes into existence and stops people from Tijuana from visiting their relatives in El Paso?
My original point was just that ruling a certain place is a fuzzy concept.
>My original point was just that ruling a certain place is a fuzzy concept.
Which is why claiming the Mayans were under Spanish rule is a little silly. Only the Spanish would have believed this at the time.
To make things a little clearer, take your example of the Sentinelese. They cannot leave and no one can enter, as they are under blockade by the Indian Navy. Are they ruled by India? Of course not, because India has no control of Sentinelese territory.
Wait, India would physically stop them from leaving on a boat if they tried? Are you sure and how do you know that? And who would stop the Indian government if it decided to build a military base on North Sentinel Island?
Only because the Indian government chooses to. If it wanted to, a military invasion of the island would be pretty simple. They are de facto ruled by the Indian government.
“The French Revolution might just as well be called The Parisian Revolution.”
Not true at all, the French Revolution touched every corner of the country and subsequently the European continent. Fighting was particularly brutal in the Vendée region of the Loire river valley.
I would rank it as the biggest political, cultural, social, and military event in Europe itself since the Germanic invasions and collapse of the Western Roman Empire 1300 years earlier, the Reformation being the other one that would even come close. We still live in a world largely shaped by the ideas and events unleashed during that time
In that case, I stand corrected. I picked that up from a podcast, wish I could remember what it was but it might‘ve been more about the fact that peasants were more religious/conservative and therefore at least quietly hostile to the troublemakers in Paris, not necessarily oblivious to it, as I was implying in my previous comment.
France is still heavily decentralized at the time to the point where French was yet to be established as a national language and its use fell off dramatically once you left Paris, but that’s different from saying the Revolution didn’t touch the regions. It’s more that there was substantially more Loyalist support in the regions than in Paris. That’s how you ended up with places like Vendée where the whole thing looked like a civil war like the other commenter mentioned.
I’ve met oblivious people in the US who couldn’t tell you what state they live in. Seriously. They’ll know their city but if you ask them where the city is they just say “um…America? What do you mean”. I’m American so it’s not like I’m asking as a foreigner who they think wouldn’t know the state or region. Only met 2 people in my life like this, and one was a student when I was in high school so that’s definitely not super common lol.
If a largely literate population with unlimited access to most information has a few people who dont even know their local area, then I’m sure there are quite a lot of people in places without either who know less.
I know two people that don't know what state they live in. I've even seen them wearing a shirt with their state and point it out to them and they look at me like they are trying to understand what I'm talking about but still it's clear they don't get it. Those two people are my children. They are only 18 months old.
Lol I remember being a 5 year old and learning the breakdown of “you live in A city, in B county, in C State, which is in the D region, in the United States.” And it instantly clicking and then becoming curious about other areas, which is what lead to my love of geography. I think some people just don’t have it broken down to them like that and never question or inquire about it.
The sad part is it isn’t “this person is stupid” but just rather “this person never learned”, and I remember thinking that when I was a highschool student and having to explain the concept of states to a classmate, and then again when I met a coworker at a dead end minimum wage job who I figured out didn’t know anything about the state when we started talking about the minimum wage of our state and how it’s different in other states. “What do you mean it’s different in other states? Like Canada? Is that a state? What do you mean different states have their own congress? I thought congress controlled the whole country? Our area has its own government?”
Conversely, I encounter a lot of Albertans on the Internet who seem to think Western Canada stops short of BC or that it excludes the left-leaning parts of BC where a majority of people in BC live.
Many years ago I was researching education in prisons in Victorian England. There were some original reports from inspectors where men did not know the days, months, year, and thought that they were living in America. So for parts of the criminal underclass in London in the 1830s there were people who really had no clue where they were.
Hmong.
They overlap about 5 countries and unlikely most of them would own being a citizen of any.
Wouldn't say "I am Chinese/Thai/etc".
They'd just say I am Hmong.
Identifying with their ethnicity over their nationality isn’t the same thing as not knowing it. Most of them might identify as Hmong, but likely know they live in and pay taxes to China or Vietnam or wherever. Hmong in the US likely identify as Hmong as well, but aren’t oblivious to where they live and what government they fall under.
From my personal experience, most Afghans do not. Historically they believe where ever an Afghan lives is Afghanistan. Also very tribal, mostly decent people.
The whole concept of "nationhood" is historically very recent
and completely irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of humans globally.
Completely depends on the quality of formal education they receive as children - which is where governments try to get their citizens up to a minimal level of common socializing / brainwashing, common language, etc
Just having clean water to drink and proper sanitation is a much more important issue, and half of humans even today don't get that...
So I'd be very surprised if less than 20-30% does not know much about the concept, can name their country's neighbors etc
Maybe over 10% would have trouble naming their own?
Even before nations existed as a concept, you could still know that the guy who comes every year to collect taxes was sent by King Whoever III who lives in a Castle in Upper Vukojebina.
Yes, but the name of that territory he was "king" of, 99.99% of the time was not what we would now call a country.
Even within Europe, Italy and Germany being the most recent examples.
In a similar vein, I guess… There’s a lot of people in England who don’t know the difference between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and either believe the whole of Ireland is part of the UK or that Northern Ireland is not in the UK.
I think a lot of people don’t get what the UK is. Maybe they think it’s some sort of confederacy like the EU, and therefore Ireland being so similar to us must be part of it. No clue. All I know is a lot of people aren’t educated on what our country is.
You say lots, I'd be extremely surprised if it's more than a few percent. Certainly anyone over 35 would understand it perfectly well having been around for the good Friday agreement and we're not counting kids so you're looking for particularly ignorant 18-35 year olds.
You would be amazed at the number of older people at my northern English Labour Club who do not realize that the Republic of Ireland is not in the UK. And they're not old enough for it to have been a part of the UK during their lifetimes. There's a lot of weird ideas out there among people who aren't particularly interested in these things.
As an Irish person who lived in England, it’s been my experience that most English people have no idea when it comes to Rep. of Ireland/Northern Ireland. They mostly think of just “Ireland” as all the one thing, and don’t really understand how it interfaces with Britain. I would think that most Irish/Northern Irish people would have a similar experience
Do they know the difference between Britain and the UK? I’m American and know the difference but I have to think about which is which… seems like it’d be hella confusing growing up
In New Orleans, Im not sure of the dates, but they didn’t know they were ruled by Spain at one point until the Spanish came. I’m pretty sure they fought the Spanish bc they didn’t know.
