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DEFINITONS OF ETHNIC GROUP & ETHNICITY :

DEFINITONS OF ETHNIC GROUP & ETHNICITY :. ETHNIC GROUP:. Ethnic group: social group based on ancestry, culture, or national origin Ethnicity: affiliation/identification with an ethnic group. NATURE & BASIS OF ETHNICITY:.

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DEFINITONS OF ETHNIC GROUP & ETHNICITY :

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  1. DEFINITONS OF ETHNIC GROUP & ETHNICITY :

  2. ETHNIC GROUP: • Ethnic group: social group based on ancestry, culture, or national origin • Ethnicity: affiliation/identification with an ethnic group

  3. NATURE & BASIS OF ETHNICITY: • Theories such as Marxism, modernism & assimilation predicted that ethnicity will fade—did not happen--endures • Today, ethnic divisions have torn apart Yugoslavia—led to war in Bosnia, • Israeli-Palestinian conflict • Northern Ireland • Canada (Anglo-phone vs. Franco-phone) • South Africa—racial tensions remain—despite the abolition of apartheid, etc

  4. THEORIES OF ETHNICITY: • Categorized into three schools of thought: • 1. Primordialist school • 2. Constructionist school • 3. Instrumentalist school

  5. PRIMORDIALIST SCHOOL: • Emphasizes: ascription of ethnicity, fixed ethnic boundaries, & biological/cultural inheritance—hereditarianism (nature) • Two perspectives: sociobiological—ethnicity is an extension of kinship (Pierre van den Berghe 1981) & culturalist—common culture determines ethnic identity • Weaknesses: cannot explain why ethnic identities change & the economic and political interests associated with ethnic sentiment

  6. CONSTRUCTIONIST SCHOOL: • Emphasizes the social construction of ethnicity, flexible boundaries, & social environment—environmentalism (nurture) (1960s, 1970s) • Perspectives: “emergent ethnicity”—ethnicity emerges—structural changes— common occupation or residential concentration, e.g., Italian, Jewish ethnic communities (William Yancey 1976) • “Theory of ethnicization”—two conditions: (i) ascription—assignment of individuals to an ethnic group by outsiders such as governments; (ii) adversity—forces members of the same group to unite (Jonathan Sarna 1978) • Symbolic ethnicity—feeling ethnic rather than being ethnic—revival or resurgent ethnicity among whites (Gans 1979)

  7. CONSTRUCTIONIST SCHOOL: Continued • The invention of ethnicity, i.e., created, sustained & refashioned by people (Werner Sollars 1989) • Ethnicity is socially constructed & reconstructed by social forces (Joane Nagel 1994, 1996) • Similar to racial formation (Michael Omi & Howard Winant 1994) • Weakness: ignores the ancestral basis of ethnicity

  8. INSTRUMENTALIST SCHOOL: • Emphasizes that people become ethnic & remain ethnic when their ethnicity yields significant benefits to them • Advancing group interests (Nathan Glazer & Daniel Moynihan 1975) • Rational choice, i.e., people choose one ethnicity over another or avoid association because of benefits/costs of such affiliation (Hechter et al. 1982) • Weakness: “people do not always choose to be who we are; we simply are who we are as a result of a set of social definitions…” (Joane Nagel 1996:26)

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