View source for Ethnicity

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{{Short description|Social group defined by shared cultural or ancestral traits}}
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{{redirect|Ethnicities|the academic journal|Ethnicities (journal){{!}}''Ethnicities'' (journal)}}
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{{anthropology|concepts}}
An '''ethnicity''' or '''ethnic group''' is a group of [[people]] with shared attributes, which they [[Collective consciousness|collectively believe to have]], and long-term [[endogamy]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Katarina |first=Shyamal |date=2018 |title=Explaining Ethnicity: Primordialism vs. Instrumentalism |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325104468 |journal=Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal |volume=5 |issue=4 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref> Ethnicities share attributes like [[language]], [[culture]], common sets of [[ancestry]], [[tradition]]s, [[society]], [[religion]], history or social treatment.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Chandra |first=Kanchan |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/829678440|title=Constructivist theories of ethnic politics |date=2012 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0199893157 |pages=69–70 |oclc=829678440 |access-date=11 September 2020 |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730072314/https://www.worldcat.org/title/constructivist-theories-of-ethnic-politics/oclc/829678440 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology |last1=People |first1=James |first2=Garrick |last2=Bailey |year=2010 |edition=9th |page=389 |publisher=Wadsworth Cengage learning |quote=In essence, an ethnic group is a named social category of people based on perceptions of shared social experience or one's [[ancestor]]s' experiences. Members of the ethnic group see themselves as sharing cultural traditions and history that distinguish them from other groups. Ethnic group identity has a strong psychological or emotional component that divides the people of the world into opposing categories of 'us' and 'them'. In contrast to social stratification, which divides and unifies people along a series of horizontal axes based on socioeconomic factors, ethnic identities divide and unify people along a series of vertical axes. Thus, ethnic groups, at least theoretically, cut across socioeconomic class differences, drawing members from all strata of the population.}}</ref> Ethnicities may also have a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 May 2015 |title=Insight into Ethnic Differences |url=https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/insight-into-ethnic-differences |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802034224/https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/insight-into-ethnic-differences |archive-date=2 August 2021 |access-date=2 August 2021 |website=National Institutes of Health (NIH) |language=EN}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Banda |first1=Yambazi |last2=Kvale |first2=Mark N. |last3=Hoffmann |first3=Thomas J. |last4=Hesselson |first4=Stephanie E. |last5=Ranatunga |first5=Dilrini |last6=Tang |first6=Hua |last7=Sabatti |first7=Chiara |author7-link=Chiara Sabatti |last8=Croen |first8=Lisa A. |last9=Dispensa |first9=Brad P. |last10=Henderson |first10=Mary |last11=Iribarren |first11=Carlos |date=1 August 2015 |title=Characterizing Race/Ethnicity and Genetic Ancestry for 100,000 Subjects in the Genetic Epidemiology Research on Adult Health and Aging (GERA) Cohort |url=https://www.genetics.org/content/200/4/1285 |url-status=live |journal=[[Genetics (journal)|Genetics]] |language=en |volume=200 |issue=4 |pages=1285–1295 |doi=10.1534/genetics.115.178616 |issn=0016-6731 |pmc=4574246 |pmid=26092716 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802034231/https://www.genetics.org/content/200/4/1285 |archive-date=2 August 2021 |access-date=2 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Salter |first1=Frank |last2=Harpending |first2=Henry |date=1 July 2013 |title=J.P. Rushton's theory of ethnic nepotism |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886912005569 |url-status=live |journal=Personality and Individual Differences |language=en |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=256–260 |doi=10.1016/j.paid.2012.11.014 |issn=0191-8869 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802034224/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886912005569 |archive-date=2 August 2021 |access-date=2 August 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> ''Ethnicity'' is sometimes used interchangeably with [[nation|''nation'']], particularly in cases of [[ethnic nationalism]]. It is also used interchangeably with ''[[Race (human categorization)|race]]'' although not all ethnicities identify as racial groups.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grosfoguel |first=Ramán |date=September 2004 |title=Race and Ethnicity or Racialized Ethnicities? Identities within Global Coloniality |url=http://etn.sagepub.com/content/4/3/315.short |url-status=live |journal=Ethnicities |series=315–336 |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=315 |doi=10.1177/1468796804045237 |s2cid=145445798 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130206215203/http://etn.sagepub.com/content/4/3/315.short |archive-date=6 February 2013 |access-date=6 August 2012}}</ref><ref name=":3" />

By way of [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]], [[acculturation]], [[Cultural amalgamation|amalgamation]], [[language shift]], [[Heterogamy#Social science|intermarriage]], [[adoption]] and [[religious conversion]], individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or [[tribe]]s, which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to [[endogamy]] or [[Geographical segregation|physical isolation]] from the parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a [[panethnicity]] and may eventually [[Melting pot|merge into one single ethnicity]]. Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as [[ethnogenesis]].

Two theories exist in understanding ethnicities, mainly primordialism and constructivism. Early-20th-century primordialists viewed ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since the distant past.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bayar |first=Murat |date=14 October 2009 |title=Reconsidering primordialism: an alternative approach to the study of ethnicity |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870902763878 |journal=Ethnic and Racial Studies |volume=32 |issue=9 |pages=1639–1657 |language=en |doi=10.1080/01419870902763878 |s2cid=143391013 |access-date=5 January 2021 |archive-date=3 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220303074807/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870902763878 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Perspectives that developed after the 1960s increasingly viewed ethnic groups as [[Social construct|social constructs]], with identity assigned by societal rules.<ref>{{cite journal |date=29 April 2010 |author1=Chandra Ford |author2=Nina T Harawa |title=A new conceptualization of ethnicity for social epidemiologic and health equity research |journal=Soc Sci Med |volume=71 |issue=2 |pages=251–258 |doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.04.008 |pmid=20488602 |pmc=2908006}}</ref>

==Terminology==
The term ''[[wikt:ethnic|ethnic]]'' is ultimately derived from the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] {{tlit|grc|ethnos}}, through its adjectival form {{tlit|grc|ethnikos}},<ref name="perseus">[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De%29qniko%2Fs ἐθνικός] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225035201/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De)qniko%2Fs |date=25 February 2021 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus</ref> loaned into [[Latin]] as {{lang|la|ethnicus}}. The inherited English language term for this concept is ''[[wikt:folk|folk]]'', used alongside the latinate ''[[wikt:people|people]]'' since the [[late Middle English]] period.

In [[Early Modern English]] and until the mid-19th century, ''ethnic'' was used to mean [[wikt:heathen|heathen]] or [[wikt:pagan|pagan]] (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian [[ecumene]]), as the [[Septuagint]] used {{tlit|grc|ta ethne}} 'the nations' to translate the Hebrew ''[[goyim]]'' "the foreign nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews".<ref>ThiE. Tonkin, M. McDonald and M. Chapman, ''History and Ethnicity'' (London 1989), pp. 11–17 (quoted in J. Hutchinson & A.D. Smith (eds.), ''Oxford readers: Ethnicity'' (Oxford 1996), pp. 18–24)</ref> The Greek term in [[Archaic Greece|early antiquity]] ([[Homeric Greek]]) could refer to any large group, a ''host'' of men, a ''band'' of comrades as well as a ''swarm'' or ''flock'' of animals. In [[Classical Greek]], the word took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as "[[:wikt:nation|nation]], tribe, a unique people group"; only in [[Hellenistic Greek]] did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or "[[barbarians|barbarous]]" nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan").<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De%29%2Fqnos ἔθνος] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224153805/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De)%2Fqnos |date=24 February 2021 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus</ref>

In the 19th century the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a tribe, race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "tribal, racial, cultural or national [[minority group]]" arises in the 1930s to 1940s,<ref>'' Oxford English Dictionary'' Second edition, online version as of 2008-01-12, "ethnic, a. and n.". Cites Sir [[Daniel Wilson (academic)|Daniel Wilson]], ''The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland 1851'' (1863) and [[Julian Sorell Huxley|Huxley]] & [[Alfred Cort Haddon|Haddon]] (1935), ''We Europeans'', pp. 136,181</ref> serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological [[racism]]. The abstract ''ethnicity'' had been used as a stand-in for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953).

