4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST incorporation of institutionally diverse collectivities and their unequal or differential status. According to Smith, colonial societies are characterised by structural pluralism which entails a differential distribution, either through legal or extra-legal practice, of "civil and political rights and the economic, social, and other opportunities that these permit or enjoin'9.5 Discussing race and stratification in the Caribbean, he writes that "in Guyana, Surinam and Trinidad, negroes and East Indians were incorporated as mutually exclusive segments of equivalent status by their common but mutually distinct subordination to the ruling whites".6 For Smith, incorporation is essentially a political act; a society is held together by the authority and regulation of one segment over others. Thus from the pluralist perspective, the question of inter-group conflict is a matter of political dominance of one group over the others. Smith's theory of pluralism has been applied in a preliminary way by Hilda Kuper in the African context. She argues that the Asians in Africa are "strangers" in plural societies and that their racial distinctions are rigidly maintained at the level of political incorporation. The Asians in Africa are not a corporate group; corporate status is rather thrust upon them by the "host" : In a society where power is arbitrarily ascribed, it is convenient for the dominant group to treat Asians as if they were a corporate group and to reinforce this by separate laws, separate schools and so on; at times it may be convenient for Asians, despite their internal differentiation, to accept this fiction and form Asian organisations to negotiate with the representatives of the dominant group.7 A variant of pluralism is found in Tinker's study of overseas Indian communities. The problem of political integration appears to be Tinker's primary concern, and his conclusion is that "it is the dominant population —which determines how the Asian immigrants and their children emerge99.8 The plural society thesis has been criticised on several counts. The major criticisms are discussed below : 1. The plural society appoach defines society by its cultural and political characteristics (e.g., socio-cultural segments, primary institutional diversty, etc.) and thus ignores the economic processes which are of primary importance to any social formation. In a study of Indians in East Africa, Morris rightly observes that this approach "concentrates only on cultural differences, which in themselves are not really more than insignia".9 In doing so, he argues that "the underlying structural similarities are almost certain to be overlooked99. In the opinion ofBanton, "Tt does not seem helpful to put emphasis upon the character of community^ institutions at the cost of the structure of relations in which the various communities are involved, for it is this structure that brings them into particular forms of conflict and cooperation."10