An ethnic group (also called a people or an ethnicity) is a group of human beings whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry. In Sociology, a group can be defined as two or more Humans that interact with one another accept expectations and obligations as members of the group and share a Human beings, humans or man (Origin 1590–1600 L homō man OL hemō the earthly one (see Humus Genealogy (from Greek: el γενεά el-Latn genea, "descent" and el λόγος el-Latn logos, "knowledge" is the study of An ancestor is a Parent or ( recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i ^[1] Ethnic identity is also marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness^[2] and by common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioral or biological traits. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos For the Björk song see Human Behaviour Human behavior is the collection of Behaviors exhibited by Human beings and influenced by The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets ^[1][3]

According to the international meeting on the Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World (1992), "Ethnicity is a fundamental factor in human life: it is a phenomenon inherent in human experience" despite its often malleable definitions. ^[3] Others, like anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf, regard ethnicity as a result of interaction, rather than essential qualities of groups. Fredrik Barth (born 1928 is a Norwegian social anthropologist who has published several ethnographic books with a clear formalistic view Eric R Wolf ( February 1, 1923 &ndash March 6, 1999) was an Anthropologist, best known for his studies of Peasants, ^[4] Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are called ethnogenesis. Ethnogenesis (From Greek: ethnos ( group of people nation and genesis ( a coming into being is the process by which a group of human beings comes Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention. See also History An historian is an individual who studies and writes about History, and is regarded as an Authority on it Cultural anthropology is one of four fields of Anthropology (the holistic study of humanity) as it developed in the United States. ^[5]

Defining ethnicity

The sociologist Max Weber once remarked that "the whole conception of ethnic groups is so complex and so vague that it might be good to abandon it altogether. Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (maks 'veːbɐ (21 April 1864 &ndash 14 June 1920 was a German political economist and sociologist who was considered "^[6]

In any case, Weber proposed a definition of ethnic group that became accepted by many sociologists:

[T]hose human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration; this belief must be important for group formation; furthermore it does not matter whether an objective blood relationship exists. ^[6]

Anthropologist Ronald Cohen, in a review of anthropological and sociological studies of ethnic groups since Weber, claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" by social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities:

. . . the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed. ^[7]

Cohen also suggests 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. ^[7] Harold Isaacs has identified other diacritics (distinguishing markers) of ethnicity, among them physical appearance, name, language, history, and religion;^[8] this definition has entered some dictionaries. ^[9] 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. ^[10] Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness". ^[7] He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity . . . can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization. ^[7] 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.

Ethnicity and race

Ethnicity and race are related concepts in that both are usually defined in terms of shared genealogy. The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets Genealogy (from Greek: el γενεά el-Latn genea, "descent" and el λόγος el-Latn logos, "knowledge" is the study of ^[11] Often, ethnicity also connotes shared cultural, linguistic, behavioural or religious traits. For example, to call oneself Jewish or Arab one immediately invokes a clutch of linguistic, religious, cultural and racial features that are held to be common within each ethnic category. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ The araB gene Promoter is a bacterial promoter activated by e L-arabinose binding Such broad ethnic categories have also been termed macroethnicity^[12] to distinguish them from smaller more subjective ethnic features, often termed microethnicity. ^[13][14] Race, by contrast, refers to "some concentrations, as relative to frequency and distribution, of hereditary particles (genes) and physical characters, which appear, fluctuate, and often disappear in the course of time by reason of geographic and or cultural isolation. " 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. Year 1950 ( MCML) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 The Race Question is a UNESCO statement issued on 18 July, 1950 following World War II. Montague Francis Ashley Montagu (born Israel Ehrenberg on June 28 1905, East London England - died November 26 1999, Princeton New Jersey Claude Lévi-Strauss (klod levi stʁos born 28 November 1908 is a French Anthropologist. Karl Gunnar Myrdal (6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987 was a Swedish economist politician and Nobel laureate Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS ( 22 June 1887 &ndash 14 February 1975) was an English Evolutionary biologist ), suggested that: "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'. "^[15]

In 1982, American cultural anthropologist, summing up forty years of ethnographic research, argued that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways that people from different parts of the world have been incorporated into a global economy. According to Wolf, races were incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion, and ethnic groups during the period of capitalist expansion:

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.

