ETHNICITY

The intellectual history of the term ‘ethnicity’ is relatively short: prior to the 1970s there was
little mention of it in anthropological literature and textbooks contained no definitions of the
term (Despres 1975:188; Cohen 1978:380). Since the mid-1970s the concept has acquired
strategic significance within anthropological theory partly as a response to the changing
†postcolonial geopolitics and the rise of ethnic minorities activism in many industrial states.
The shift has resulted in a proliferation of theories of ethnicity, explaining such diverse
phenomena as social and political change, *identity formation, social conflict, *race
relations, nation-building, assimilation etc.
There are three competing approaches to the understanding of ethnicity. They could be
roughly categorized as primordialist, instrumentalist and constructivist. Roughly speaking,
primordialist theories assert that ethnic identification is based on deep, ‘primordial’
attachments to a group or culture; instrumentalist approaches treat ethnicity as a political
instrument exploited by leaders and others in pragmatic pursuit of their own interests; and
constructivist approaches emphasize the contingency and fluidity of ethnic identity, treating
it as something which is made in specific social and historical contexts, rather than (as in
primordialist arguments) treating it as a ‘given’.

Primordialist views
The †objectivist theories of ethnicity, which assert that ultimately there is some real, tangible
foundation to ethnic identification, can be subdivided into those in which ethnicity is
viewed as a predominantly biological phenomenon, and those in which it is construed as a
product of culture and history. The conceptual differences are ultimately rooted in different
understandings of human nature and *society.

Teori etnisitas objektivis [positivist?] menilai bahwa sebetulnya ada landasan yang nyata
dan dapat dilihat bagi identifikasi etnis. Teori ini dapat dibagi-bagi ke dalam: (1) semua
teori yang memandang etnisitas sebagai fenomena yang sangat biologis; dan (2) semua
teori yang menyatakan etnisitas sebagai produk budaya dan sejarah.

In those theoretical frameworks strongly influenced by *evolutionism, ethnicity is usually

conceptualized as based in biology and determined by genetic and geographical factors.
Pierre van den Berghe (1981) has explored the contribution of *sociobiology to the
explanation of ethnic phenomena and suggests that these are rooted in a genetic
predisposition for kin selection, or ‘nepotism’. The central concept in a sociobiological
approach is ‘inclusive fitness’, which describes the effect of altruistic behaviour in reducing
 individual fitness (one’s genetic transmission to the next generation) and at the same time
increasing one’s kin group fitness (by helping more of one’s relatives to reproduce, thus
transmitting—albeit indirectly—more of one’s own genes). This tendency to favour kin
over non-kin has been called kin selection, or nepotism. Another concept employed in
sociobiological analysis is reciprocity, defined as cooperation among distantly related or
unrelated individuals which, in conditions when nepotistic behaviour is impossible, could
enhance individual inclusive fitness. In general, ethnicity is defined as a comprehensive
form of natural selection and *kinship connections, a primordial instinctive impulse, which
‘continues to be present even in the most industrialised mass societies of today’ (van den
Berghe 1981:35). Some authors take the view that recognition of the group affiliation is
genetically encoded, being a product of early human evolution, when the ability to
recognize the members of one’s family group was necessary for survival (Shaw and Wong
1989).
Sociobiological interpretations of ethnicity have been severely criticized (Thompson
1989:21–48) but the main thesis—that human ethnic groups are extended kin groups or
collectivities based on *descent—was assimilated by *relativists in talk of ‘quasi-kinship’
groups (Brown 1989:6–8). Explicit primordialism was entertained in *Russian and Soviet
anthropology. Taking its origin in †Herder’s neo-romantic concept of the Volk, as a unity of
blood and soil, it was worked out into a † positivist programme for ethnographic research in
the work of S.M.Shirokogorov, who has defined the †‘ethnos’ as ‘a group of people,
speaking one and the same language and admitting common origin, characterized by a
set of customs and a life style, which are preserved and sanctified by tradition, which
distinguishes it from others of the same kind’ (1923:122). This approach was later
developed in the works of Y.V. Bromley, who has given a very similar definition of ethnos
(1981), and L.N.Gumilev (1989). The latter believed in the existence of the ethnos as a ‘bio-
social organism’ and developed a framework for the study of ethnogenesis as a process
which was basically geographically determined: the rise to existence of an ethnos was
depicted as a combined effect of cosmic energies and landscape.