The term ''ethnic group'' was first recorded in 1935 and entered the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] in 1972.<ref>Cohen, Ronald. (1978) "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology", ''Annu. Rev. Anthropol''. 1978. 7:379–403; Glazer, Nathan and [[Daniel P. Moynihan]] (1975) ''Ethnicity{{snd}}Theory and Experience'', Cambridge, Massachusetts [[Harvard University Press]].
The modern usage definition of the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' is:
{{blockquote|''a[djective]''
:...
:2.a. About race; peculiar to a specific tribe, race or nation; ethnological. Also, about or having common tribal, racial, cultural, religious, or linguistic characteristics, esp. designating a racial or other group within a larger system; hence (U.S. colloq.), foreign, exotic.
:b ''ethnic minority (group)'', a group of people differentiated from the majority of the community by racial origin or cultural background, and usu. claiming or enjoying official recognition of their group identity. Also ''attrib''.
''n[oun]''
:...
:3 A member of an ethnic group or minority. ''Equatorians''}}
(Oxford English Dictionary Second edition, online version as of 2008-01-12, s.v. "ethnic, a. and n.")
</ref> Depending on context, the term [[nationality]] may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with [[citizenship]] (in a sovereign state). The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity is called [[ethnogenesis]], a term in use in [[ethnological]] literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something unique and unusually [[exoticism|exotic]] (cf. "an ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established.

Depending on which source of [[group identity]] is emphasized to define membership, the following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified:
* [[Ethnolinguistic group|Ethno-linguistic]], emphasizing shared [[language]], [[dialect]] (and possibly [[Writing system|script]]){{snd}}example: [[French Canadians]]
* [[Ethnonational group|Ethno-national]], emphasizing a shared [[polity]] or sense of [[national identity]]{{snd}}example: [[Austrians]]
* [[Racial group|Ethno-racial]], emphasizing shared physical appearance based on phenotype {{snd}}example: [[African Americans]]
* [[Regionalism (politics)|Ethno-regional]], emphasizing a distinct local sense of belonging stemming from relative geographic isolation{{snd}}example: [[South Island nationalism|South Islanders]] of [[New Zealand]]
* [[Ethno-religious]], emphasizing shared affiliation with a particular religion, denomination or sect{{snd}}example: [[Mormons]], [[Sikhs]]
* Ethno-cultural, emphasizing shared [[culture]] or [[tradition]], often overlapping with other forms of ethnicity{{snd}}example: [[Itinerant groups in Europe|Travellers]]

In many cases, more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, [[Armenians|Armenian]] ethnicity can be defined by [[Armenia]]n citizenship, having Armenian heritage, native use of the [[Armenian language]], or membership of the [[Armenian Apostolic Church]].

==Definitions and conceptual history==
[[File:Watching you (Bangladesh).JPG|thumb|250px|A group of ethnic [[Bengalis]] in [[Dhaka]], Bangladesh. The Bengalis form the third-largest ethnic group in the world after the [[Han Chinese]] and [[Arabs]].<ref>roughly 300 million worldwide ([[CIA Factbook]] 2014 estimates, numbers subject to rapid population growth).</ref>]]
[[File:Kirab budaya.jpg|thumb|250px|The [[Javanese people]] of [[Indonesia]] are the largest [[Austronesia]]n ethnic group.]]

[[Ethnography]] begins in [[classical antiquity]]; after early authors like [[Anaximander]] and [[Hecataeus of Miletus]], [[Herodotus]] laid the foundation of both [[historiography]] and ethnography of the [[ancient world]] {{circa|480 BC}}. The Greeks had developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of [[Hellenes]]. Although there were exceptions, such as Macedonia, which was ruled by nobility in a way that was not typically Greek, and Sparta, which had an unusual ruling class, the ancient Greeks generally enslaved only non-Greeks due to their strong belief in ethnic nationalism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rosivach |first=Vincent J. |date=1999 |title=Enslaving "Barbaroi" and the Athenian Ideology of Slavery |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4436537 |journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=129–157 |jstor=4436537 |issn=0018-2311}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Demosthenes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZWTTh_h-DC8C |title=The Orations of Demosthenes: Translated with Notes |last2=Kennedy |first2=Charles Rann |date=1878 |publisher=G. Bell and sons |language=en}}</ref> The Greeks sometimes believed that even their lowest citizens were superior to any barbarian. In his ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]'' 1.2–7; 3.14, [[Aristotle]] even described barbarians as natural slaves in contrast to the Greeks. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating
# shared [[kinship and descent|descent]] ({{langx|el|ὅμαιμον}}{{snd}}{{lang|el-latn|homaimon}}, "of the same blood"),<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%28%2Fmaimos ὅμαιμος] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225070512/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do(%2Fmaimos |date=25 February 2021 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Papillon |first=Terry L |date=31 December 2004 |title=Isocrates II |url=https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292702462/ |access-date=12 October 2024 |website=University of Texas Press |page=40 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last1=Herodotus |date=1920 |translator-first1=A. D. |translator-last1=Godley |title= The Histories, Book 8, chapter 144, section 2 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book=8:chapter=144:section=2 |access-date=12 October 2024 |website=Perseus Digital Library}}</ref>
# shared [[language]] ({{langx|el|ὁμόγλωσσον}}{{snd}}{{lang|el-latn|homoglōsson}}, "speaking the same language"),<ref>"[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%28mo%2Fglwssos ὁμόγλωσσος]", Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225073414/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do(mo%2Fglwssos |date=25 February 2021 }}.</ref>
# shared [[sanctuaries]] and [[sacrifices]] ({{langx|el|θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι}}{{snd}}{{lang|el-latn|theōn hidrumata te koina kai thusiai}}),<ref>{{cite book |first=I. |last=Polinskaya |chapter=Shared sanctuaries and the gods of others: On the meaning Of 'common' in Herodotus 8.144 |editor1-first=R. |editor1-last=Rosen |editor2-first=I. |editor2-last=Sluiter |title=Valuing others in Classical Antiquity |location=Leiden |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |date=2010 |pages=43–70}}</ref>
# shared [[Mores|customs]] ({{langx|el|ἤθεα ὁμότροπα}}{{snd}}{{lang|el-latn|ēthea homotropa}}, "customs of like fashion").<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%28mo%2Ftropos ὁμότροπος] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225222702/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do(mo%2Ftropos |date=25 February 2021 }}, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus)</ref><ref>Herodotus, 8.144.2: ''"The kinship of all Greeks in blood and speech, and the shrines of gods and the sacrifices that we have in common, and the likeness of our way of life."''</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Athena S. |last1=Leoussi |first2=Steven |last2=Grosby |title=Nationalism and Ethnosymbolism: History, Culture, and Ethnicity in the Formation of Nations |publisher=[[Edinburgh University Press]] |date=2006 |page=115}}</ref>

However, earlier Greek individuals did not define the Greek ethnicity by blood. According to [[Isocrates]] in his speech ''Panegyricus'': "And so far has our city distanced the rest of mankind in thought and in speech that her pupils have become the teachers of the rest of the world; and she has brought it about that the name Hellenes suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, and that the title Hellenes is applied rather to those who share our culture than to those who share a common blood".<ref>{{cite book |author=Isocrates |title=Panegyricus |translator=George Norlin |chapter=50 |chapter-url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D4%3Asection%3D50}}</ref>

Whether ethnicity qualifies as a [[cultural universal]] is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/81217/publication.html|title=Challenges of measuring an ethnic world |date=1 April 1992 |website=Publications.gc.ca |publisher=The Government of Canada |quote=Ethnicity is a fundamental factor in human life: it is a phenomenon inherent in human experience. |access-date=28 August 2016 |archive-date=20 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920133111/http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/81217/publication.html|url-status=live}}</ref> such as the anthropologists [[Fredrik Barth]] and [[Eric Wolf]], do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.<ref name="FredrikBarth" />{{irrelevant citation|date=July 2017|reason=this book has only 153 pages ... and the topic is quite different.}}