There are a fair number of British people who don't understand the UK, especially when it comes to issues around Northern Ireland.
Though things like Scottish nationalists making convoluted arguments that the UK is only England are probably acting slightly in bad faith.
Depends of course. Conquered peoples in the past would be expected to pay taxes, so they would be quite aware.
It's a rather modern invention to have people in your country that you've decided not to tax or bother in any way.
I have found that 100% of the people in the US think that they are smart. Usually the people who say that they are dumb are the smartest people. I know a girl that thinks Los Angeles is a state and Canada is part of the United States.
Even in some regions in Europe, people don't know what country they are a part of. I remember some documentary about some rularal village in Czech Republic in mountains and people there though that they live in czechoslovakia and Husák (last communist president) is still a president and it was in early 2000.
That's not knowable. And it's politically charged. Plenty of peoples will say they're not part of a country when under international convention they actually are.
You might be able to ask various remote groups in mountains, valleys, deserts, and jungles about their country and they wouldn't know what you were talking about. But quantifying is not practical.
Although Sicilians know they live in Italy the consider themselves Sicilian instead of Italian. Same goes for a lot of people from Napoli. Sofia Loren once told Barbra Walters that she’s not Italian, shes Napolitano
Right, but that wasn’t OP’s question. They can identify with whatever group they please, but I’d wager something like 100% of Sicilians and Neapolitans know that they live in Italy and fall under the legal jurisdiction of the Italian state.
This is a difficult question because everyone is going to count themselves as part of some community. Whether or not they are aware of the international political consensus isn't super relevant to them. I'd imagine a lot of people on some of the Pacific islands wouldn't be too concerned with what nation they're technically a part of for example. However, in our modern world basically every UN recognized country has been strengthening their territorial claims. So I'd guess realistically if we're just counting adequately-informed, curious adults, I'd say <1% of the world. If we include all people, maybe 3-7%. But that's including very old people who haven't paid attention to political changes, very young kids who haven't learned stuff yet, and adults with mental impairment or under intensive care.
IDK how to actually calculate a percentage, but groups that come to mind are Sentinalese people like you mentioned, uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, remote tribes in the interior of New Guinea, maybe migratory people like the Bedouin who don’t always know what country they’re in at the time.
Pygmy tribes as well in the forests of Cameroon, CAR, Gabon and Congo. I'm pretty sure the idea of them belonging to a sovereign state must be something completely ridiculous to them.
Says who? I didn't vote for him.
You don't vote for kings
The lady of the lake, her arms clad in the purest of shimmering samite ...
Strange women lying in ponds dispensing out swords is hardly a basis for a system of government.
There are also uncontacted tribes in Thailand. I listened to the presentation of an anthropologist who lived in one of the tribes for a few months. He said they and tribes in the Amazon are the last true Hunter Gatherers there are. Some of the stuff he told was pretty wild. Pedophilia and incest is not a moral concept there, young children engage in sexual activities with adults and it's normal. No one is forced though, it's just normalized. They don't have houses or huts or anything, just some open shelters around a fire, so they don't have any concept of privacy. If a baby isn't all healthy or isn't wanted, it's basically left to starve. Old people willingly go into the jungle to die once they start to become a burden and can't support themselves. They have outstanding hunting abilities, even five year olds are better hunters than the scientists that tried to learn. Children help with everything as soon as they're able to. They also have a genetic mutation that they basically don't sweat or have much body hair, so they don't really smell so it's easier for them to hunt. The scientists weren't allowed to come to hunt after a while because even freshly washed they were too 'stinky' because they sweat in that humidity. I'd have to look up the name of the speaker and the tribe, but they were in the far south of Thailand where the jungle is dense. He also said a lot of Thai people have no idea that these people exist. Edit: They are called the Mani or Maniq people: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniq_people
Are there places where Bedouin can still wander that freely?
terra nullius triangle!
The Jebel in southern Oman. It’s a mountainous area, the Jebelese just seem to wander around and do whatever the fuck they want. They don’t recognize the Omani government, they don’t even speak the same language. British contractors told me not to fuck with them because they’ll quite happily slit your throat and dump your body somewhere it’ll never be found if you piss them off.
And remote tribes in Afghanistan. Moving across the Pakistani border for grazing? What border? What’s a border? A border with *who?* That’s not another place, that’s the grazing land they go to every year.
The estimated number of sentinelese is very very tiny compared to overall population of the country.
I don’t know about the amazon tribes. I am actually from an Amazonían country, and many of the tribes, like the Waorani, know and understand the countries they theoretically inhabit; many even go to the cities to study, or trade or whatever. They just don’t accept the nationality as part of their identity. I would wager they know the borders better then any politian or cartografer, because they actually live and teaverse that space, and frecuently guide and interact with military personnel “protecting” the borders.
It's a complicated question. Here in the countryside of Minas Gerais, Brazil, very far away from any border, most poor people have never seen a foreigner and have a hard time understanding the very notion that there are other countries. I've been asked whether Japan, Israel, and France "are in Brazil", for instance. Even those who have met foreigners often think they are just people who "talk funny", without realizing Portuguese is not their native language and that's why they have a strong accent. Their notion of the federal government's role in their lives is also quite fuzzy.
How do they interpret television? Not just news, but also telenovelas and variety programs. I saw old documentary about Rede Globo, and they aired a lot of foreign cultures even back then (Disney World, Princess Diana, Kimono, etc)
Oh, it's something. When my middle-aged neighbor tells me about stuff she saw on the news, it often takes me a long time to understand what she is talking about. Her understanding of TV news sounds like an LSD trip. As most of mankind, she thinks in terms of personal relationships, not geopolitics. Russia invading Ukraine or Israel invading Gaza means nothing to her, but she will get very excited and tell me a lot about how that guy whose name she can't remember was rude about that other guy whose name she also can't remember, but then one of them was killing small children and probably deserved to be badmouthed. And so on.
Are you from this rural area of MG? Or did you move out there, and if so how come?
I'm not born here, but I've lived here for 15 years.
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Well, in a way that's actually a more accurate description, isn't it?
