Ethnicity, Ethnic Group and Ethnic Identity: An Understanding

Abstract

The terms ethnicity, ethnic group, and ethnic Identity mean different things to different people. To pre-empt misunderstanding, one needs to specify the meaning one is using.  The term Ethnicity stands for a groups way of conceptualising and relating to society. It welds together individuals who share a history, culture and community, who have an amalgam of language, religion and regional belonging in common and perhaps most critical of all; they feel that they come from the same stock. ^[1]Ethnicity is a concept probably first used by David Reisman in 1953 but the concept itself is not new nor was the phenomenon new or un-recognised previously; it was merely labelled differently. It has objective as well as subjective connotations. Objectively, it is seen as primordial affinities and attachments and subjectively, as an activated primordial consciousness. Among the various scholars who have tried to define this concept, Dov Ronen suggests that ethnicity is politicized into the ethnic factor when an ethnic group is in conflict with the political elite over such issues as the use of limited resources or the allocation of benefits- issues that are particularly intense in developing Third World countries, where the greater the stakes involved, the greater the ethnic factor with which the central government must deal.^[2]  Max Weber was one of the earliest scholars, to give importance to the concept of ethnicity. He defined ethnic groups as those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization or migration[3]. He distinguished ethnic groups from races conceived in biological terms. However it is not only biological difference that constitutes a group, but other factors especially common language, common customs, shared religious beliefs and especially outward differences in terms of clothing, food habits, style of housing and division of labour between the sexes[4]. Along with these cultural and physical characteristics what is more important in defining ethnicity is the subjective perception of these characteristics, both by those who share them and by those who react to them.  He also says ethnic membership does not constitute a group; it only facilitates group formation of any kind particularly in the political sphere. He emphasizes that it is primarily the political community, no mater how artificially organized that inspires the belief in common ethnicity. He suggests that the belief in common ancestry is likely to be a consequence of collective political action rather than its cause; people see themselves as belonging togethercoming from a common backgroundas a consequence of acting together. Collective interest thus not simply reflect or follow from similarities and differences between people; the pursuit of collective interest does however, encourage ethnic identification.