In this regard, distinctions of "race" have implications rather different from "ethnic" variations. Racial distinctions, such as "Indian" or "Negro," are the outcome of the subjugation of populations in the course of European mercantile expansion. The term Indian stands for the conquered populations of the New World, in disregard of any cultural or physical differences among Native Americans. Negro similarly serves as a cover term for the culturally and physically variable African populations that furnished slaves, as well as for the slaves themselves. Indians are conquered people who could be forced to labor or pay tribute; Negroes are "hewers of wood and drawers of water," obtained in violence and put to work under coercion. These two terms thus single out for primary attention the historic fact that these populations were made to labor in servitude to support a new class of overlords. Simultaneously, the terms disregard cultural and physical differences within each large category, denying any constituent group political, economic, or ideological identity of its own.

Racial terms mirror the political process by which populations of whole continents were turned into providers of coerced surplus labor. Under capitalism these terms did not lose their association with civil-disability. They continue to invoke supposed decent from such subjugated populations so as to deny their putative descendents access to upper segments of the labor market. "Indians" and "Negroes" are thus confined to the lower ranks of the industrial army or depressed into the industrial reserve. The function of racial categories within capitalism is exclusionary. They stigmatize groups in order to exclude them from more highly paid jobs and from access to the information needed for their execution. They insulate the more advantaged workers against competition from below, making it difficult for employers to use stigmatized populations as cheaper substitutes or as strikebreakers. Finally, they weaken the ability of such groups to mobilize politically on their own behalf by forcing them back into casual employment and thereby intensifying competition among them for scarce and shifting resources.

While the categories of race serve primarily to exclude people from all but the lower echelons of the industrial army, ethnic categories express the ways that particular populations came to relate themselves to given segments of the labor market. Such categories emerge from two sources, one external to the group in question, the other internal. As each cohort entered the industrial process, outsiders were able to categorize it in terms of putative provenance and supposed affinity to particular segments of the labor market. At the same time, members of the cohort itself came to value membership in the group thus defined, as a qualification for establishing economic and political claims. Such ethnicities rarely coincided with the initial self-identification of the industrial recruits, who thought of themselves as Hanovarians or Bavarians rather than as Germans, as members of their village or their parish (okiloca) rather than as Poles, as Tonga or yao rather than "Nyasalanders. " The more comprehensive categories emerged only as particular cohorts of workers gained access to different segments of the labor market and began to treat their access as a resource to be defended both socially and politically. Such ethnicities are therefore not "primordial" social relationships. They are historical products of labor market segmentation under the capitalist mode. ^[16]

Ethnic stratification

In sociology and social theory, ethnicity can be viewed as a way of social stratification, meaning that ethnicity is the basis for a hierarchical arrangement of individuals. Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" In Sociology, social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of Social classes Castes and strata within a Society. 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 utilized as a major criterion for assigning social positions"^[17] Ethnic stratification is one of many different types of social stratification, including stratification based on socio-economic status, race, or gender. In Sociology or Anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in Society (one's Social position) The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets Gender comprises a range of differences between men and women extending from the biological to the social

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. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of 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^[18]

Continuing with Noel’s theory, some degree of differential power must also 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". ^[19] 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 conflict. Conflict is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of Needs values and interests ^[20]

Ethnicity and nation

In some cases, especially involving transnational migration, or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Many anthropologists and historians, following the work of Ernest Gellner^[21] and Benedict Anderson^[22] see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the seventeenth century, culminating in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, 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 state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing Humans into Populations or groups on the basis of various sets A nation is a Human Cultural and Social Community. In as much as most members never meet each other yet feel a common bond it may be considered Mercantilism is the idea that a colony should export more goods than it imports and that a colony should sell at higher prices and buy at lower prices Capitalism is the Economic system in which the Means of production are owned by private Persons and operated for Profit and where A state is a political association with effective Sovereignty over a geographic Area and representing a Population. In the nineteenth century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations. " Nation-states, however, invariably include populations that have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. For the online game see Jennifer Government NationStates. The nation-state is a certain form of State that derives its legitimacy Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion on the basis of equality, or seek autonomy, sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation in their own nation-state. ^[23] Under these conditions - when people moved from one state to another,^[24] or 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.