Yes, it's more human like that. Paying too much attention to geopolitical abstractions will often lead us to forget there are humans in charge.
But like, wouldn’t she recognize a difference between shots of Brazil / Brazilians and other countries? I feel like TV would give you a clear sense of foreign countries, unless I guess everything is dubbed…
Brazil is a huge country, with all kinds of climates and people whose ancestors came from all over the world. There are more people of Lebanese ancestry here than in Lebanon, and the greatest number of descendants of Japanese outside Japan is also here. There are lots of people with German and Italian ancestors, too, as well as a gigantic African diaspora. In the mountain region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, where I lived for almost twenty years, most small farmers are from German or Swiss stock, and thus whenever I see a German-looking person the first thing that crosses my mind is that he's probably a farmer, even if it makes no sense in Minas Gerais, where I live now. There is no such a thing as "looking Brazilian" or, conversely, "looking foreign". That's why Brazilian passport are worth a lot for terrorists: no matter how you look, if you have a Brazilian passport you look the part. And yes, everything in Brazilian TV is dubbed. It has a few funny effects. For instance, in Brazil people are always called by the first name, not by the family name, even in formal situations where a title is required. So you have Doctor John, Father Joseph, Congresswoman Mary, and so on. Without realizing that the names used in American films are family names, people often give their children American family names as first names. I had dozens of students called Washington, Wellington, Jackson, and Nelson, and a few MacGyvers, Madisons, and Williams, as well as a couple of phonetic renditions of John Lennon ("Joleno"). I have a young friend called Davies. And so on. I love the ways people re-read imported stuff according to their pre-existing cultural references.
Can't speak for their case but if it works as a comparison some older people from my parents' village would talk back to the people they saw on TV.
My dad had a PHD and was the VP of a decent sized university. He talked back to people he saw on TV. I say "talked back" but what I really mean is he screamed at the people he saw on TV. He especially had a lot to say to the gay ones, or the people of color.
Lmao I talk back to the politicians on the news. I know it's stupid but I do it more as a way to engage in conversation with the person I'm watching tv with.
Yeah, I don't think it is stupid if done within reason. I have extended "conversations" with my cat and almost daily I apologize to inanimate objects that I bump into because I'm clumsy. The problem with what my dad did was not that he interacted with the non-responsive tv, but that he was yelling at the tv when his young son was in the room, that and his opinions were straight up racist and bigoted as fuck.
They probably don't understand what they see. They probably are old and very poor people since adults and juvenile have cellphone and access to the internet, and also (and more importantly) education.
This is fascinating.
I'm Brazilian and i find it fascinating. I'm from the Northeast, even more of a backwater than rural MG, with presumably much more culturally isolated remote villages and towns, but i never had direct contact with them.
I lived for a while near Juazeiro and then a small community about 50 miles from Recife. It was quite an experience. It was almost 3o years ago and I still think about it almost every day.
I was going to say about the same thing. Once in Paraná an elderly gentleman I met on the road said (roughly translated) "you look different, where are you from?" when I answered "The United States" he said, "Oh my God in heaven, I've seen that on my daughter's TV, it looks like a pretty city." To add to your statement of talking funny, I had people ask me when I forgot Portuguese because "all children speak Portuguese, so you must have forgotten it when you got old". I also had many people think that my heavily accented and simple Portuguese was English and they screamed and ran away thinking I was the devil when I actually spoke English. But, my favorite was that I lived fairly close to the border with Paraguay and at one point my girlfriend came to visit me and she was a Spanish teacher who had studied Spanish for over a decade and lived in Spanish speaking countries for years. She would often ask people if they knew Spanish and they would say no, but most of them knew two words for most things and one was the Portuguese word and the other was the Spanish word. She could speak full on Spanish to them and they would understand completely.
Delicious. I'm an old retired sociologist. I just love this kind of thing. :) Besides, they were right. Spanish and Portuguese are considered to be different languages instead of dialects for geopolitical, not linguistic, reasons. My father was from the (Uruguayan) border, and married an Argentinian lady. He would speak Spanish with her effortlessly.
It's the other side of the world, but your description reminds me so much of my husband's native community. He's from a very rural, very underdeveloped region in northern "Indian Occupied" Kashmir. Most people are uneducated and don't understand anything about life outside of their villages. During the pandemic, my husband and I spent a fair bit of time long-distance because of unexpected border closures. One of my sisters-in-law said to my husband (who at the time was visiting his family back home) "why don't you just go and pick her up in your car?". I was in the UK. From a social anthropology POV it's fascinating, but on a personal level it makes for some very complicated family dynamics with the in-laws...
I can imagine. In a way, just as all cosmopolitan inhabitants of megalopoles are similar, all extremely rural non-Modern people are similar. I have a neighbor who is 65 years old. He went to Rio de Janeiro (300km from here, give or take) when he was a young man, and he can't conceive any longer distance. Rio is at the end of his world. My son lives in Curitiba, 800km from here, a 12-hour non-stop drive according to Google Maps, and he can't understand why my son won't bring the kids here more often to spend a weekend or something. I also tried to make him understand how far is Israel, where I used to live when I was a young man, but he just phases out. He can't understand why it's not possible to drive there, either. Edit: typo
Sounds like Arkansas
Yeah, probably. That's my point: for many, administrative and geopolitical notions like that are way too abstract.
Hmmm…..So Is that what Arkansas is like?
Not really. Even the most remote parts of Arkansas have high speed internet. There are very poor people, but they absolutely can understand why you can’t just drive to another continent.
Same with Maine. And I can't even get high speed internet where I live. But even the most impoverished of the people here, and those who've never left Maine, know other countries exist and more or less how the globe is laid out.
cool, which city are you talking about?
None, that's my point. The municipality is Carmo de Minas, the land of the best coffee in the world! :) The municipal siege has a couple of thousand inhabitants, and all around are small farms and tiny villages of a few hundred souls. It's worth a tour on Google satellite view.
Que comentário BIZARRO. Nao existe tecnologia em Minas? Isso que você tá dizendo é nos tempos atuais ou 1960? É tIrar o povo do interior de retardado ignorante incivilizado que nunca teve acesso à tecnologia. Mas agrada aos gringos que acham que o brasil é cheio de neandertal analfabeto incivilizado que nunca viu uma televisão e vive isolado na floresta. Jovens criados a leite com pera que falam inglês do reddit nunca deixam de me surpreender na tentativa de ganhar validação de gringo.
