An ethnic group is a group A group can be defined as two or more humans that interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity. By this definition, society can be viewed as a large group, though most social groups are considerably smaller of humans A human is a member of a species of bipedal primates in the family Hominidae . DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. When compared to other animals and primates, humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving. This whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed.[1][2]
Ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness[3] and the recognition of common cultural Culture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:, linguistic In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written. Natural language is distinguished from constructed languages, religious A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth. It may be expressed through, behavioural The behavior of people falls within a range with some behavior being common, some unusual, some acceptable, and some outside acceptable limits. In sociology, behavior is considered as having no meaning, being not directed at other people and thus is the most basic human action. Behavior should not be mistaken with social behavior, which is more ,, as indicators of contrast to other groups.[4]
Ethnicity is an important means through which people can identify themselves. According to "Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World: Science, politics, and reality", a conference organised by Statistics Canada Statistics Canada is the Canadian federal government department commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. The bureau is commonly called StatCan or StatsCan although StatCan is the official abbrevation. It has regularly been considered the best statistical and the United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data. As part of the United States Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau serves as the leading source of quality data about America's people and economy. It is the official " (April 1–3, 1992), "Ethnicity is a fundamental factor in human life: it is a phenomenon inherent in human experience."[5] However, many social scientists, like anthropologists Anthropology is the study of human beings, everywhere and throughout time Fredrik Barth Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth is a Norwegian social anthropologist who has published several ethnographic books with a clear formalistic view. He is professor in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University, and has previously held professorships at the University of Oslo, the University of Bergen (where he founded the Department of Social and Eric Wolf Eric Robert Wolf was an anthropologist, best known for his studies of peasants, Latin America, and his advocacy of Marxian perspectives within anthropology, do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.[6] Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are called ethnogenesis Ethnogenesis is the process by which a group of human beings comes to be understood or to understand themselves as ethnically distinct from the wider social landscape from which their grouping emerges. By self-invention, ethnic groups are "present at their own creation", in the phrase of E. P. Thompson. This recognition of culture. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time. Historians A historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time. If the individual is concerned with events preceding written history, the and cultural anthropologists Cultural anthropology is one of four or five fields of anthropology . It is the branch of anthropology that examines culture as a meaningful scientific concept have documented, however, that often many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention.[7][8]
According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen Thomas Hylland Eriksen is professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo. He has done field work in Trinidad and Mauritius. His fields of research include identity, nationalism and ethnicity. Eriksen finished his dr. polit.-degree in 1991, and was made professor in 1995, at the age of 33. In the years 1993-2001 he was editor of the, until recently the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates. One is between "primordialism" and "instrumentalism". In the primordialist Primordialism can be traced philosophically to the ideas of German Romanticism, particularly in the works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Johann Gottfried Herder. For Herder, the nation was synonymous with language group. In Herder's thinking, language was synonymous with thought, and as each language was learnt in community, then each community view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as an externally given, even coercive, social bond.[9] The instrumentalist In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that a concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality approach, on the other hand, treats ethnicity primarily as an ad-hoc element of a political strategy, used as a resource for interest groups for achieving secondary goals such as, for instance, an increase in wealth, power or status.[10][11] This debate is still an important point of reference in Political science Political science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the study of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how". Political science has several subfields, including: political theory, public policy,, although most scholars' approaches fall between the two poles.[12]
The second debate is between "constructivism" and "essentialism". Constructivists view national and ethnic identities as the product of historical forces, often recent, even when the identities are presented as old.[13][14] Essentialists view such identities as ontological categories defining social actors, and not themselves the result of social action.[15][16]
According to Eriksen, these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology Anthropology is the study of human beings, everywhere and throughout time, by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicised forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in the Caribbean and South Asia.[17]
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Ethnic /religious countries generally sided with similar ethnic groups in the breakup of Yugoslavia and the civil war in Lebanon, Russia supports for Russian ...
Turkish prime minister's "genocide" remarks anger China People's Daily Online
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Hamsa Ramesha
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2.8 million Hispanic adults and 5000 Asian-American adults (mostly Filipinos and Indians) get their news regularly from English-based publications that cater just to their . ethnic group. . Browse the graphs above for more information. ...