According to [[Thomas Hylland Eriksen]] the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently.
* One is between "[[primordialism]]" and "[[instrumentalism]]". In the [[primordialism|primordialist]] view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as an externally given, even coercive, social bond.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Geertz |editor-first=Clifford |date=1967 |title=Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Africa and Asia |location=New York |publisher=The Free Press}}</ref> Ethnicities are also perceived as being organically formed over time through long-term endogamy or attachment to cultural objects, or a combination of both.<ref name=":3" />The [[instrumentalism|instrumentalist]] approach, on the other hand, treats ethnicity primarily as an ad hoc element of a political strategy, used as a resource for interest groups for achieving secondary goals such as, for instance, an increase in wealth, power, or status.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cohen |first=Abner |date=1969 |title=Custom and Politics in Urban Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in a Yoruba Town |location=London |publisher=[[Routledge]] & Kegan Paul}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Abner |last=Cohen |date=1974 |title=Two-Dimensional Man: An essay on power and symbolism in complex society |location=London |publisher=[[Routledge]] & Kegan Paul}}</ref> This debate is still an important point of reference in [[Political science]], although most scholars' approaches fall between the two poles.<ref>J. Hutchinson & A.D. Smith (eds.), ''Oxford readers: Ethnicity'' (Oxford 1996), "Introduction", 8–9</ref>
* The second debate is between "[[constructivism (international relations)|constructivism]]" and "[[essentialism]]". Constructivists view national and ethnic identities as the product of historical forces, often recent, even when the identities are presented as old.<ref>Gellner, Ernest (1983) ''Nations and Nationalism''. Oxford: Blackwell.</ref><ref>Ernest Gellner (1997) Nationalism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.</ref> Essentialists view such identities as [[ontological]] categories defining social actors.<ref>Smith, Anthony D. (1986) ''The Ethnic Origins of Nations''. Oxford: Blackwell.</ref><ref>Anthony Smith (1991) ''[[National Identity]]''. Harmondsworth: Penguin.</ref>

According to Eriksen these debates have been superseded, especially in [[anthropology]], by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over [[multiculturalism]] in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in the [[Caribbean]] and [[South Asia]].<ref>{{cite book |first=T. H. |last=Eriksen |chapter=Ethnic identity, national identity and intergroup conflict: The significance of personal experiences |editor1-last=Ashmore |editor2-last=Jussim |editor3-last=Wilder |title=Social identity, intergroup conflict, and conflict reduction |pages=42–70 |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |date=2001}}</ref>

[[Max Weber]] maintained that ethnic groups were {{lang|de|künstlich}} (artificial, i.e. a [[Social constructionism|social construct]]) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared {{lang|de|[[Gemeinschaft]]}} (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status. This was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race".<ref name=mb>{{cite journal |last=Banton |first=Michael |date=2007 |title=Weber on Ethnic Communities: A critique |journal=[[Nations and Nationalism (journal)|Nations and Nationalism]] |volume=13 |number=1 |pages=19–35|doi=10.1111/j.1469-8129.2007.00271.x }}</ref>

Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Barth, whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of the term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s.<ref name="cohen"/> Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates or logical ''a priori'' to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with a focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "...{{spaces}}categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact, and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Barth |first=Fredrik |url= |title=Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference |date=1969 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-316-08246-4 |pages=9–10 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1978 the anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate [[Label (sociology)|labels]] more than indigenous realities:
{{blockquote|... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed.<ref name="cohen"/>}}

In this way, he pointed to the fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had the added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states.<ref name="cohen">{{cite journal |first=Ronald |last=Cohen |date=1978 |title=Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology |journal=[[Annual Review of Anthropology]] |volume=7 |pages=383–384 |location=Palo Alto |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]]|doi=10.1146/annurev.an.07.100178.002115 }}</ref>

According to [[Paul James (academic)|Paul James]], formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing:
{{blockquote|Categorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive.<ref>{{Cite journal |year=2015 |last1=James |first1=Paul |author1-link=Paul James (academic) |title=Despite the Terrors of Typologies: The Importance of Understanding Categories of Difference and Identity |url=https://www.academia.edu/11768378 |journal=Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=174–195 |doi=10.1080/1369801X.2014.993332 |s2cid=142378403 |access-date= 2016-03-12 | archive-date=2021-08-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817215458/https://www.academia.edu/11768378 |url-status=live}}</ref>}}

Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have a mercurial character.<ref>Vincent, Joan (1974), "The Structure of Ethnicity" in ''Human Organization'' 33(4): 375–379</ref> Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness".<ref name="cohen"/> He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity{{spaces}}... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization."<ref name="cohen"/> This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation.

[[Kanchan Chandra]] rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory), choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by the belief of common descent.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chandra |first=Kanchan |date=2006 |title=What is Ethnic Identity and Does it Matter?|journal=Annual Review of Political Science |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=397–424 |doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.9.062404.170715 |issn=1094-2939 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Jóhanna Birnir similarly defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Birnir |first=Jóhanna Kristín |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JtxHWKJOBN4C |title=Ethnicity and Electoral Politics |date=2006 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1139462600 |pages=66 |language=en |access-date=21 March 2022 |archive-date=22 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220422004640/https://books.google.com/books?id=JtxHWKJOBN4C |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Approaches to understanding ethnicity===
Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As [[Jonathan M. Hall]] observes, World War II was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, [[kinship]], a common place of origin, language, religion, customs and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in the genes.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://commonweb.unifr.ch/artsdean/pub/gestens/f/as/files/3610/33969_110704.pdf |title=David Konstan, "Defining Ancient Greek Ethnicity", Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, vol. 6, 1 (1997), pp. 97–98. Overview of J.M. Hall's book "Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity", Cambridge University Press, 1997 |access-date=2 June 2018 |archive-date=17 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180417063958/http://commonweb.unifr.ch/artsdean/pub/gestens/f/as/files/3610/33969_110704.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>

Examples of various approaches are primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism and instrumentalism.
* "''Primordialism''", holds that ethnicity has existed at all times of human history and that modern ethnic groups have historical continuity into the far past. For them, the idea of ethnicity is closely linked to the idea of nations and is rooted in the pre-Weber understanding of humanity as being divided into primordially existing groups rooted by kinship and biological heritage.
** "''Essentialist primordialism''" further holds that ethnicity is an ''a priori'' fact of human existence, that ethnicity precedes any human social interaction and that it is unchanged by it. This theory sees ethnic groups as natural, not just as historical. However, this theory ignores the impact of intermarriage, migration and colonization, which shape the composition of [[modern-day]] multi-ethnic [[Society|societies]].<ref name="smith13">{{Harv|Smith|1999|loc=p. 13}}</ref>
** "''Kinship primordialism''" holds that ethnic communities are extensions of kinship units, basically being derived by kinship or [[clan]] ties where the choices of cultural signs (language, religion, traditions) are made exactly to show this biological affinity. In this way, the myths of common biological ancestry that are a defining feature of ethnic communities are to be understood as representing actual biological history. A problem with this view on ethnicity is that it is more often than not the case that mythic origins of specific ethnic groups directly contradict the known biological history of an ethnic community.<ref name="smith13" />
** "''Geertz's primordialism''", notably espoused by the anthropologist [[Clifford Geertz]], argues that humans in general attribute an overwhelming power to primordial human "givens" such as blood ties, language, territory, and cultural differences. In Geertz' opinion, ethnicity is not in itself primordial but humans perceive it as such because it is embedded in their experience of the world.<ref name="smith13" />
* "''Perennialism''" is an approach that is primarily concerned with nationhood but tends to see nations and ethnic communities as basically the same phenomenon. It holds that the nation, as a type of social and political organization, is of an immemorial or "perennial" character.<ref>Smith (1998), 159.</ref> Smith (1999) distinguishes two variants: "continuous perennialism", which claims that particular nations have existed for very long periods, and "recurrent perennialism", which focuses on the emergence, dissolution and reappearance of nations as a recurring aspect of human history.<ref>Smith (1999), 5.</ref>
** "''Perpetual perennialism''" holds that specific ethnic groups have existed continuously throughout history.
** "''Situational perennialism''" holds that nations and ethnic groups emerge, change and vanish through the course of history. This view holds that the concept of ethnicity is a tool used by political groups to manipulate resources such as wealth, power, territory or status in their particular groups' interests. Accordingly, ethnicity emerges when it is relevant as a means of furthering emergent collective interests and changes according to political changes in society. Examples of a perennialist interpretation of ethnicity are also found in Barth and Seidner who see ethnicity as ever-changing boundaries between groups of people established through ongoing social negotiation and interaction.
** "''Instrumentalist perennialism''", while seeing ethnicity primarily as a versatile tool that identified different ethnics groups and limits through time, explains ethnicity as a mechanism of [[social stratification]], meaning that ethnicity is the basis for a hierarchical arrangement of individuals. According to Donald Noel, a sociologist who developed a theory on the origin of ethnic stratification, ethnic stratification is a "system of stratification wherein some relatively fixed group membership (e.g., race, religion, or nationality) is used as a major criterion for assigning social positions".<ref name=Noel1968>{{Cite journal |last=Noel |first=Donald L. |year=1968 |title=A Theory of the Origin of Ethnic Stratification |journal=Social Problems |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=157–172 |doi=10.2307/800001 |jstor=800001}}</ref> Ethnic stratification is one of many different types of social stratification, including stratification based on [[socio-economic status]], race, or [[gender]]. According to Donald Noel, ethnic stratification will emerge only when specific ethnic groups are brought into contact with one another, and only when those groups are characterized by a high degree of [[ethnocentrism]], competition, and differential power. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture, and to downgrade all other groups outside one's own culture. Some sociologists, such as Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings, say the origin of ethnic stratification lies in individual dispositions of ethnic prejudice, which relates to the theory of ethnocentrism.<ref name=Bobo1996>{{Cite journal |last1=Bobo |first1=Lawrence |last2=Hutchings |first2=Vincent L. |year=1996 |title=Perceptions of Racial Group Competition: Extending Blumer's Theory of Group Position to a Multiracial Social Context |journal=[[American Sociological Review]] |volume=61 |issue=6 |pages=951–972 |doi=10.2307/2096302 |publisher=[[American Sociological Association]] |jstor=2096302}}</ref> Continuing with Noel's theory, some degree of differential power must be present for the emergence of ethnic stratification. In other words, an inequality of power among ethnic groups means "they are of such unequal power that one is able to impose its will upon another".<ref name=Noel1968/> In addition to differential power, a degree of competition structured along ethnic lines is a prerequisite to ethnic stratification as well. The different ethnic groups must be competing for some common goal, such as power or influence, or a material interest, such as wealth or territory. Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings propose that competition is driven by self-interest and hostility, and results in inevitable stratification and [[Group conflict|conflict]].<ref name=Bobo1996/>
* "''Constructivism''" sees both [[Primordialism|primordialist]] and [[perennialist]] views as basically flawed,<ref name=Bobo1996/> and rejects the notion of ethnicity as a basic human condition. It holds that ethnic groups are only products of human social interaction, maintained only in so far as they are maintained as valid social constructs in societies.
** "''Modernist constructivism''" correlates the emergence of ethnicity with the movement towards [[nation state]]s beginning in the early modern period.<ref>{{Harv|Smith|1999|loc=pp. 4–7}}</ref> Proponents of this theory, such as [[Eric Hobsbawm]], argue that ethnicity and notions of ethnic pride, such as nationalism, are purely modern inventions, appearing only in the modern period of world history. They hold that prior to this ethnic homogeneity was not considered an ideal or necessary factor in the forging of large-scale societies.

Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as the anthropologists [[Fredrik Barth]] and [[Eric Wolf]], do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.<ref name="FredrikBarth">Fredrik Barth, ed. 1969 ''Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference''; Eric Wolf 1982 ''Europe and the People Without History'' p. 381</ref> The process that results in emergence of such identification is called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although [[historian]]s and [[Cultural anthropology|cultural anthropologists]] have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention.<ref>Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), ''The Invention of Tradition''</ref><ref>Sider 1993 ''Lumbee Indian Histories''.</ref>

Ethnic groups can form a [[cultural mosaic]] in a society. That could be in a city like [[New York City]] or [[Trieste]], but also the fallen monarchy of the [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian Empire]] or the [[United States]]. Current topics are in particular social and cultural differentiation, multilingualism, competing identity offers, multiple cultural identities and the formation of [[salad bowl (cultural idea)|Salad bowl]] and [[melting pot]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Kolb |first=Eva |title=The Evolution of New York City's Multiculturalism: Melting Pot or Salad Bowl |date=2009 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-3837093032}}</ref><ref>{{cite periodical |last1=Levine|first1=Randy |first2=Gifty |last2=Serbeh-Dunn |date=Spring 1999 |title=Mosaic vs. Melting Pot |magazine=Voices |volume=1 |number=4 |url=http://www.darrenduncan.net/archived_web_work/voices/voices_v1_n4/mosaic.html |access-date=1 October 2021 |archive-date=12 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112024849/http://www.darrenduncan.net/archived_web_work/voices/voices_v1_n4/mosaic.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Pieter M. Judson ''The Habsburg Empire. A New History'' (Harvard 2016)</ref><ref>Patricia Engelhorn "Wie Wien mit Meersicht: Ein Tag in der Hafenstadt Triest" In: NZZ 15 February 2020; Roberto Scarciglia Trieste multiculturale: comunità e linguaggi di integrazione (2011); Ibanez B. Penas, Ma. Carmen López Sáenz. "Interculturalism: Between Identity and Diversity". (Bern) 2006. p 15.</ref> Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as [[subculture]]s, [[interest group]]s or [[social class]]es, because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in a process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of [[endogamy]] resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a [[national myth|mythological]] narrative of a [[Eponymous ancestor|founding figure]]); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers"{{snd}}characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups.<ref>Camoroff, John L. and Jean Camoroff 2009: Ethnicity Inc. Chicago: Chicago Press.</ref><ref name=Anderson,>''The Invention of Tradition''</ref><ref>Sider 1993 ''Lumbee Indian Histories''</ref><ref name=ethnic2>{{cite web |last=O'Neil |first=Dennis |title=Nature of Ethnicity |url=http://anthro.palomar.edu/ethnicity/ethnic_2.htm |publisher=Palomar College |access-date=7 January 2013 |archive-date=5 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121205080549/http://anthro.palomar.edu/ethnicity/ethnic_2.htm |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Seidner, (1982), ''Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective'', pp. 2–3</ref><ref name=Smith>Smith 1987 pp. 21–22</ref>

===Ethnicity theory in the United States===
''Ethnicity theory'' argues that race is a social category and is only one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Other criteria include "religion, language, 'customs', nationality, and political identification".{{sfn|Omi|Winant|1986|p=15}} This theory was put forward by the sociologist [[Robert E. Park]] in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of "culture".

This theory was preceded by more than 100 years during which biological [[essentialism]] was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism is the belief that some races, specifically White Europeans in western versions of the paradigm, are biologically superior and other races, specifically non-White races in western debates, are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify enslavement of African Americans and genocide of Native Americans in a society that was officially founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be a preoccupation with scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple creations of races (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up the idea of racial difference and found that White Europeans were superior.{{sfn|Omi|Winant|1986|p=58}}

The ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of attributing the marginalized status of people of colour in the United States to their inherent biological inferiority, he attributed it to their failure to assimilate into American culture. They could become equal if they abandoned their inferior cultures.

[[Michael Omi]]'s and [[Howard Winant]]'s theory of racial formation directly confronts both the premises and the practices of ethnicity theory. They argue in ''Racial Formation in the United States'' that the ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of the White population and did take into account the unique experiences of non-Whites in the United States.<ref name="Omi-Winant-p17">{{harvnb|Omi|Winant|1986|p=17}}</ref> While Park's theory identified different stages in the immigration process{{snd}}contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation{{snd}}it did so only for White communities.<ref name="Omi-Winant-p17"/> The ethnicity paradigm neglected the ways in which race can complicate a community's interactions with social and political structures, especially upon contact.

Assimilation{{snd}}shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture{{snd}}did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination, though it did for others.<ref name="Omi-Winant-p17"/> Once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled, the problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities.{{sfn|Omi|Winant|1986|p=19}} It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not "making it" by the standards that had been set by Whites, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs, or were stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking to cultural defect as the source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S."<ref name="Omi-Winant-p21">{{harvnb|Omi|Winant|1986|p=21}}</ref> It prevents critical examination of the structural components of racism and encourages a "benign neglect" of social inequality.<ref name="Omi-Winant-p21"/>

==Ethnicity and nationality==
{{Further|Nation state|minority group}}
{{Political anthropology|expanded=Basic concepts}}

In some cases, especially those involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, people may link ethnicity to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by [[Ernest Gellner]]<ref>Gellner 2006 ''Nations and Nationalism'' Blackwell Publishing</ref> and by [[Benedict Anderson]]<ref>Anderson 2006 ''[[Imagined Communities]]'' </ref> see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state-system in the 17th century. This process culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus,{{cn|date=May 2025}} in the [[Western world]], the notion of ethnicity, like race and [[nation]], developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when [[mercantilism]] and [[capitalism]] were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that [[Sovereign state|state]] boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined.