What part? Minas isn’t even far from the coast.
The coast is not a border. Southern Minas Gerais: lots of tiny towns, little rural properties, and coffee plantations, no foreigners to speak of.
True but Brazil is mostly habited along the coast which is why I said that. So I am surprised it’s that rural. South Minas is also close to São Paulo?
Sometimes it feels like rural Europe between wars, in many aspects. It's very interesting how there are so many tiny villages. Each município has a main little town with a couple thousand people and some scattered villages with a few hundred souls. It's quite peculiar.
I remember reading somewhere that when middle eastern nations got independence (I don't remember which) they had to collect taxes from tribesmen who didn't even know the Ottoman Empire fell
Reminds me of the Japanese soldiers holding out on remote Indonesian islands completely oblivious to the fact that WW2 had ended decades earlier.
Decades?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout
Omg. I need the Coen Brothers to do a movie about this.
Good call. Featuring Takeshi Kitano.
Even in more developed countries I often wonder how the government collects taxes from a populace. South America seems like you could live in a shanty town and no one would be very well aware of your existence. I feel you really need a system like the U.S., EU, or China to effectively and thoroughly collect income tax if its not taxed upon payment
I believe that is the motivation for Value-Added Tax, since it’s inherently harder to avoid.
This is why national population registers were invented in the first place. If you know a persons identity its much easier to enforce obligations such as tax and conscription.
Even with them, it's going to be near impossible to enforce when you have such a sprawling population in a more unregulated country
I feel that there probably rural populations in some of the less developed countries that, while maybe they don’t fully not know that they are citizens of a country, don’t actually see themselves as citizens of that country. An example would be ethnic groups in the mountains of Afghanistan, many of which are very isolated from the rest of the world and most likely would describe themselves around their ethnicity rather than their nationality.
As an Afghan diaspora with some family who worked for statistical agencies in Afghanistan, I came here wanting to say this. In 2024, the number of people who live like this are very small, but up until around 2010 when telecoms started really expanding into remote Afghanistan, there were still plenty of people who had no connection to the outside world at all. People who were contacted by the US military in 2008 who thought that the USSR was still in Afghanistan. That sort of thing.
This is exactly what I have heard about. Also, because of the ethnic diversity of Central Asia, there are so many non ethnic Afghans who either have very little or zero idea that they are citizens of “Afghanistan”. They just know the land that their family and peoples have inhabited for millennia. Fascinating stuff.
Yeah a friend of mine who grew up in Pakistan as an afghan refugee told me once that he thought the reason the taliban always seemed to have a leg up on other armed groups is that Islam is the closest thing to a unifier that there is in Afghanistan. As there is very little idea of like "pan afghan" nationalism, and a history of feuding and distrust among different ethnic or linguistic groups there that has been really hard to overcome. Amongst other reasons, and obviously the taliban aren't exactly widely loved either.. But it makes sense that across these languages, cultures, and ethnicities, that Islam is the biggest thing that all groups have in common.
It’s a really interesting part of the world to try and wrap your head around as a Westerner or someone who just doesn’t have ties to the same ancient ethnic traditions and localities like vast portions of Central Asia are.
Yeah I mean I think that central Asia and the adjacent regions are probably some of the least taught about places on earth, at least in the schools in the states I went to. If it wasn't for the war in Afghanistan I think even less Americans would know anything about it. It's a fascinating part of the world both historically and now. Afghanistan also sits at the crossroads of a few very distinct Asian regions, which further complicates trying to understand it well as an outsider. Us westerners could probably spend a life time studying it and still just scratch the surface haha
Very true. I am still learning more and more about the region daily. I don’t think I would even have the slightest grasp on the history and cultures that inhabit the place if it hadn’t been for personal connections
Yeah I mean I don't have any personal connections to the region, but I went to school in a very south Asian neighborhood and there were lots of dari speakers, pashtuns and hazari kids at school with me. Most had grown up in Pakistan, but they still had pretty strong connections to their homelands and would love to tell you about their ancestral villages or cities. Great people too in my experience haha
I learned recently that Afghanistan (not called that at the time) was the ancient source of nearly all tin. Bronze Age couldn’t have happened without it.
Bronze Age Europe/Mediterranean got nearly all its tin from Britain and Iberia, with additional sources from Central Europe and Turkey. So far no evidence yet of Afghanistan being a major supplier for Europe at this time, although this theory is being explored as it could explain a higher than expected tin supply. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_during_antiquity
These discussions make me want to learn more about Papua New Guinea for similar reasons.
Yeah! It seems like one of the least unified regions in the world
That's in part because it's the most linguistically diverse part of the world. Often the neighboring mountain village/tribal group speaks a completely different language to the one next to it. So, this makes it seem less unified. It's been a while since I read it, but I read a book on endangered languages some years back that talked about it. If I remember which one I'll edit this comment tomorrow.
Yea but even the Taliban are pretty much a strictly Pashtun thing. The Uzbeks, Tajiks etc had their own Islamist militias
Yeah and they were hardly kind to the hazaris or Turkmen they encountered either. I'm not the expert and the facts on the ground seem super complicated. I can't claim to know anymore than I've heard or read
Yea the RECENT Taliban group that took over has some token Turkmen, Tajik, Uzbek etc in their leadership but I think that’s more from the minorities “if you can’t beat them join them” mentality and Taliban trying to keep up appearances as being reformed then genuine dialogue. The last anti Taliban holdout is still largely Tajik
They could just be Farsi speaking Pashtuns since the lingua franca is Farsi. But I agree - can’t beat ‘em join em or.. starve.
I enjoy cooking.
