Hot and Cold Ethnicity: Theories of Origin and Intensity

Abstract

The variations in the economic and political contexts of ethnicity provide a basis for a typology of ethnic groups. What we have called ‘historical trajectories’ of ethnicity contribute to an explanation of the origins of ethnicity in the modern world. These socio-historical frameworks explain why there is a Malaysian Chinese Association in the alliance of political parties which governs Malaysia, why contemporary Maori movements re-form the national culture, and contest the politics of participation, social advantage and land ownership in Aotearoa/New Zealand, why Quebec provincial language police require that business outlets advertise themselves in French, and why tens of thousands of Americans have embraced Islam. In this way a historical understanding is always part of a theory of origin, and a structural account establishes the probable limits of action within a given social system. These must be combined with motivational and meaningful accounts of how and why ethnic identities persist, acquire greater or lesser intensity, and lead to greater or lesser degrees of conflict. In this chapter we discuss the nature of the link of ethnicity to kinship and the ‘intensity’ of the ethnic bond. This entails a discussion of primordial, instrumental and situational concepts of ethnicity. We also discuss the view of modernity as antipathetic to ethnic ties.