Research group finds creating boundaries key to reducing ethnic violence
(PhysOrg.com) -- History is filled with examples of ethnic violence, the type that erupts when people with differing cultures attempt to live side by side. The Middle East comes to mind, as does Northern Ireland or Yugoslavia. Whats not so common are studies done that show what sorts of things actually work to prevent problems when people of dissimilar backgrounds live next door to one another. Thus, a new study done by Yaneer Bar-Yam and his team at the New England Complex Systems Institute, appears to be particularly relevant. He and his colleagues, describe in their paper on the preprint server arXiv, how a study theyve done of the ethnically diverse country of Switzerland, shows that political and geographical boundaries have served to keep the peace between the different groups.