The Nature, Causes, and Implications of Ethnic Identification

Abstract

Ethnicity is defined as the process resulting from the interplay of two kinds of social concourses: an inner, intersubjective concourse between the individual and a we-group, and an outer structural concourse involving the individual and we-group on the one hand and, on the other, the wider world or out-group. The inner concourse begins with consciousness of a shared crisis of alienation resolved through a commitment to the group sharing the crisis, one symbolically validated as a large endogamous kindred with a common memory. The outer concourse takes account of the sources of the crisis, its context and timing, the resources of the potential group, the arithmetic of its social relations with the wider society, and the policy of its leadership. Specific configurations of these two sets of factors determine the kind of ethnic movement and resulting ethnic groups. A consideration of the dangers of ethnic mobilization is followed by a concluding section on the sociology of ethnic knowledge.