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Ethnicity, Race, and Black People in Europe

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Abstract

This chapter provides a definition and examples of the concepts of ethnicity and race, by describing and explaining the presence and experiences of black people in Western Europe at the present time. And it provides examples of the range of ethnic differences in the white population of Europe at a time of increasing national and populist movements. There are currently just over 7 million black people in the 46 nations of Europe, the majority of whom are born and raised in Europe. The black population reveals a wide range of ethnic differences in terms of religion, language, national origins, family format, gender, as well as in music, film, literature, and food. At the same time, regardless of their ethnic origins, all black people in Europe share three common experiences that result from racial stereotypes and discrimination. These are ambiguous hyper-visibility, entrenched vulnerability, and irrepressible resistance and resilience. It is argued that race, ethnicity, and other variables such as economics and gender are intricately entangled with one another in both populations in ways that make it difficult to predict outcomes for different populations.

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Correspondence to Stephen Small .

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Small, S. (2019). Ethnicity, Race, and Black People in Europe. In: Ratuva, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2898-5_169

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