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Ethnic and National Identity

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Ethnic and National Identity Theories of development and change Table of contents The characteristics of ethnicity What ethnicity is not Immigration and cultural ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Ethnic and National Identity


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
From C. Jarets 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
  • Basic or core values
  • Human nature (good neutral evil)
  • Time (past present future)
  • Relationship between people (individualistic
    collectivistic)
  • Institutional behavioral patterns
  • Language
  • Family roles and interaction styles
  • Food
  • Religion
  • Celebrations and traditions
  • Style and appearance

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

12
Essence Question 1
13
Essence Question 2
14
Essence Question 3
15
Descent often seen as necessary and sufficient
  • Sample size 41
  • Order of questions is randomized

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 DiasporaRussian 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?
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
0not at all 1a little 2moderately 3extremely
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
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