In the 19th century modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". [[Nation state|Nation states]], however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality, or they will seek [[autonomy (disambiguation) | autonomy]], sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation from their existing nation-state.<ref>
Walter Pohl, [http://www.kroraina.com/bulgar/pohl_etnicity.html "Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies"], ''Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings'', ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, (Blackwell), 1998, pp 13–24, notes that historians have projected the 19th-century conceptions of the nation-state backward in time, employing biological metaphors of birth and growth: "that the peoples in the [[Migration Period]] had little to do with those heroic (or sometimes brutish) clichés is now generally accepted among historians", he remarked. Early medieval peoples were far less homogeneous than often thought, and Pohl follows Reinhard Wenskus, ''Stammesbildung und Verfassung''. (Cologne and Graz) 1961, whose research into the "ethnogenesis" of the [[Germanic people|German]] peoples convinced him that the idea of common origin, as expressed by [[Isidore of Seville]] ''Gens est multitudo ab uno principio orta'' ("a people is a multitude stemming from one origin") which continues in the original ''Etymologiae'' IX.2.i) ''"sive ab Alia national Secundum program collection distinct'' ("or distinguished from another people by its properties") was a myth. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150423094927/http://kroraina.com/bulgar/pohl_etnicity.html |date=2015-04-23 }}.
</ref>
Under these conditions, when people moved from one state to another,<ref>Aihway Ong 1996 "Cultural Citizenship in the Making" in ''Current Anthropology'' 37(5)</ref> or when one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries, ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state.

[[Multi-ethnic state]]s can result from one of two opposite events:
* either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories
* or the recent immigration of [[Ethnic minority|ethnic minorities]] into a formerly homogenous nation-state

Examples for the first case occur throughout [[Africa]], where countries formed during [[decolonization]] inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as [[Belgium]] or the [[United Kingdom]]. Examples for the second case are countries such as [[Netherlands]], which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the [[United Kingdom]], [[France]] and [[Switzerland]] comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what have been termed "[[multicultural]]" societies, especially in large cities.

The states of the [[New World]] were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they developed as [[settler colonies]] imposed on existing indigenous populations.

In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis)<ref>Nira Yuval-Davis, ''Gender & Nation'' (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997)</ref> have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to the public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent.<ref>Nira Yuval-Davis, ''Gender & Nation'' (London: [[SAGE Publications]] Ltd, 1997) pp. 12–13</ref> It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific [[social collectivity | collectivity]].<ref>Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis "Woman–Nation-State" (London: Macmillan, 1989), p.{{spaces}}9</ref> Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute the kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as [[Britannia]] or [[Marianne]].

==Ethnicity and race==
[[File: Asiatiska folk, Nordisk familjebok.jpg|thumb|The racial diversity of [[Asia]]'s ethnic groups (original caption: ''Asiatiska folk''), {{lang|sv|[[Nordisk familjebok]]}} (1904)]]

Before Weber (1864–1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being the result of inherited traits and tendencies.<ref name="mb" /> With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other.

In 1950 the [[UNESCO]] statement "[[The Race Question]]", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including [[Ashley Montagu]], [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], [[Gunnar Myrdal]], [[Julian Huxley]], etc.), said:
{{blockquote|National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term "race" altogether and speak of "ethnic groups".<ref>A. Metraux (1950) "United Nations Economic and Security Council Statement by Experts on Problems of Race", ''[[American Anthropologist]]'' 53(1): 142–145)</ref>}}

In 1982 the anthropologist David Craig Griffith summarized forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways people from different parts of the world have been incorporated into a global economy:
{{blockquote|The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all the distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values.<ref>Griffith, David Craig, ''Jones's minimal: low-wage labor in the United States'', [[State University of New York Press]], Albany, 1993, p.222</ref>}}

According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of [[mercantilism|European mercantile expansion]], and ethnic groupings during the period of [[capitalism|capitalist expansion]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Eric |last=Wolf |date=1982 |title=Europe and the People Without History |location=Berkeley |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |pages=380–381}}</ref>

Writing in 1977 about the usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of the United Kingdom and the United States, Wallman noted
{{blockquote|The term "ethnic" popularly connotes "[race]" in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, "[race]" most commonly means color, and "ethnics" are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. "[Ethnic]" is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no "ethnics"; there are only "ethnic relations".<ref>Wallman, S. "Ethnicity research in Britain", ''Current Anthropology'', v. 18, n. 3, 1977, pp. 531–532.</ref>}}

In the US the [[Office of Management and Budget]] says the definition of race as used for the purposes of the US Census is not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference".<ref name=AAA>{{cite web |url=http://www.aaanet.org/gvt/ombdraft.htm |title=A Brief History of the OMB Directive 15 |access-date=18 May 2007 |publisher=[[American Anthropological Association]] |year=1997 |archive-date=19 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419034910/http://www.aaanet.org/gvt/ombdraft.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>

Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that "racial/ethnic identity" is one concept and concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grosfoguel |first=Ramán |date=September 2004 |title=Race and Ethnicity or Racialized Ethnicities? Identities within Global Coloniality |url=http://etn.sagepub.com/content/4/3/315.short |url-status=live |journal=Ethnicities |series=315–336 |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=315 |doi=10.1177/1468796804045237 |s2cid=145445798 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130206215203/http://etn.sagepub.com/content/4/3/315.short |archive-date=6 February 2013 |access-date=6 August 2012}}</ref>

Ethnicities that 'double up' as racial groups are also perceived as more legitimate by society even though [[Blood quantum laws|ancestry does not exclusively define ethnicities]], nor is it required to define one.<ref name=":3" />

==Ethno-national conflict==
{{Further|Ethnic conflict}}

Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like [[Jürgen Habermas]] and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view, the state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like [[Charles Taylor (philosopher)|Charles Taylor]] and [[Will Kymlicka]], argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of the nation-state.

The 19th century saw the development of the political ideology of [[ethnic nationalism]], when the concept of race was tied to [[nationalism]], first by German theorists including [[Johann Gottfried von Herder]]. Instances of societies focusing on ethnic ties, arguably to the exclusion of history or historical context, have resulted in the justification of nationalist goals. Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the 19th-century consolidation and expansion of the [[German Empire]] and the 20th-century [[Nazi Germany]]. Each promoted the pan-ethnic idea that these governments were acquiring only lands that had always been inhabited by ethnic Germans. The history of late-comers to the nation-state model, such as those arising in the Near East and south-eastern Europe out of the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as those arising out of the [[Soviet Union]], is marked by [[ethnic war|inter-ethnic conflicts]]. Such conflicts usually occur within multi-ethnic states, as opposed to between them, as in other regions of the world. Thus, the conflicts are often misleadingly labeled and characterized as [[civil war]]s when they are inter-ethnic conflicts in a multi-ethnic state.

==Ethnic groups by continent==
===Africa===
{{Main|List of ethnic groups of Africa}}
{{importance section|date=June 2021}}

Ethnic groups in Africa number in the hundreds, each generally having its own [[Languages of Africa|language]] (or [[dialect]] of a language) and [[culture]].

===Asia===
{{Main|Ethnic groups in Asia|East Asian people|South Asian ethnic groups|Ethnic groups of Southeast Asia|Ethnic groups in the Middle East}}
{{More citations needed section|date=January 2013}}

[[File:Assyriankhigga.jpg|thumb|upright=1.05|[[Assyrian people|Assyrians]] are one of the indigenous peoples of Northern [[Iraq]].]]

Ethnic groups are abundant throughout [[Asia]], with adaptations to the climate zones of Asia, which can be the Arctic, subarctic, temperate, subtropical or tropical. The ethnic groups have adapted to mountains, deserts, grasslands, and forests.

On the coasts of Asia, the ethnic groups have adopted various methods of harvest and transport. Some groups are primarily [[hunter-gatherer]]s, some practice [[transhumance]] (nomadic lifestyle), others have been agrarian/rural for millennia and others becoming industrial/urban. Some groups/countries of Asia are completely urban, such as those in [[Hong Kong]], [[Shanghai]] and [[Singapore]]. The colonization of Asia was largely ended in the 20th century, with national drives for independence and [[self-determination]] across the continent.