Ethno-national conflict

Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the twentieth 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. Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of 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 and Will Kymlicka argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. Charles Margrave Taylor (born November 5, 1931) CC GOQ MA DPhil FRSC is a Philosopher from Will Kymlicka is a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on Multiculturalism. 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 nineteenth 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. Ethnic nationalism is a form of Nationalism wherein the " Nation " is defined in terms of Ethnicity. The term nationalism can refer to an Ideology, a sentiment, a form of Culture, or a Social movement that focuses on the Nation Johann Gottfried von Herder ( August 25, 1744 December 18, 1803) was a German philosopher, Poet, and Literary 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 nineteenth century consolidation and expansion of the German Empire and the Third (Greater German) Reich, each promoted on the pan-ethnic idea that these governments were only acquiring lands that had always been ethnically German. The German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from 1871 to 1918 when it was a semi- Constitutional monarchy: beginning with the Unification Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers 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 former USSR, is marked by inter-ethnic conflicts that usually occurs within multi-ethnic states, as opposed to between them, in other regions of the world; thus, those other conflicts are often misleadingly labelled and characterized as "civil war. An ethnic conflict or ethnic war is a war between Ethnic groups often as a result of Ethnic nationalism. "

Ethnicity in specific countries

In the United States of America, collectives of related ethnic groups are typically denoted as "ethnic. " Most prominently in the U.S., the various Latin American racial and ancestral groups are typically grouped as either "Hispanics" or "Latinos" (although sometimes some white American lump black Latinos with black Americans. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Hispanic (hispano hispánico hispânico Hispānus adjective from ''Hispānia'', the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula) is a term that historically The many previously designated 'Oriental' ethnic groups are designated as Asian ethnic groups and similarly linked together as "Asians. The Orient is a term which simply means the " East " It originated in Western Asia to describe that part of the world " The terms "Black" and "African-American," while different, usually describe the descendants whose ancestors were indigenous to Africa and generally excludes the African descendants of European colonists. The term black people usually refers to a racial group of Humans with dark Skin color, but the term has also been used to categorise a number of diverse African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa Even the racial term "White American" generally describes people whose ancestry can be traced to Europe (including non-European nations such as Argentina, Australia, and Canada where European ancestry contributes to the overall populations) who now live in the United States. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Argentina topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page "Middle Easterners" are peoples from the Middle-East, i. The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. e. Southwest Asia and North Africa. Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia (largely overlapping with the Middle East) is the southwestern portion of Asia. North Africa or Northern Africa is the Northernmost Region of the African Continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan These countries include Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Turkey (Türkiye known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( is a Eurasian Country that stretches Tunisia (تونس Tūnis officially the Tunisian Republic ( is a country located in North Africa. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iraq topics. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA ( المملكة العربية السعودية, al-Mamlaka al-ʻArabiyya as-Suʻūdiyya) or Suudi This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. Libya ( ليبيا ar-Latn Lībiyā; Libyan vernacular: Lībya; Amazigh:) officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Algeria ( ar [[Arabic]] الجزائر, Al Jaza'ir ælʤæˈzæːʔir Amazigh: ⴷⵥⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer) officially the People's Morocco (المغرب "al-Maghrib" officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية is a country located in North Africa (The U.S. Census Bureau compiled a list of ethnic groups which may be seen at Ethnicity (United States Census)). The United States Census Bureau (officially Bureau of the Census as defined in Title) is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census