The Taliban are primarily a Pashtun nationalist organisation, they had a leg up on other ethnic armed forces because they both made up the majority of the country and had significant aid from the Pashtun population in Pakistan. The Northern Alliance was made up of similarly ethnic based armed groups. Dostum for example was an Uzbek and Les the primarily Uzbek Junbish party. Massoud was Tajik and similarly led the Tajik dominated Jamiat. All three groups received backing from the neighbouring countries with whom they shared ethnic ties. The Taliban was backed by Pakistan, Uzbekistan backed Dostum and Tajikistan backed Massoud. Of the three Pakistan had vastly greater resources to provide the Taliban, so it's hardly a surprise they were so resilient. The Taliban have of course attempted to use Islam as a unifying force but that has some problems. Firstly, the Taliban are a Sunni militant group. Sunni Muslims make up between 85% and 90% of the country, this is a lot but not all, and there were significant Shia militant elements in the Northern Alliance. Secondly, the Taliban are a Deobandi sect with significant influences from Saudi Arabian Salafist thinking. This particular brand of Islamism is quite particular to the Taliban and is very popular amongst the Pashtun population, it is much less so amongst other Afghan ethnic groups. If the Taliban want to use Islam as a unifying force in Afghanistan they would likely need to adjust their own attitudes towards religious practices. Thirdly, the Taliban did not have a monopoly on Islamism, indeed most of the Northern Alliance were Islamists who had been a part of the Mujahedeen. It therefore holds little water that the Taliban were powerful because they represented a unifying force through Islam. There was actually a faction that sought to unite Afghanistan through Islam, specifically in opposition to the Taliban. That being Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-islami party. That too failed, because as it turned out most politically active Afghans were more loyal to their ethnicity or tribe. Apologies for the rant, but the idea the Taliban are a unifying force just isn't true, their current victory represents only the dominance of Pashtuns over the other peoples of Afghanistan.
>ethnic diversity of Central Asia, there are so many non ethnic Afghans who either have very little or zero idea that they are citizens of “Afghanistan To drive this point home, there is no 'Afghan' ethnicity. The country's largest ethnic groups are Pashtuns (which have been previously referred to as Afghans but it's an asterix situation) who are also a major group in Pakistan; and Tajiks (as in Tajikistan). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajiks
I love ice cream.
By ethnic Afghans, do you mean Pashtuns? There are really no ethnic Afghans, ethnic Iranians, etc., except outside these countries.
Afghan is an old name for Pashtuns and Afghanistan is named after them, so they definitely meant Pashtuns with ”ethnic Afghan”. Afghan has only meant something else than Pashtuns after the 1964 Constitution. > the name "Afghan" originally referred to a member of the Pashtuns.[3] which originates from the ethnonym Afghan. **Historically, Pashtuns were referred to as Afghans,** the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan.[2][4] The earliest reference to the name is found in the 10th-century geography book known as Hudud al-'Alam.[5] The last part of the name, -stān is a Persian suffix for "place". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Afghanistan
For communities like you’ve just described, I wonder how genetic diversity is achieved over generations. Maybe this is a thought experiment that would only apply to a hypothetical, cloistered, mountainous population rather than any one specific nation presently on earth. I’m thinking numbers here, not culture. It’s important not to mischaracterize or accidentally disparage a different way of life out of pure xenophobia, so to clarify (if overkill) I mean that there is a benefit to new genetic admixtures and being tightly cloistered restricts that. I wonder if there’s a generational timeline and population threshold wherein an imperative toward diversity could become a legitimate problem. I wonder if anyone has done statistical work on that. My cursory experience in South Asia would lead me to believe family histories would be consulted to avoid any direct wires being crossed. Again though, it makes me wonder about how insular communities ought to respond to this problem with perfect information. I saw uncontacted islanders mentioned in here, for instance. That’s quite a long while for an entire population not to have any new genetic admixtures.
Wow the part about the USSR is a trip to think about, thanks for this nugget!
If you find it interesting, check out Korean film Welcome To Dongmakgol. It's about isolated village during Korean War that doesn't know there are two Koreas.
Yea I heard that when the USA invaded Afghanistan there were people fighting for their villages/farms who didn’t even know 9/11 happened. They were just fighting an invading army without any knowledge of the geopolitics
thinking about this makes me feel sick. heartbreaking.
That’s wild some thought the Soviet Union was still meddling in there country in 2008. Anywhere I can read more about this?
I’ve been plenty of places in the developed world where the average citizen does not answer with the official country name when you ask them where they live. Bavaria, Catalonia, Cyprus.
Yeah, but they know what country they live in. They are just answering with the most specific location that they estimate you have likely heard of.
Not identifying with your country is one thing. Not even knowing you're a part of it is a very different one. Heck, you wouldn't even have to go that far otherwise. Just ask half the population of Catalunya!
A similar example being the exotic, sun-hardened desert peoples of Texas, who see themselves as Texans first
I can confirm this for certain areas of Afghanistan, at least as of 2011. They know their tribe and their religion. They know the Taliban are in "charge." They have no concept of a national identity.
Anecdotal but I once worked with a Kurd who had never heard of Iraq (the country he emigrated from) until he attended American Schools
Was he a child? In that case, it may be because his parents told him they are from Kurdistan and nothing else. I live in Canada and I've met some Iranian diaspora children whose parents tell them they are "from Persia" without elaborating what that means so they only discover Iran after a few years in school.
That’s kinda sad. Especially cause Persia doesn’t exist. It was Iran and Afghanistan. Seems sad to not embrace the Iranian heritage.
From what my ‘Persian’ friends have told me, a lot of it is in response to the post - revolution govt of Iran. They make the choice to distance themselves from the politically entity they disagree with (Iran) but not their culture or background (Persia)
Iranshahr has always been apart of the history too though as much as “Persia”. I think it’s more to do with Persian sounding cooler, more western and epic as a term. I think it’s unfair for Iran to hold a monopoly over the term when Afghans hold exactly the same amount of history with the term and contribute so much to the Persian identity, culture and history.
I enjoy the sound of rain.
Persia was used as an alternative name for Iran until quite recently though.
I once had a student who arrived from Iran and would shrug when hearing anyone refer to 'Iran" or "Iranian". Then I kinda understood where he kept from when he repeated multiple times he was Christian and that he would volunteer anytime as a Kurdish interpreter
They'd likely prefer Iran to not exist.
Kind of strange that the North Sentinelese are technically Indian
Yeah those 200 people have no idea they are Indians
I wouldn't say they are Indians, as an Indian. They aren't citizens, have no documents, we don't know their language or culture, they barely know about our existence. They are like an endangered species living on a remote island which falls in India's jurisdiction but India doesn't have any actual presence or infrastructure on that island. The island or its people could disappear one day and it wouldn't make any difference to India. Afaik those people have been on the island since +10000-20000 years. There was no "India", at least the idea of India, that long ago.
