1. Ethnic and National Identity
Theories of development and change

2. Table of contents The characteristics of ethnicity
What ethnicity is not
Immigration and cultural change

3. Definitions: Little agreement
27 different definitions (Isajiw, 1974)
Many different meanings (Burkey, 1978)
A cultural group
An ancestral group
A racial group
A minority group
An immigrant group
Any group that wears colorful clothes
People unlike ourselves (Banks & Gay, 1978)

4. Definitions
Ethnic group: A social collective made up of people who are defined as sharing important cultural, physical, or ancestral attributes (Jaret)
Ethnicity: Properties of either an ethnic group as a whole or of individual members of an ethnic group, including customs, language, religion, and political and economic interests.

5. Ethnicity is not race Ethnic groups can be racial sub-categories
From C. Jaret’s Contemporary Racial and Ethnic Relations
Ethnic groups can be racial sub-categories
Racial groups can be ethnic sub-categories
Racial and ethnic groups are two kinds of groups

6. Ethnicity is not nationality/state
A nation is a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own (dictionary.com)
A state is a territory of an [independent and autonomous] government (dictionary.com)

7. Ethnicity is not religion
From 2001 study of U.S. congregations called "Faith Communities Today” by Hartford Seminary's Hartford Institute for Religious Research

8. Central characteristics of ethnicity
Peoplehood
Culture
Territoriality
Ethnocentrism
Ascribed membership (Essentialism)

9. Peoplehood
Refers to a special feeling of attachment to other group members
Can have many origins
Shared ancestry
Shared sense of victimization
Shared aspirations
Can be local or cross-national
Fixed or flexible?

10. Culture Definitions (again) vary Institutional behavioral patterns
Language
Family roles and interaction styles
Food
Religion
Celebrations and traditions
Style and appearance
Basic or core values
Human nature (good – neutral – evil)
Time (past – present – future)
Relationship between people (individualistic – collectivistic)

11. Ethnocentrism
A point of view in which one’s own group is the center of everything.
Tendency to judge other groups by the standards of one’s own group
Opposite of multiculturalism
Has two outcomes
in-group cohesiveness
out-group antagonism

12. Essence Question 1
GilWhite, F., Astuti, R., Atran, S., Banton, M., Boyer, P., Gelman, S. A., ... & Laitin, D. D. (2001). Are ethnic groups biological “species” to the human brain? Essentialism in our cognition of some social categories. Current anthropology, 42(4),

13. Essence Question 2

14. Essence Question 3

15. Descent often seen as necessary and sufficient
Sample size = 41
Order of questions is randomized
GilWhite, F., Astuti, R., Atran, S., Banton, M., Boyer, P., Gelman, S. A., ... & Laitin, D. D. (2001). Are ethnic groups biological “species” to the human brain? Essentialism in our cognition of some social categories. Current anthropology, 42(4),

16. Ethnic Group?
Jews
African Americans

17. Jews Sense of peoplehood
Shared culture (e.g., religion, food, holidays, Hebrew/Yiddish language)
Shared connection to specific geographic territory (Israel)
Have sovereignty (in Israel)
Ethnocentrism
Essentialism: Jewish law (Halakha) specifies rules of descent

18. African Americans Sense of peoplehood (complicated)
No: Ancestors from different tribes from different parts of Africa
Maybe: Some feel a connection to Africa, or West Africa
Yes: History of racialization has created sense of peoplehood
Shared culture (sort of)
lots of within-group diversity
substantial overlap with mainstream culture (e.g., language)
Shared connection to specific geographic territory (No: most do not want to live in Africa
Have or want sovereignty (No)

19. How do people reconcile multiple identities?
Are some identities more important than others?
Do some identities have a different meaning than others?
Does the country of residence influence ethnic identity (for members of the same ethnic group)?

20. Building a Diaspora: Russian Jews in Israel, Germany and the USA
Brill Press
Olaf Glockner (historian)
Eliezer Ben-Rafael (sociologist)
Paul Harris (political scientist)

21. Are some identities more important?
What are you in the first place?
American Israeli German
What are you in the second place?
What are you in the third place?
American Israeli German
American Israeli German

22. The meaning of identity (U.S. data)

23. The meaning of identity: host culture

24. Feeling part of host culture (peoplehood)

25. Peoplehood as function of time in host country
0=not at all
1=a little
2=moderately
3=extremely

26. Identification with host culture

27. How do people reconcile multiple identities?
Are some identities more important than others?
Do some identities have a different meaning than others?
Does the country of residence influence ethnic identity (for members of the same ethnic group)?
Next lecture: Acculturation and cultural acquisition