In the United Kingdom, different classifications, both formal and informal, are used. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Perhaps the most accepted is the National Statistics classification, identical to that used in the 2001 Census in England and Wales (see Ethnicity (United Kingdom)). The classification of Ethnicity in the United Kingdom has attracted controversy in the past particularly at the time of the 2001 Census where the existence and nature of such In general popular use in the United Kingdom and Europe, the terms oriental and Asian are widespread and without negative connotation, with the latter term usually reserved in the United Kingdom for people from the Indian subcontinent (see British Oriental and British Asian for more details). This article deals with the geophysical region in Asia For geopolitical treatments see South Asia. Since the 17th century there have been East Asian people in Britain. British Asians are British citizens who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka

China officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups of which the majority is comprised by the Han Chinese. Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES Han Chinese ( are an Ethnic group native to China and by most modern definitions the largest single Ethnic group in the world. Many of the ethnic minorities maintain their own individual culture and language, although many are also becoming more like the Han Chinese. Han Chinese predominates most areas of China with the exception of Tibet and Xinjiang where the Han are still in the minority. Definitions of Tibet See also Definitions of Tibet Name In English The English word Tibet, like the word for Tibet in most European Xinjiang ( Uyghur: شىنجاڭ Shinjang;; Postal map spelling: Sinkiang; Turkish: Sincan, Sincan Uygur Özerk The Han Chinese are the only ethnic group bound by the One-child policy. (For more details, see List of ethnic groups in China and Ethnic minorities in China. The following is a list of ethnic groups in China where "China" is taken to mean areas controlled by either of the two states using "China" in their formal Ethnic minorities in China refer to the non- Han Chinese population in Mainland China and Taiwan. )

In France, no population census includes ethnic categories, and the government is prohibited from collecting, maintaining or using ethnic population statistics. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. ^[25] The current French government, led by Nicolas Sarkozy and François Fillon, has begun a legislative process to repeal this prohibition. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Nicolas Sarkozy (pronounced, François Fillon (fʁɑ̃swa fijɔ̃ born 4 March 1954 in Le Mans, Sarthe) is the current Prime Minister of France, having been appointed to that

See also

Notes

References

• Abizadeh, Arash, "Ethnicity, Race, and a Possible Humanity" World Order, 33. 1 (2001): 23-34. (Article that explores the social construction of ethnicity and race. )
• Billinger, Michael S. (2007), "Another Look at Ethnicity as a Biological Concept: Moving Anthropology Beyond the Race Concept" Critique of Anthropology 27,1:5–35.
• Cole, C. L. "Nike’s America/ America’s Michael Jordan. " Michael Jordan, Inc. : Corporate Sport, Media Culture, and Late Modern America. (New York: Suny Press, 2001).
• Dünnhaupt, Gerhard, "The Bewildering German Boundaries", in: Festschrift for P. M. Mitchell (Heidelberg: Winter 1989).
• Eysenck, H. J. , Race, Education and Intelligence (London: Temple Smith, 1971) (ISBN 0-8511-7009-9)
• Friedlander, Judith, Being Indian in Hueyapan: A Study of Forced Identity in Contemporary Mexico (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1975). This article is about Hueyapan Morelos For Other towns by the name of Hueyapan see Hueyapan (Disambiguation Santo Domingo Hueyapan
• Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, editors, The Invention of Tradition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
• Hartmann, Douglas. "Notes on Midnight Basketball and the Cultural Politics of Recreation, Race and At-Risk Urban Youth. " Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 25 (2001): 339-366.
• Morales-Díaz, Enrique; Gabriel Aquino; & Michael Sletcher, "Ethnicity", in Michael Sletcher, ed. , New England, (Westport, CT, 2004).
• Omni, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s. (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Inc. , 1986).
• Sider, Gerald, Lumbee Indian Histories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
• Smith, Anthony D. (1987), The Ethnic Origins of Nations, Blackwell 
• ^  U.S. Census Bureau State & County QuickFacts: Race. The United States Census Bureau (officially Bureau of the Census as defined in Title) is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census