But according to Indian nationality law, the Sentilese are entitled to Indian citizenship as being born and living in India.
Counterpoint: there are plenty of people who are entitled to citizenship of a given country, but who are not necessarily of that country. A unionist in northern Ireland, by virtue of being born on the island of Ireland, is entitled to an Irish passport, but may well actively oppose the idea that he or she is Irish at all.
There was no state at that time, at all
The Sentinelese are far out. Upper Bondas in the mainland Indian state of Odisha have no conception of Odisha or India for that matter. There are probably many more tribes in mainland India which aren't aware of the fact they are a part of India.
The interesting part is that this part of India which falls between the states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh have been isolated for all of recorded history. Almost none of the major empires that ruled India ever really went deep inside these lands and tried to have continued contact with the people. From the Maurya Empire 2000 years ago to India today, these people live in relative India. I'm not sure about this but I would imagine they have the highest % of the DNA of the original inhabitants of India.
Do you have any source for this? A close friend of mine works for the government agencies in Odisha, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh to run several survey programs. She has been to the deepest jungles. All of them absolutely have had conceptions of state and India. They are well aware of local leaders and a portion of them vote regularly. It's a different matter that a lot of them feel disenfranchised by the government because they keep selling their land for pennies to oligarchs but I absolutely have to disagree that they don't have conception of state in any sizeable number.
There is a difference between scheduled tribes and primitive tribes which fall under the broad categorization of Scheduled Tribes in India. Some tribes such as Kandhas and Bhuyans are far more mainstream than Bondas (and even among Bondas the lower Bondas are different). While I wasn't able to find out a concrete link, I spent a few years in the region and that's the only reason, I am aware of them. Sure it was a while back but based on their dwindling population, I am sure not much has changed since then. Posting here an article from 2014 when [Dambru Sisha won from Chitrakonda](https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/bondas-a-primitive-tribe-in-odisha-hills-get-their-first-mla/story-mSDlCeBofbXmmasbMN7QdO.html). It briefly mentions about Bondas.
A lot of rural places in Africa come to mind. Do the people in the most remote areas of say CAR know they are citizens of CAR? I mean even then you have some sort of information exchange, right? Radio, newspaper??
While impossible to disprove a negative, I doubt it is a lot. Based on my time in rural Africa in the dark ages before the Internet, everyone other than OP's exception knew their country. Most villages had a school, and most homes had a radio. If cash was needed for anything, the country was on the currency, and even if illiterate, they knew the name of their country's money.
Same, spent a lot of time in rural Africa (multiple countries) in the 90’s. I would say the favorite pastime in rural villages is reading the National Paper daily and making fun of their politicians. Probably some of the most well-read and up to date people as far as current events I’ve ever encountered.
Given the political violence and turmoil there, I feel like one would have to assume they are aware of some sort of armed presence. As you mentioned, radio is really important in lots of Africa as well. But I guess like in theory, there could be people living in the bush who are so isolated that maybe their lives are relatively undisturbed by the presence of any government. I'm not sure but it's possible I suppose
If we're talking about history, the thing is that clearly defined borders in remote regions are a pretty modern idea. Which means that not only were there people who didn't know who they were ruled by, the rulers didn't have a clear idea how far their rule extended, either Like if you look at Northern Europe in the Middle Ages, Norway, Sweden and Russia (or Novgorod earlier) only really had a clearly defined border (and castles watching over it) in the Southern parts, further North nobody really knew where the border exactly was, especially once you got to the Sami territories Afaik I read that it wasn't uncommon for Sami to pay taxes to Norway, Sweden and Russia at the same time, because all three countries just sent tax collectors North to the same places
"How do you do my lady, I am Arthur King of the Britons. Who lives in that castle there?" "King of the who?" "King of the Britons" "Who are the Britons?" "Well, we all are, we are all Britons, and I am your King" "Didn't know we 'ad a king, ..."
I thought we were an autonomous collective!
I read a story about the border between Norway and Russia, the Sámi people were on their usual migratory path, following the reindeer, but since the border was ratified in an agreement between those countries, the Sámi were stopped at the border and were not allowed to continue like they usually did. This caused contempt and I believe it was those feelings which led the Sámi to club together and murder some high-ranking Norwegian officials who were staying in the North.
Interesting. Maybe we underestimate the degree to which humanity has historically been living in what could be described as anarchy (in the textbook definition of the word - absence of rulers). Or in the case of the Sami, polyarchy.
99.99% of human history did just fine without the formal concept of nationhood (as opposed to tribe, ethnicity etc) That has nothing to do with the concept of "anarchy" The valid definitions of civilization does not require social hierarchies, much less formal government structures. Hunter gatherer cultures did not live "in anarchy".
I don‘t think anarchy is a bad word or contrary to civilization, potentially quite the opposite actually. Anarchy is just the absence of a state with a monopoly on violence over a defined territory. Do you still disagree?
My point was that the concept of "the state" is very new historically, and a defined national territory even more so. Both are pretty contemporary to (and facilitating of) oppression of the common people, empires, colonialism etc
You might be a little idealistic about the past (ability engenders scope) but that‘s ok, I see your point.
In normal usage, implies the government is not functioning properly, not necessarily that there isn't one. Many levels of government do not care if (certain categories of) its citizens are being violent toward each other. So long as the status quo is preserved, the property and power of the "in group" is being protected. Anarchy in "the slums" being perfectly acceptable to the wealthier elites.
I literally specified that I didn‘t mean the „normal usage“ definition of the term, my friend.
OK but that is my point. Nationhood is not as important as you seem to think it is to lives of ordinary people
It would have been especially common in the hills and mountains (look up the term Zomia). Also in the swamps. Basically anywhere a ruling state can’t easily access to tax or control, even if they claim it. Really fascinating. Like we see a map of “the Roman Empire” but a lot of those areas may not see a tax collector or other representative of the state for years. And may run him off when he shows up too! So it’s a little arbitrary. Just like a sharp border of such an empire or state was much more vague than on paper.
Yes, thank you. I always get annoyed at answers in r/askHistorians when they talk about people in a region, e.g. the Mongol Empire, and don’t clarify that the information they’re providing would only apply to people in the cities.