In [[Indonesia]] alone, there are more than [[Ethnic groups in Indonesia|600 ethnic groups]],{{sfn|Ananta|Arifin|Hasbullah|Handayani|2015|pp=12, 27–28}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bps.go.id/news/2015/11/18/127/mengulik-data-suku-di-indonesia.html |title=Mengulik Data Suku di Indonesia |publisher=[[Statistics Indonesia|Badan Pusat Statistik]] |access-date=12 February 2020 |date=18 November 2015}}</ref> which are located on 17,000 islands in the [[Indonesian archipelago]].

[[Russia]] has more than 185 [[Ethnic groups in Russia|recognized ethnic groups]] besides the eighty per cent [[Russians|ethnic Russian]] majority. The largest group is the [[Tatars]], 3.8 per cent. Many of the smaller groups are found in the Asian part of Russia (see [[Indigenous peoples of Siberia]]).

===Europe===
{{Main|Ethnic groups in Europe}}
[[File:Olentzero, Beasain.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Basques]] constitute an indigenous ethnic minority in both France and Spain.]]
[[File:Sami family Finland 1936.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|[[Sámi people|Sámi]] family in [[Lapland (Finland)|Lapland]] of Finland, 1936]]

Europe has a large number of ethnic groups; Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute [[ethnic minority|ethnic minorities]] within every state they inhabit (although they may form local regional majorities within a sub-national entity). The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people or 14% of 770 million Europeans.<ref>Christoph Pan, Beate Sibylle Pfeil, ''Minderheitenrechte in Europa. Handbuch der europäischen Volksgruppen'' (2002)., English translation 2004.</ref>

A number of European countries, including [[France]]<ref>{{in lang|fr}} ''article 8 de la [http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006068624&dateTexte=20080129 loi Informatique et libertés] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190320232123/https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006068624&dateTexte=20080129 |date=20 March 2019 }}, 1978: "Il est interdit de collecter ou de traiter des données à caractère personnel qui font apparaître, directement ou indirectement, les origines raciales ou ethniques, les opinions politiques, philosophiques ou religieuses ou l'appartenance syndicale des personnes, ou qui sont relatives à la santé ou à la vie sexuelle de celles-ci."''</ref> and [[Switzerland]], do not collect information on the ethnicity of their resident population.

An example of a largely [[nomadic]] ethnic group in Europe is the [[Romani people|Roma]], also known (often pejoratively) as Gypsies. They originated from India and speak the [[Romani language]].

The [[Serbia]]n province of [[Vojvodina]] is recognizable for its [[Multinational state|multiethnic]] and [[Multiculturalism|multicultural]] identity.<ref>{{Cite book |first1=Gábor |last1=Lux |first2=Gyula |last2=Horváth |title=The Routledge Handbook to Regional Development in Central and Eastern Europe |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |page=190}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |first1=Béla |last1=Filep |title=The Politics of Good Neighbourhood: State, civil society and the enhancement of cultural capital in East Central Europe |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=2016 |page=71}}</ref> There are some 26 ethnic groups in it,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.arhiva.serbia.gov.rs/cms/view.php/1045.print.html |title=Serbian Government – Official Presentation |work=serbia.gov.rs |access-date=26 March 2018 |archive-date=8 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180808011508/http://www.arhiva.serbia.gov.rs/cms/view.php/1045.print.html |url-status=live}}</ref> and six languages are in official use by the provincial administration.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=category&id=22:podzakonska-akta&download=250:statut-autonomne-pokrajine-vojvodine&Itemid=54 |title=Beogradski centar za ljudska prava – Belgrade Centre for Human Rights |date=29 March 2015 |work=bgcentar.org.rs |access-date=26 March 2018 |archive-date=7 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807220627/http://www.bgcentar.org.rs/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=category&id=22:podzakonska-akta&download=250:statut-autonomne-pokrajine-vojvodine&Itemid=54 |url-status=live}}</ref>
{{Clear}}

===North America===
{{Main|Ethnic origins of people in Canada|Ethnic groups in Central America|Demographics of Greenland|Demographics of Mexico|Ethnic groups in the United States| Indigenous peoples of the Americas#North America|Native Americans in the United States|Indigenous peoples in Canada|Indigenous peoples of Mexico|Caribbean people}}

The indigenous people in North America are [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]]. During [[European colonization of the Americas|European colonization]], Europeans arrived in North America. Most Native Americans died due to Spanish diseases and other European diseases such as [[smallpox]]. The largest pan-ethnic group in the United States is [[White Americans]]. [[Hispanic and Latino Americans]] ([[Mexican Americans]] in particular) and [[Asian Americans]] have immigrated to the United States recently. In Mexico most Mexicans are [[mestizo]], a mixture of [[Spaniards|Spanish]] and Native American ancestry. Some Hispanic and Latino Americans living in the United States are not mestizos.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Native_Peoples_of_North_America/|title=Native Peoples of North America}}</ref>

Enslaved Africans were brought to North America from the 16th to 19th centuries during the [[Atlantic slave trade]]. Many of them were sent to the [[Caribbean]]. Ethnic groups that live in the Caribbean are: indigenous peoples, Africans, Indians, White Europeans, Chinese and Portuguese. The first White Europeans to arrive in the [[Dominican Republic]] were the Spanish in 1492. The Caribbean was also colonized and discovered by the Portuguese, English, Dutch and French.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://caricom.org/our-community/who-we-are/our-people/ |title=Our People |access-date=22 May 2022 |archive-date=29 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210329182551/https://caricom.org/our-community/who-we-are/our-people/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

A sizeable number of people in the United States have mixed-race identities. In 2021, the number of Americans who identified as non-Hispanic and more than one race was 13.5 million. The number of Hispanic Americans who identified as multiracial was 20.3 million.<ref name="ny">{{Cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/us/census-multiracial-identity.html|title = Behind the Surprising Jump in Multiracial Americans, Several Theories|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 13 August 2021|last1 = Tavernise|first1 = Sabrina|access-date = 26 March 2022|archive-date = 26 March 2022|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220326091316/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/us/census-multiracial-identity.html|url-status = live}}</ref> Over the course of the 2010s decade, there was a 127% increase in non-Hispanic Americans who identified as multiracial.<ref name="ny"/>

The largest ethnic groups in the United States are [[Germans]], African Americans, [[Mexicans]], [[Irish Americans|Irish]], [[English Americans|English]],
[[American ancestry|Americans]], [[Italians]], [[Polish people|Poles]], [[French people|French]], [[Scottish people|Scottish]], Native Americans, [[Puerto Ricans]], [[Norwegians]], [[Dutch people]], [[Swedish people]], [[Chinese people]], [[West Indies|West Indians]], [[Russians]] and [[Filipinos]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.worldatlas.com:443/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-and-nationalities-in-the-united-states.html |title=Largest Ethnic Groups And Nationalities In The United States |date=18 July 2019 |access-date=22 May 2022 |archive-date=9 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220509184258/https://www.worldatlas.com/amp/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-and-nationalities-in-the-united-states.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

In Canada [[European Canadians]] are the largest ethnic group. The [[Indigenous peoples in Canada|indigenous]] population is growing faster than the non-indigenous population. Most immigrants in Canada come from Asia.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/census-2016-immigration-1.4368970 |title=21.9% of Canadians are immigrants, the highest share in 85 years: StatsCan |access-date=22 May 2022 |archive-date=30 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220530002145/https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4368970 |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== South America ===
{{Main|Ethnic groups in South America}}

[[File:A Fundação da Pátria Brasileira (Eduardo Sá, 1899).jpg|thumb|''The Founding of the Brazilian Fatherland'', an 1899 allegorical painting depicting the Brazilian statesman [[José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva]], one of the founding fathers of the country, with the [[Flag of Brazil#Empire of Brazil (1822–1889)|flag of the Empire of Brazil]] and the three major ethnic groups in Brazil]]
In South America, although highly varying between regions, people are commonly mixed-race, indigenous, European, black African, and to a lesser extent also Asian.

