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The term "Ethnicity" redirects here. For the live album and video of the same name by Yanni, please see Ethnicity (Yanni album) An ethnic group is a human population whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry (Smith, 1986). Ethnic groups are also usually united by common cultural, behavioural, linguistic, or religious practices. In this sense, an ethnic group is also a cultural community.
Types of ethnic group Members of an ethnic group generally claim a strong cultural continuity over time, although some historians and anthropologists have documented that many of the cultural practices on which various ethnic groups are based are of recent invention (Friedlander 1975, Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983, Sider 1993). On the political front, an ethnic group is distinguished from a nation-state by the former's lack of sovereignty. While ethnicity and race are related concepts (Abizadeh 2001), the concept of ethnicity is rooted in the idea of social groups, marked especially by shared nationality, tribal affiliation, genealogy, religious faith, language, or cultural and traditional origins, whereas race is rooted in the idea of a biological classification of Homo sapiens according to chosen genotypic and/or phenotypic traits, and a belief that such differences among human beings are of such a magnitude as to be classified by the anthropological sense of "race", i.e. subspecies. In the United States Collectivities of related ethnic groups are typically denoted as "ethnic". Most prominently in the US, the various Latin American ethnic groups plus the Spanish are typically collectivized as "Hispanics". The many Asian ethnic groups are similarly lumped together as "Asians". So too with the many indigenous American groups. The terms "Black" and "African American," while different, usually describe the descendants whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. Even the racial term "White American" is typically used in an ethnic sense, lumping all the various European, Middle Eastern, and North African groups together. There has been controversy among extremists on the left and right over the inclusion of various groups from the Middle East, such as Iranians, who are not "Asian" in the sense of people from East Asia or South Asia, as White. The additional factor of intermarriage and multiethnic ancestry complicates the picture further. Categories and data on "Ancestry" in the US are compiled on the following criteria from the Census Bureau: "Ancestry refers to a person’s ethnic origin or descent, 'roots', or heritage, or the place of birth of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States." The ancestry questionnaire is only available on a random basis to one out of six households during the census. In the United Kingdom The classification of ethnic groups used during the United Kingdom Census 2001 are described on the National Statistics website.* UK police began to classify arrests in racial groups in 1975, but later replaced the race code with an Identity Code (IC) system.*: However, from April 1, 2003, all police forces were required to use the new 16 + 1 system (based on the Census classification system described above). In this system there are 16 ethnic codes, "+1" for "Not stated" when an "individual chooses not to acknowledge their ethnic background. If this is the case the officer will assume their ethnicity and record this instead.* Ethnic ideology In the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation, developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. In the nineteenth century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations." Nation-states, however, invariably include populations that have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion on the basis of equality, or seek autonomy, sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation in their own nation-state. Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the twentieth century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view the state ought not to acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity and should instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct, and that it is neither possible nor right to treat people as autonomous individuals. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of the nation-state. This is the nationalist viewpoint. In English, Ethnicity goes far beyond the modern ties of a person to a particular nation (e.g., citizenship), and focuses more upon the connection to a perceived shared past and culture. See also Kinship and descent, Romanticism, folklore. In some other languages, the corresponding terms for ethnicity and nationhood may be closer to each other. Classification Ethnic groups are usually classified by the language they speak. Main ethnic groups include: Research The Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP) has attempted to map the DNA that varies between humans, which is a less than 1 % difference. This data could create definitive proof of the origin of individual ethnic groups. See also | ||||||||
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