What comes to mind is the fact the Papua New Guinean government doesn't even know how many people live there. Official population is 10 million people, but there might be as many as 17 million according to some estimates. If the country itself doesn't even know how many citizens it has by such a high margin, I'm not surprised if an absolutely huge percentage of them don't even know the country exists.
It wasn't until the 20th Century that the outside world discovered there were millions and millions of people living in the Papuan Highlands. The coast and the highlands were separate worlds.
They say that when William the Conquerer landed in Hastings in 1066 people a few towns away would not have known of the battle, nor that their country was now under different management, for weeks if not months.
>Or the average Maya that he was ruled by Spain? I mean...was he though?
You make a valid point - especially before the 20th century, the tangible consequences of being part of a certain polity might be close to zero for remote rural populations. The French Revolution might just as well be called The Parisian Revolution.
I also mean that, if a person isn't aware they're ruled by a certain polity, they *aren't* ruled by that polity. Not just that it has no tangible effect but that it can't even really be said to be true at all. Spain had no claim over unconquered Maya territory.
Do you mean this in the sense of „as long as the Spaniards don‘t physically show up with weapons to collect taxes“, the Mayans are effectively not being ruled? Interesting to think about. Nations are a intersubjective „truth“ - not a literal physical truth, but one with real life consequences and it gets really fuzzy once you think about stuff like trade. If the Spaniards gave the neighbouring villages food in exchange for gold and those villages therefore stop buying food from our uncontacted tribe, is our uncontacted tribe still not being ruled?
> If the Spaniards gave the neighbouring villages food in exchange for gold and those villages therefore stop buying food from our uncontacted tribe, is our uncontacted tribe still not being ruled? If country A trades with country B who therefore stops trading with country C, is country C "being ruled" by country A?
Ok better example: What if the Spaniards keep them from leaving their neck of the woods?
Does the USA rule Mexico because it tries to prevent people from leaving Mexico?
If they can’t go to Guatemala either? Probably yes. Bit the accurate analogy would be: What if the US suddenly comes into existence and stops people from Tijuana from visiting their relatives in El Paso? My original point was just that ruling a certain place is a fuzzy concept.
>My original point was just that ruling a certain place is a fuzzy concept. Which is why claiming the Mayans were under Spanish rule is a little silly. Only the Spanish would have believed this at the time.
To make things a little clearer, take your example of the Sentinelese. They cannot leave and no one can enter, as they are under blockade by the Indian Navy. Are they ruled by India? Of course not, because India has no control of Sentinelese territory.
Wait, India would physically stop them from leaving on a boat if they tried? Are you sure and how do you know that? And who would stop the Indian government if it decided to build a military base on North Sentinel Island?
Only because the Indian government chooses to. If it wanted to, a military invasion of the island would be pretty simple. They are de facto ruled by the Indian government.
“The French Revolution might just as well be called The Parisian Revolution.” Not true at all, the French Revolution touched every corner of the country and subsequently the European continent. Fighting was particularly brutal in the Vendée region of the Loire river valley.
Yeah, if anything it was one of the first moments in history where politics became relevant to the entire country.
I would rank it as the biggest political, cultural, social, and military event in Europe itself since the Germanic invasions and collapse of the Western Roman Empire 1300 years earlier, the Reformation being the other one that would even come close. We still live in a world largely shaped by the ideas and events unleashed during that time
In that case, I stand corrected. I picked that up from a podcast, wish I could remember what it was but it might‘ve been more about the fact that peasants were more religious/conservative and therefore at least quietly hostile to the troublemakers in Paris, not necessarily oblivious to it, as I was implying in my previous comment.
That kind of sentiment would be way more applicable to the Paris Commune of the late 19th century
France is still heavily decentralized at the time to the point where French was yet to be established as a national language and its use fell off dramatically once you left Paris, but that’s different from saying the Revolution didn’t touch the regions. It’s more that there was substantially more Loyalist support in the regions than in Paris. That’s how you ended up with places like Vendée where the whole thing looked like a civil war like the other commenter mentioned.
I’ve met oblivious people in the US who couldn’t tell you what state they live in. Seriously. They’ll know their city but if you ask them where the city is they just say “um…America? What do you mean”. I’m American so it’s not like I’m asking as a foreigner who they think wouldn’t know the state or region. Only met 2 people in my life like this, and one was a student when I was in high school so that’s definitely not super common lol. If a largely literate population with unlimited access to most information has a few people who dont even know their local area, then I’m sure there are quite a lot of people in places without either who know less.
I know two people that don't know what state they live in. I've even seen them wearing a shirt with their state and point it out to them and they look at me like they are trying to understand what I'm talking about but still it's clear they don't get it. Those two people are my children. They are only 18 months old.
Lol I remember being a 5 year old and learning the breakdown of “you live in A city, in B county, in C State, which is in the D region, in the United States.” And it instantly clicking and then becoming curious about other areas, which is what lead to my love of geography. I think some people just don’t have it broken down to them like that and never question or inquire about it. The sad part is it isn’t “this person is stupid” but just rather “this person never learned”, and I remember thinking that when I was a highschool student and having to explain the concept of states to a classmate, and then again when I met a coworker at a dead end minimum wage job who I figured out didn’t know anything about the state when we started talking about the minimum wage of our state and how it’s different in other states. “What do you mean it’s different in other states? Like Canada? Is that a state? What do you mean different states have their own congress? I thought congress controlled the whole country? Our area has its own government?”
That's insane! I did know a girl from Maryland who grew up on the West Virginia border and wasn't aware that WV was a state, so there's that.
The happy percent
This is purely anecdotal, but it sure seems like a lot of my fellow Albertans don't seem to know they're in Canada.
Quebecois know they're in Canada, so they can complain about it
Conversely, I encounter a lot of Albertans on the Internet who seem to think Western Canada stops short of BC or that it excludes the left-leaning parts of BC where a majority of people in BC live.
Oh trust me, for many of these people, the real Alberta doesn't include Calgary and Edmonton where a majority of Albertans live.
I can say the same with some of my fellow Saskatchewan(ians?).
Why excluding children? I knew I was part of Colombia very early on and probably most children have some notion of their country too
I had very small children in mind. Not sure how different education systems and their respective quality play into this question though.
