Deriving from the Greek word skhisma 'cleft' which would be translated into Schism: 'division into opposing factions' and Genesis which is Greek, meaning 'generation, creation’, deriving in turn from gignesthai 'be born or produced, creation, a coming into being'. In other words - Schismogenesis means The creation of division.

Concept developed by the anthropologist, cybernetics philosopher and spiritual ecologist Gregory Bateson in the 1930s to account for certain forms of social behavior between groups. Analogous to Emile Durkheim's concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity (see functionalism (sociology)), Bateson's posited a symmetrical form of schismogenic behavior that consisted of a competitive relationship between categorical equals--e.g. rivalry--and complementary schismogenesis between categorical unequals--e.g. dominance and submission. Batesons' specific contribution was to suggest that certain concrete ritual behaviors either inhibited or stimulated the schismogenic relationship in its various forms. In his earlier formulations, Bateson tied the notion to that of ethos.

Steven Feld (1994, p.265-271), apparently in response to R. Murray Schafer's schizophonia and borrowing the term from Gregory Bateson, calls the recombination and recontextualization of sounds split from their sources schismogenesis.