Ethnicity

Although there is no definitive definition, most scholars increasingly agree that ethnicity derives from both an internal sense of distinctiveness and an external perception of difference. The category exists to classify various groups of people based on specific social and cultural characteristics, with the most typical identifier being ancestry. Although some researchers continue to assert the emotional, hereditary, and primordial origins of ethnicity, increasingly there is agreement that ethnicity can also be the product of structural forces, social organization, and cultural representation. In other words, ethnicity is a social construction, where individuals are active agents in defining their ethnicity, and at the same time, the category must be negotiated within a reactive, shifting social environment.

Ethnicity is situational and dynamic, with individuals sustaining and asserting their ethnic identities in uneven and differential ways, depending on the social and political environment that surrounds them. So even though individuals may use the same ethnic label, they may construct their ethnicity based on the shifting notions and interpretations of their personal identities. At the same time, ethnicity is not a static concept that remains stable over time; instead, identities can be altered, manipulated, and transformed based on broader spatial, political, social, and economic dynamics. Ethnicity, then, is a creative and complex response to both individual and social forces. The formation and expression of ethnic identity come from both historical circumstances and individual negotiations to endow ethnicity and ethnic symbols with meaning.

Many individual characteristics are considered the building blocks of ethnic identity, including language, dialects, religious faith, literature, folklore, music, food preferences, social and political ties, traditions, values, and symbols, kinship, neighborhood, community links, and/or migratory status. Other external attributes are also thought to be significant in the construction of ethnic identities, including the role of governmental policies and social measures, racial discrimination, residential segregation, occupational concentration, and economic [Page 1017]isolation. Ultimately, each individual conceives, maintains, and makes manifest his or her ethnic identity in numerous ways: For some, the identity may be primordial and unproblematic; for others, ethnicity may be strategic and intentional. But all ethnic identities are transformative, and all ethnic identities have very real consequences in people's everyday lives.