From TheBestLinks.com
- This article should be merged with ethnic group
Ethnicity is the cultural characteristics that connect a particular group or groups of people to each other.
"Ethnicity" is sometimes used as a euphemism for "race", or as a synonym for minority group.
While ethnicity and race are related concepts, the concept of ethnicity is rooted in the idea of societal groups, marked especially by shared nationality, tribal afilliation, religious faith, shared language, or cultural and traditional origins and backgrounds, whereas race is rooted in the idea of biological classification of homo sapiens to subspecies according to morphological features such as skin color or facial characteristics.
It is a term also used to justify real or imagined historic ties as well. In English, Ethnicity goes far beyond the modern ties of a person to a particular nation (e.g., citizenship), and focuses more upon the connection to a perceived shared past and culture. See also Romanticism, folklore. In other languages, the corresponding terms for ethnicity and nationhood can be closer to each other.
The 19th century saw the development of the political ideology of ethnic nationalism, when the vague concept of race was tied to nationalism, first by German theorists including Johann Gottfried von Herder. Instances of societies focusing on ethnic ties to the exclusion of history or historical context arguably have resulted in almost fanatical self-justifying nationalist and/or imperialist goals. Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the 19th-century consolidation and expansion of the German Empire, and the Third Reich, each promoted on the theory that these governments were only re-possessing lands that had "always" been ethnically German. The history of the Balkans is particularly riddled with inter-ethnic conflicts.
The term "ethnicity" may also be used to refer to a particular ethnic group: "People of various ethnicities."
See also
da:Etnicitet
eo:Gento
fr:Ethnie
ms:Etnik
nl:etnisch
sv:Etnicitet
Related links
Top visited
0 of
0 links
[no links posted yet]
>> place link >>
Discussion
Last posted
0 of
0 messages
[no messages posted yet]
>> post message >>
Watch
You can
add this article to your own "watchlist" and receive e-mail notification about all changes in this page.