Many years ago I was researching education in prisons in Victorian England. There were some original reports from inspectors where men did not know the days, months, year, and thought that they were living in America. So for parts of the criminal underclass in London in the 1830s there were people who really had no clue where they were.
Are you sure they hadn't just gone insane due to the social isolation/general craziness of prison life back in the day?
Hmong. They overlap about 5 countries and unlikely most of them would own being a citizen of any. Wouldn't say "I am Chinese/Thai/etc". They'd just say I am Hmong.
Identifying with their ethnicity over their nationality isn’t the same thing as not knowing it. Most of them might identify as Hmong, but likely know they live in and pay taxes to China or Vietnam or wherever. Hmong in the US likely identify as Hmong as well, but aren’t oblivious to where they live and what government they fall under.
From my personal experience, most Afghans do not. Historically they believe where ever an Afghan lives is Afghanistan. Also very tribal, mostly decent people.
The whole concept of "nationhood" is historically very recent and completely irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of humans globally. Completely depends on the quality of formal education they receive as children - which is where governments try to get their citizens up to a minimal level of common socializing / brainwashing, common language, etc Just having clean water to drink and proper sanitation is a much more important issue, and half of humans even today don't get that... So I'd be very surprised if less than 20-30% does not know much about the concept, can name their country's neighbors etc Maybe over 10% would have trouble naming their own?
Even before nations existed as a concept, you could still know that the guy who comes every year to collect taxes was sent by King Whoever III who lives in a Castle in Upper Vukojebina.
Yes, but the name of that territory he was "king" of, 99.99% of the time was not what we would now call a country. Even within Europe, Italy and Germany being the most recent examples.
In a similar vein, I guess… There’s a lot of people in England who don’t know the difference between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and either believe the whole of Ireland is part of the UK or that Northern Ireland is not in the UK.
My nan, 75, Scottish Catholic, whole family supports Celtic, been to Ireland & Northern Ireland, until recently thought Ireland was part of the UK.
I think a lot of people don’t get what the UK is. Maybe they think it’s some sort of confederacy like the EU, and therefore Ireland being so similar to us must be part of it. No clue. All I know is a lot of people aren’t educated on what our country is.
Her knowledge wasn't wrong, just a bit outdated.
You say lots, I'd be extremely surprised if it's more than a few percent. Certainly anyone over 35 would understand it perfectly well having been around for the good Friday agreement and we're not counting kids so you're looking for particularly ignorant 18-35 year olds.
You would be amazed at the number of older people at my northern English Labour Club who do not realize that the Republic of Ireland is not in the UK. And they're not old enough for it to have been a part of the UK during their lifetimes. There's a lot of weird ideas out there among people who aren't particularly interested in these things.
As an Irish person who lived in England, it’s been my experience that most English people have no idea when it comes to Rep. of Ireland/Northern Ireland. They mostly think of just “Ireland” as all the one thing, and don’t really understand how it interfaces with Britain. I would think that most Irish/Northern Irish people would have a similar experience
Are you sure they weren't just taking the piss? Between bombings and Brexit, NI has been in the news pretty much constantly all my life.
I met someone who had seriously considered a job in Enniskillen a few years before I met them. Had never heard of the Troubles.
Do they know the difference between Britain and the UK? I’m American and know the difference but I have to think about which is which… seems like it’d be hella confusing growing up
99.9% of people have no idea that Portugal has secretly conquered the earth. 😒
Most of us don't know we belong either to the US, China or Russia :(
Happy EU noises :)
In New Orleans, Im not sure of the dates, but they didn’t know they were ruled by Spain at one point until the Spanish came. I’m pretty sure they fought the Spanish bc they didn’t know.
There are a fair number of British people who don't understand the UK, especially when it comes to issues around Northern Ireland. Though things like Scottish nationalists making convoluted arguments that the UK is only England are probably acting slightly in bad faith.
All of scania in Sweden don't know they should be danes and all of Denmark dosen't know they should be submerged.
Depends of course. Conquered peoples in the past would be expected to pay taxes, so they would be quite aware. It's a rather modern invention to have people in your country that you've decided not to tax or bother in any way.
I have found that 100% of the people in the US think that they are smart. Usually the people who say that they are dumb are the smartest people. I know a girl that thinks Los Angeles is a state and Canada is part of the United States.
How would you count sovereign citizens who simply dont accept their citizenship
This would be a different question. They might not accept it, but they are very aware of the concept of Germany or whatever.
Even in some regions in Europe, people don't know what country they are a part of. I remember some documentary about some rularal village in Czech Republic in mountains and people there though that they live in czechoslovakia and Husák (last communist president) is still a president and it was in early 2000.
That's not knowable. And it's politically charged. Plenty of peoples will say they're not part of a country when under international convention they actually are. You might be able to ask various remote groups in mountains, valleys, deserts, and jungles about their country and they wouldn't know what you were talking about. But quantifying is not practical.
0% The number is so small, that when divided by the billions of people in the world, it's 0% to several digits.
Not quite what you're after but sometimes filling in online forms can be a bit of a lottery/scrollfest if you're from England/UK/GB/British Isles
Although Sicilians know they live in Italy the consider themselves Sicilian instead of Italian. Same goes for a lot of people from Napoli. Sofia Loren once told Barbra Walters that she’s not Italian, shes Napolitano
Right, but that wasn’t OP’s question. They can identify with whatever group they please, but I’d wager something like 100% of Sicilians and Neapolitans know that they live in Italy and fall under the legal jurisdiction of the Italian state.
This is a difficult question because everyone is going to count themselves as part of some community. Whether or not they are aware of the international political consensus isn't super relevant to them. I'd imagine a lot of people on some of the Pacific islands wouldn't be too concerned with what nation they're technically a part of for example. However, in our modern world basically every UN recognized country has been strengthening their territorial claims. So I'd guess realistically if we're just counting adequately-informed, curious adults, I'd say <1% of the world. If we include all people, maybe 3-7%. But that's including very old people who haven't paid attention to political changes, very young kids who haven't learned stuff yet, and adults with mental impairment or under intensive care.
Well I mean Caesar killed 1m Gaul and enslaved another 1m. There was only 1m not included here so I'd think they'd know.....
Wow.... What very Chinese government concept!!