===Oceania===
{{Main|Indigenous peoples of Oceania|Europeans in Oceania}}
Nearly all states in Oceania have majority indigenous populations, with notable exceptions being Australia, New Zealand and [[Norfolk Island]], who have majority European populations.<ref name="francepacific">{{cite book |last1=Aldrich |first1=Robert |title=France and the South Pacific Since 1940 |date=1993 |publisher=[[University of Hawaii Press]] |page=347 |isbn=978-0824815585 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tLTDYaHhrZgC&dq=%22with+the+ending+of+the+trust+territory%22&pg=PA347 |access-date=18 February 2022 |quote=Britain's high commissioner in New Zealand continues to administer Pitcairn, and the other former British colonies remain members of the Commonwealth of Nations, recognizing the British Queen as their titular head of state and vesting certain residual powers in the British government or the Queen's representative in the islands. Australia did not cede control of the Torres Strait Islands, inhabited by a Melanesian population, or Lord Howe and Norfolk Island, whose residents are of European ancestry. New Zealand retains indirect rule over Niue and Tokelau and has kept close relations with another former possession, the Cook Islands, through a compact of free association. Chile rules Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and Ecuador rules the Galapagos Islands. The Aboriginals of Australia, the Maoris of New Zealand and the native Polynesians of Hawaii, despite movements demanding more cultural recognition, greater economic and political considerations or even outright sovereignty, have remained minorities in countries where massive waves of migration have completely changed society. In short, Oceania has remained one of the least completely decolonized regions on the globe. |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730064637/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/France_and_the_South_Pacific_since_1940/tLTDYaHhrZgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22with+the+ending+of+the+trust+territory%22&pg=PA347&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live}}</ref> States with smaller European populations include [[Guam]], [[Hawaii]] and [[New Caledonia]] (whose Europeans are known as [[Caldoche]]).<ref name="autogenerated2">{{cite web |url=http://www.isee.nc/tec/popsociete/telechargements/4-population.pdf |title=ISEE – Salaires |website=Isee.nc |access-date=20 August 2017 |archive-date=25 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225164238/http://www.isee.nc/tec/popsociete/telechargements/4-population.pdf%20 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>[http://starbulletin.com/2007/08/09/news/story06.html Census shows Hawaii is becoming Whiter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829214703/http://starbulletin.com/2007/08/09/news/story06.html |date=29 August 2008 }}, starbulletin.com</ref> [[Indigenous peoples of Oceania]] are [[Aboriginal Australians|Australian Aboriginals]], [[Austronesian peoples|Austronesians]] and [[Indigenous people of New Guinea|Papuans]], and they originated from Asia.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Australian-Aboriginal |title=Australian Aboriginal peoples &#124; History, Facts, & Culture &#124; Britannica |access-date=26 March 2022 |archive-date=26 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220326035744/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Australian-Aboriginal |url-status=live}}</ref> The Austronesians of Oceania are further broken up into three distinct groups; [[Melanesians]], [[Micronesians]] and [[Polynesians]].

[[Island#Oceanic islands|Oceanic]] South Pacific islands nearing [[Latin America]] were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans in the 16th century, with nothing to indicate prehistoric human activity by Indigenous peoples of the Americas or Oceania.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Terrell |first1=John E. |title=Prehistory in the Pacific Islands |date=1988 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=91 |isbn=978-0521369565 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4SM5rK0hM4C&dq=%22eastern+pacific%22+%22uninhabited&pg=PA91 |access-date=5 March 2022 |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730072313/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Prehistory_in_the_Pacific_Islands/Y4SM5rK0hM4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22eastern+pacific%22+%22uninhabited&pg=PA91&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="asianpacific">{{Cite book |last=Crocombe |first=R. G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iDg9oAkwsXAC&dq=%22included+in+cultural+definitions+of+oceania%22&pg=PR13 |title=Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West |date=2007 |publisher=University of the South Pacific. Institute of Pacific Studies |isbn=978-9820203884 |page=13 |access-date=24 January 2022 |archive-date=9 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220209001401/https://books.google.com/books?id=iDg9oAkwsXAC&dq=%22included+in+cultural+definitions+of+oceania%22&pg=PR13 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="press">{{Cite book |last1=Flett |first1=Iona |title=Islands of Inquiry |last2=Haberle |first2=Simon |date=2008 |publisher=ANU Press |isbn=978-1921313899 |editor-last=Clark |editor-first=Geoffrey |pages=281–300 |chapter=East of Easter: Traces of human impact in the far-eastern Pacific |citeseerx=10.1.1.593.8988 |hdl=1885/38139 |jstor=j.ctt24h8gp.20 |editor-last2=Leach |editor-first2=Foss |editor-last3=O'Connor |editor-first3=Sue |chapter-url=http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p26551/pdf/ch181.pdf |access-date=26 March 2022 |archive-date=31 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211231001343/http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p26551/pdf/ch181.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> Contemporary residents are mainly mestizos and Europeans from the Latin American countries whom administer them,<ref>{{cite journal|title=Frontiers &#124; The Genetic Population Structure of Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile &#124; Genetics |year=2020 |publisher=Frontiersin.org |doi=10.3389/fgene.2020.00669 |pmid=32676101 |doi-access=free |last1=Mountford |first1=H. S. |last2=Villanueva |first2=P. |last3=Fernández |first3=M. A. |last4=Jara |first4=L. |last5=De Barbieri |first5=Z. |last6=Carvajal-Carmona |first6=L. G. |last7=Cazier |first7=J. B. |last8=Newbury |first8=D. F. |journal=[[Frontiers in Genetics]] |volume=11 |page=669 |pmc=7333314}}</ref> although none of these islands have extensive populations.<ref name="ling">{{cite book |last1=Sebeok |first1=Thomas Albert |title=Current Trends in Linguistics: Linguistics in Oceania |date=1971 |publisher=the University of Michigan |page=950 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lYouAAAAMAAJ&q=%22multitude%22+oceania+%22linguistics%22 |access-date=2 February 2022 |quote=Most of this account of the influence of the Hispanic languages in Oceania has dealt with the Western Pacific, but the Eastern Pacific has not been without some share of the presence of the Portuguese and Spanish. The Eastern Pacific does not have the multitude of islands so characteristic of the Western regions of this great ocean, but there are some: Easter Island, 2000 miles off the Chilean coast, where a Polynesian tongue, Rapanui, is still spoken; the Juan Fernandez group, 400 miles west of Valparaiso; the Galapagos archipelago, 650 miles west of Ecuador; Malpelo and Cocos, 300 miles off the Colombian and Costa Rican coasts respectively; and others. Not many of these islands have extensive populations{{snd}}some have been used effectively as prisons{{snd}}but the official language on each is Spanish. |archive-date=30 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730065403/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Current_Trends_in_Linguistics_Linguistic/lYouAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22multitude%22+oceania+%22linguistics%22&dq=%22multitude%22+oceania+%22linguistics%22&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Easter Island]] are the only oceanic island politically associated with Latin America to have an indigenous population, the Polynesian [[Rapa Nui people]].<ref name="realm"/> Their current inhabitants include indigenous Polynesians and mestizo settlers from political administrators [[Chile]], in addition to mixed-race individuals with Polynesian and mestizo/European ancestry.<ref name="realm"/> The British overseas territory of [[Pitcairn Islands]], to the west of Easter Island, have a population of approximately 50 people. They are mixed-race [[Euronesian]]s who descended from an initial group of British and [[Tahitians|Tahitian]] settlers in the 18th century. The islands were previously inhabited by Polynesians; they had long abandoned Pitcairn by the time the settlers had arrived.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.immigration.gov.pn/history/index.html |title=History of Pitcairn Island &#124; Pitcairn Island Immigration |access-date=26 March 2022 |archive-date=22 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220422004641/http://www.immigration.gov.pn/history/index.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Norfolk Island, now an [[States and territories of Australia|external territory]] of Australia, is also believed to have been inhabited by Polynesians prior to its initial European discovery in the 18th century. Some of their residents are descended from mixed-race Pitcairn Islanders that were relocated onto Norfolk due to overpopulation in 1856.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Norfolk-Island |title=Norfolk Island &#124; History, Population, Map, & Facts &#124; Britannica |access-date=26 March 2022 |archive-date=17 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201117020248/https://www.britannica.com/place/Norfolk-Island |url-status=live}}</ref>

