Ethnicity

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Ethnicity
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One Definition

• The concept of ethnicity is somewhat
  multidimensional as it includes aspects such as
  race, origin or ancestry, identity, language and
  religion. It may also include more subtle
  dimensions such as culture, the arts, customs and
  beliefs and even practices such as dress and food
  preparation. It is also dynamic and in a constant
  state of flux. It will change as a result of new
  immigration flows, blending and intermarriage,
  and new identities may be formed. (Statistics
  Canada)

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WordNet Dictionary

• Ethnicity is the cultural characteristics that
  connect a particular group or groups of people to
  each other. "Ethnicity" is sometimes used as a
  euphemism for race", or as a synonym for
  minority group. While ethnicity and race are
  related concepts, the concept of ethnicity is
  rooted in the idea of societal groups, marked
  especially by shared nationality, tribal
  affiliation, religious faith, shared language, or
  cultural and traditional origins and backgrounds,
  whereas race is rooted in the idea of biological
  classification of homo sapiens to subspecies
  according to morphological features such as skin
  color or facial characteristics.
• It is a term also used to justify real or
  imagined historic ties as well. 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. In other languages, the corresponding
  terms for ethnicity and nationhood can be closer
  to each other. The 19th century saw the
  development of the political ideology of ethnic
  nationalism, when the vague concept of race was
  tied to nationalism, first by German theorists
  including Johann Gottfried von Herder.

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Questions

• Do you think of yourself as a member of an ethnic
  group?
  
• If so, what is it?
• What defines your group?
• If not, why not?

• How does ethnicity relate to majority or minority
  status?

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Thomas Hylland Ericksen

• Ethnicity is an aspect of social relationship
  between agents who consider themselves as being
  culturally distinctive from members of other
  groups with whom they have a minimum of regular
  interaction. It can thus also be defined as a
  social identity (based on a contrast vis-a-vis
  others) characterised by metaphoric or fictive
  kinship (Yelvington, 1991 168). When cultural
  differences regularly make a difference in
  interaction between members of groups, the social
  relationship has an ethnic element. Ethnicity
  refers both to aspects of gain and loss in
  interaction, and to aspects of meaning in the
  creation of identity. In this way, it has a
  political, organisational aspect as well as a
  symbolic one. Ethnic groups tend to have myths
  of common origin, and they nearly always have
  ideologies encouraging endogamy, which may
  nevertheless be of highly varying practical
  importance.