Tesis utama interpretasi sosiobiologis atas etnis adalah bahwa kelompok etnis adalah
kelompok atau kolektivitas kerabat yang diperluas berdasarkan keturunan. Tesis ini
sudah dikritik habis-habisan, tapi, dalam kenyataannya, tesis ini diasimilasi oleh
relativis saat ia bicara tentang ‘quasi-kinship groups’. Di dalam antropologi Soviet
dan Russia, etnos itu didefiniskan sebagai “sekelompok orang, yang bicara dalam satu
bahasa yang sama dan mengakui asal-usul yang sama, ditandai oleh seperangkat adat
–istiadat dan gaya hidup, yang dilindungi dan disucikan oleh tradisi, yang
membedakannya dari yang lain yang sejenis.
Instrumentalist approaches
From the late 1960s, in theories of *modernity and modernization, ethnicity was treated as a
remnant of the pre-industrial social order, gradually declining in significance. It was a
marginal phenomenon to be overcome by the advance of the modern state and processes of
national integration and assimilation (‘melting pot’, or assimilationist ideology, prevalent in
American cultural anthropology from the 1960s to the mid-1970s). Until the mid- 1970s
ethnicity was defined structurally i.e. in terms of the cultural morphology of a given society
(the linguistic, religious and racial characteristics, treated as ‘primordial givens’ or ‘bases’
of ethnicity). It was suggested that objective and perceived differences between the various
groups in a society served as a basis for the production of a distinctive group identity,
which in its turn created the context for intergroup relations and political mobilization.
Cultural affinities might be exploited as a basis for inter-group affiliation in political
struggles, but were seen as temporary and minor impediments on the way to the modern
nation-state. So, in this cultural approach to the study of ethnicity, it was typically defined
in terms of the objective cultural structure of the society (Smith 1969:104–5). The common
observation that not every cultural group develops an ethnic identity or consciousness of
group affiliation could be accounted for in the concept of ‘latent’ or ‘silent’ ethnicity.

Etnisitas –dalam teori modernity dan modernisasi (akhir 1960-an) -- dianggap seperti
fenomena marginal, dianggap sebagai tatanan sosial pra-industri, yang terus menurun
signifikansinya. Bahkan menjadi sesuatu yang harus diatasi oleh negara modern dan
proses asimilasi dan integrasi nasional (melting-pot dll). Etnisitas itu didefinisikan
secara struktural menurut morfologi budaya suatu masyarakat seperti linguistik, religi,
ras, dan primordial lainnya. Diharapkan perbedaan yang ada sebagai basis produksi
identitas kelompok yang kelak akan menjadi basis hubungan antar kelompok dan
mobilisasi politik. Tapi meski bisa dieksploitasi untuk kesatuan antar kelompok dalam
perjuangan politik, etnisitas juga dilihat sebagai rintangan temporer dan minor pada
jalan menuju negara-bangsa modern.

Instrumentalism, with its intelllectual roots in sociological *functionalism, treated claims to

ethnicity as a product of political myths, created and manipulated by cultural elites in their
pursuit of advantages and power. The cultural forms, values and practices of ethnic groups
become resources for elites in competition for political power and economic advantage.
They become symbols and referents for the identification of members of a group, which are
called up in order to ease the creation of a political identity. Thus, ethnicity is created in the
dynamics of elite competition within the boundaries determined by political and economic
realities (Brass 1985). Sometimes this functionalism acquired a psychological twist, then
ethnicity was explained as an effective means of recovering lost ethnic pride (Horowitz
1985), defeating alienation and alleviating emotional stress as a therapy for suffered trauma.
The essential feature of these approaches is their common base in †utilitarian values.
Constructivist theories

†Fredrik Barth, with his colleagues, in a seminal collection Ethnic Groups and Boundaries,
treated ethnicity as a continuing ascription which classifies a person in terms of their most
general and inclusive identity, presumptively determined by origin and background (Barth
1969:13), as well as a form of social organisation maintained by intergroup boundary
mechanisms, based not on possession of a cultural inventory but on manipulation of identities
and their situational character. This conceptualization has enabled anthropologists to
concentrate upon the situational and contextual character of ethnicity (Okamura 1981;
Verdery 1991), to see more clearly its political dimensions, such as the ability to structure
inter-group relations and to serve as a basis for political mobilization and social stratification.
With the advent of a new interpretive paradigm based on *postmodernism, attention has
shifted to the negotiation of multiple subjects over group boundaries and identity. In this
atmosphere of renewed sensitivity to the dialectics of the objective and the subjective in the
process of ethnic identity formation and maintenance, even the negotiable character of ethnic
boundaries stressed by Barth was too reminiscent of his objectivist predecessors’ tendency to
reification. It was argued that terms like ‘group’, ‘category’ and ‘boundary’ still connote a
fixed identity, and Barth’s concern with maintenance tends to reify it still more (Cohen
1978:386). The mercurial nature of ethnicity was accounted for when it was defined as ‘a set
of sociocultural diacritics [physical appearance, name, language, history, religion, nationality]
which define a shared identity for members and non-members’; ‘a series of nesting
dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness’ (Cohen 1978:386–7).

