Ethnicity Essay ⋆ Sociology Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

This Ethnicity Essay example is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic, please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

The ancient Greek word ethnos referred to a group of people who lived together, sharing a common way of life. After kinship, ethnicity may be the most ubiquitous way of classifying and organizing human collectivities; it is ”the social organization of culture difference” (Barth 1969) and ”the cultural organization of social difference” (Geertz 1973). How the nuanced complexities of culture are socially organized into ethnicity is not, however, obvious or straightforward. People who may appear to differ culturally may identify themselves as ethnic fellows; witness, for example, the global diversity that is ”Jewishness.” On the other hand, apparent cultural similarity does not preclude ethnic differentiation. An anthropologist from Mars might perceive Danes and Norwegians, for example, as co-ethnics; they, however, would not agree.

So our understanding of ethnicity cannot depend upon a crude model of discrete cultures, seen ”in the round.” What’s more, some cultural themes seem to offer more scope for ethnic identification than others: language, notions of shared descent, myths and historical narratives, locality and co-residence, and religion are all potent ethnic markers. Even so, shared language or religious beliefs and practices, for example, are not necessarily sufficient in themselves to ”create” ethnicity. Nor are shared space and place: living together is as likely to divide people in competition as to bring them together to exploit resources together cooperatively. Ethnicity is not, therefore, a matter of checklists with which to determine whether group A is really ethnically different from group B, or whether group C is really an ethnic group. Enumerating cultural traits – estimating distance and difference – cannot help us to understand or identify ethnicity.

The base line is always whether a group is perceived by its members to be cohesive and different. Self-definition isn’t all that matters, however. It is also necessary that a group should be categorized as distinctive and cohesive by others. This means that power – whose definition counts – may be very important. It also means that ethnicity cannot be unilateral: a sense of ethnicity can only arise in the context of relationships and interaction with others. Which in turn means that without difference there can be no sense of similarity: defining us also defines them (and vice versa). It is difficult to imagine a meaningful identification, whether ethnic or whatever, that is not at least acknowledged by others.

In the contemporary world ethnic identification emerges across a long spectrum of ”cultural scale”: kinship ties, neighborhood and community, regional identity, or the ”imagined community” of the nation, can all foster a sense of shared ethnic identification and belonging. However, because descent and kinship may be important in imaginings of the nation, we are also required to attend to ”race,” the supposedly ”obvious” and distinctive biological ”natures” of populations that are believed (by some) to shape, if not determine, lifestyles and cultures. Although ”racial” categories depend on visible embodied difference to assert their ”naturalness,” it cannot be emphasized too often or too vigorously that ”race” is historically and culturally – and thus arbitrarily – defined. Communal, local, regional, national, and ”racial” identities are all culturally and historically specific variations on the generic principle of collective identification that is ethnicity. Each says something about ”the social organization of culture difference” and ”the cultural organization of social difference.”

This broad understanding of ethnicity acknowledges that ethnic identification is a contextually variable and relative process. However, that ethnicity may be negotiable, flexible and variable in its significance, from one situation to another, also means that ethnicity may not always be negotiable. When ethnicity matters to people, it has the capacity to really matter, to move them to action and awaken powerful emotions.

There is no consistency with respect to the strength and consequences of ethnic identification (although that humans form ethnic attachments seems to be fairly universal). When ethnic attachments do seem to matter to people, we do not need to invoke notions of ”primordial essence” to explain why. Local differences with respect to primary socialization, the power of rituals and symbols, the implacability of history, and the everyday consequences of identification, are sufficient to account for the variable strength of the ”ethnic ties that bind.” And while ethnic attachments may not determine what people do, they matter, and they cannot be ignored.

Bibliography:

Barth, F. (1969) Introduction. In: Barth, F. (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, pp. 9-38.
Cornell, S. E. and Hartmann, D. (2007) Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World, 2nd edn. Pine Forge, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Culture. Basic Books, New York.
Jenkins, R. (2008) Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations, 2nd edn. Sage, London.