The once uninhabited [[Bonin Islands]], later politically integrated into [[Japan]], have a small population consisting of Japanese mainlanders and descendants of early European settlers.<ref name="realm">{{cite book |last1=Todd |first1=Ian |title=Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama |date=1974 |publisher=Angus & Robertson |page=190 |isbn=978-0207127618 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gcEJAQAAIAAJ&q=%22French+language+cultures%22+1974+pacific |access-date=2 February 2022 |quote=[we] can further define the word ''culture'' to mean ''language''. Thus we have the French language part of Oceania, the Spanish part and the Japanese part. The Japanese culture groups of Oceania are the Bonin Islands, the Marcus Islands and the Volcano Islands. These three clusters, lying south and south-east of Japan, are inhabited either by Japanese or by people who have now completely fused with the Japanese race. Therefore they will not be taken into account in the proposed comparison of the policies of non-Oceanic cultures towards Oceanic peoples. On the eastern side of the Pacific are a number of Spanish language culture groups of islands. Two of them, the Galapagos and Easter Island, have been dealt with as separate chapters in this volume. Only one of the dozen or so Spanish culture island groups of Oceania has an Oceanic population{{snd}}the Polynesians of Easter Island. The rest are either uninhabited or have a Spanish – Latin – American population consisting of people who migrated from the mainland. Therefore, the comparisons which follow refer almost exclusively to the English and French language cultures. |archive-date=18 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220618161036/https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Island_Realm/gcEJAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22French+language+cultures%22+1974+pacific&dq=%22French+language+cultures%22+1974+pacific&printsec=frontcover |url-status=live}}</ref> Archeological findings from the 1990s suggested there was possible prehistoric human activity by Micronesians prior to European discovery in the 16th century.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iwojima.jp/ogasa2.html |script-title=ja:小笠原諸島の歴史 |title= |trans-title= |access-date=26 March 2022 |archive-date=9 September 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190909214123/http://www.iwojima.jp/ogasa2.html |url-status=live |language=ja}}</ref>

Several political entities associated with Oceania are still uninhabited, including [[Baker Island]], [[Clipperton Island]], [[Howland Island]] and [[Jarvis Island]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pacioos.hawaii.edu/education/region-jarvis/ |title=Education Resources: Regional Information, Jarvis Island &#124; PacIOOS |website=Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) |access-date=26 March 2022 |archive-date=10 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220510100232/https://www.pacioos.hawaii.edu/education/region-jarvis/ |url-status=live}}</ref> There were brief attempts to settle Clipperton with [[Mexicans]] and Jarvis with [[Native Hawaiians]] in the early 20th century. The Jarvis settlers were relocated from the island due to Japanese advancements during [[World War II]], while most of the settlers on Clipperton ended up dying from starvation and murdering one and other.<ref name="oceanex">{{Cite web |url=https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1705/background/jarvis/welcome.html |title=Discovering the Deep: Exploring Remote Pacific MPAs: Background: The Hui Panalāʻau Story of the Equatorial Pacific Islands of Howland, Baker, and Jarvis: 1935–1942: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research |first=National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |last=US Department of Commerce |website=oceanexplorer.noaa.gov |access-date=26 March 2022 |archive-date=1 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220601150253/https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/ex1705/background/jarvis/welcome.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

====Australia====
{{Main|Indigenous Australians|Native White Australians}}

The first evident ethnic group to live in Australia were the Australian Aboriginals, a group considered related to the Melanesian Torres Strait Islander people. Europeans, primarily from England, arrived first in 1770.

The 2016 Census shows England and New Zealand are the next most common countries of birth after Australia. The proportion of people born in China and India has increased since 2011 (from 6.0 per cent to 8.3 per cent, and 5.6 per cent to 7.4 per cent, respectively).

The proportion of people identifying as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin increased from 2.5 per cent of the Australian population in 2011 to 2.8 per cent in 2016.

==See also==
{{Portal|Society}}
{{col div|colwidth=20em}}
* [[Ancestor]]
* [[Diaspora]]
* [[Ethnic cleansing]]
* [[Ethnic interest group]]
* [[Ethnic flag]]
* [[Ethnic penalty]]
* [[Ethnocultural empathy]]
* [[Ethnocide]]
* [[Ethnographic group]]
* [[Genealogy]]
* [[Genetic genealogy]]
* [[Human Genome Diversity Project]]
* [[Identity politics]]
* [[Ingroups and outgroups]]
* [[Intersectionality]]
* [[List of contemporary ethnic groups]]
* [[List of countries by ethnic groups]]
* [[List of Indigenous peoples]]
* [[Meta-ethnicity]]
* [[Minzu (anthropology)]]
* [[National symbol]]
* [[Passing (sociology)]]
* [[Polyethnicity]]
* [[Population genetics]]
* [[Race and ethnicity in censuses]]
* [[Race and ethnicity in the United States census]]
* [[Race and health]]
* [[Stateless nation]]
* [[Y-chromosome haplogroups in populations of the world]]
{{colend}}

==References==
<!--This article uses the Cite.php citation mechanism. If you would like more information on how to add references to this article, please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php-->
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
* {{cite book |last1=Ananta |first1=Aris |last2=Arifin |first2=Evi Nurvidya |last3=Hasbullah |first3=M Sairi |last4=Handayani |first4=Nur Budi |last5=Pramono |first5=Agus |year=2015 |title=Demography of Indonesia's Ethnicity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=crKfCgAAQBAJ |publisher=[[Institute of Southeast Asian Studies]] |isbn=978-981-4519-87-8}}
* {{cite book |title=Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s |url=https://archive.org/details/racialformationi00omim |url-access=registration |last2=Winant |first2=Howard |publisher=[[Routledge]] and Kegan Paul, Inc |year=1986 |location=New York |last1=Omi |first1=Michael}}
* {{Citation |last=Smith |first=Anthony D. |year=1999 |title=Myths and memories of the Nation |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |author-link=Anthony D. Smith}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|40em}}
* Barth, Fredrik (ed). ''Ethnic groups and boundaries. The social organization of culture difference'', Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1969
* Billinger, Michael S. (2007), [http://coa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/1/5 "Another Look at Ethnicity as a Biological Concept: Moving Anthropology Beyond the Race Concept"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090709224852/http://coa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/1/5 |date=9 July 2009 }}, ''Critique of Anthropology'' '''27''', 1:5–35.
* Craig, Gary, et al., eds. ''Understanding 'race' and ethnicity: theory, history, policy, practice'' (Policy Press, 2012)
* Danver, Steven L. ''Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues'' (2012)
* [[Thomas Hylland Eriksen|Eriksen, Thomas Hylland]] (1993) ''Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives'', London: Pluto Press
* Eysenck, H.J., ''Race, Education and Intelligence'' (London: Temple Smith, 1971) ({{ISBN|0851170099}})
* Healey, Joseph F., and Eileen O'Brien. ''Race, ethnicity, gender, and class: The sociology of group conflict and change'' (Sage Publications, 2014)
* [[Eric Hobsbawm|Hobsbawm, Eric]], and Terence Ranger, editors, ''The Invention of Tradition''. (Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], 1983).
* Kappeler, Andreas. ''The Russian empire: A multi-ethnic history'' ([[Routledge]], 2014)
* Levinson, David, ''Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook'', [[Greenwood Publishing Group]] (1998), {{ISBN|978-1573560191}}.
* Magocsi, Paul Robert, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples'' (1999)
* Morales-Díaz, Enrique; Gabriel Aquino; & Michael Sletcher, "Ethnicity", in Michael Sletcher, ed., ''New England'', (Westport, CT, 2004)
* Seeger, A. 1987. ''Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People'', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
* Sider, Gerald, ''Lumbee Indian Histories'' (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
* {{Citation |last=Smith |first=Anthony D. |year=1987 |title=The Ethnic Origins of Nations |publisher=Blackwell |author-link=Anthony D. Smith}}
* Smith, Anthony D. (1998). ''Nationalism and modernism. A Critical Survey of Recent Theories of Nations and Nationalism''. [[Routledge]].
* Steele, Liza G.; Bostic, Amie; Lynch, Scott M.; Abdelaaty, Lamis (2022). "Measuring Ethnic Diversity". ''[[Annual Review of Sociology]]''. 48 (1).
* Thernstrom, Stephan A. ed. ''Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups'' (1981)
* {{note|census}} [[U.S. Census Bureau]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20060207222529/http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68178.htm State & County QuickFacts: Race].
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|ethnicity|ethnic|nationality|nation}}
{{Commons category|Ethnic groups}}
{{Library resources box
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* [http://escholarship.org/uc/item/32r9x0jr Ethnicity] at EScholarship.org
* [http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/index.aspx Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs] – American Psychological Association
* ''[https://growup.ethz.ch/ Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) Atlas]''
* [https://www.infoplease.com/world/countries/ethnicity-and-race-by-countries List of ethnic groups by country]

{{Ethnicity}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ethnic Group}}
[[Category:Ethnicity| ]]
[[Category:Majority–minority relations]]
[[Category:Multiracial affairs]]
[[Category:1930s neologisms]]
[[Category:Political anthropology]]