The future of ethnicity research

Constructivist theories †Fredrik Barth, with his colleagues, in a seminal collection Ethnic
Groups and Boundaries, treated ethnicity as a continuing ascription which classifies a
person in terms of their most general and inclusive identity, presumptively determined by
origin and background (Barth 1969:13), as well as a form of social organisation maintained
by intergroup boundary mechanisms, based not on possession of a cultural inventory but on
manipulation of identities and their situational character. This conceptualization has enabled
anthropologists to concentrate upon the situational and contextual character of ethnicity
(Okamura 1981; Verdery 1991), to see more clearly its political dimensions, such as the
ability to structure inter-group relations and to serve as a basis for political mobilization and
social stratification. With the advent of a new interpretive paradigm based on
*postmodernism, attention has shifted to the negotiation of multiple subjects over group
boundaries and identity. In this atmosphere of renewed sensitivity to the dialectics of the
objective and the subjective in the process of ethnic identity formation and maintenance,
even the negotiable character of ethnic boundaries stressed by Barth was too reminiscent of
his objectivist predecessors’ tendency to reification. It was argued that terms like ‘group’,
‘category’ and ‘boundary’ still connote a fixed identity, and Barth’s concern with
maintenance tends to reify it still more (Cohen 1978:386). The mercurial nature of ethnicity
was accounted for when it was defined as ‘a set of sociocultural diacritics [physical
appearance, name, language, history, religion, nationality] which define a shared identity for
members and non-members’; ‘a series of esting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and
exclusiveness’ (Cohen 1978:386–7).
All the approaches to understanding ethnicity are not necessarily mutually exclusive, so one
possible avenue of research is the integration of the soundest aspects of existing approaches
 into a coherent theory of ethnicity. There are reasons to believe that a constructivist
conceptualization could serve as the nucleus of such a synthesis. Constructivism has a
special significance for these reasons. First, sensitivity to context which could be viewed as
the basic feature of relativistic theories of ethnicity. Their stress on its relational character
and situational dependence made it possible to study ethnicity in the contexts of different
‘levels’ and ‘contextual horizons’: the transnational (as in Wallerstein’s theory of the
*world-system), and within the nation-state (M.Hechter’s theory of †internal colonialism),
between groups (F.Barth’s theory of ethnic boundary maintenance) and within groups
(psychological theories of reactive, symbolic, demonstrative ethnicity, stigmatized identity
etc). These approaches are cumulative from the point of view of scale. Second, all of these
approaches converge on the problematics of descent and kinship in ethnic identity
formation, and these could be viewed as a common conceptual field for testing different
hypotheses. Third, the specific experience of the post-communist world, particularly Russia,
contains a plethora of examples of constructed and mobilized ethnicity, thus forming a
unique field for possible integration of the constructivist and instrumentalist perspectives.
Another direction for ethnicity research is the assimilation of relevant knowledge from other
social sciences, such as the integration of research on forms of mass consciousness into the
understanding of ethnic group descent mythology, linkage of the psychological theories of
attachment with an understanding of ethnic sentiments etc. Our existing understanding of
ethnic sentiment as an intellectual construct engendered on the basis of historical
differences in culture, as well as myths, conceptions and doctrines that areformed from the
deliberate efforts of elite strata to convert myths and mass emotions into programmes for
socio-political engineering, is already a synthesis of instrumentalist and constructionist
perspectives. The definition of an ethnic community as a group of people whose members
share a common name and elements of culture, possess a myth of common origin and
common historical memory, who associate themselves with a particular territory and
possess a feeling of solidarity, opens further avenues for integration of anthropological,
political and psychological knowledge in understanding of ethnic phenomena.

SERGEY SOKOLOVSKII
and VALERY TISHKOV