What is ethnicity? (a topic recently discussed in several threads)

[Kyriakos]

So, there's no such thing as a collective unconscious?

Or maybe that's the wrong question.

No, that is also a 'german racist invention' and little more

(although i was not alluding to Carl Jung's theories at any rate).

The debate on ethno-liguistic links is much older than the heavily political german racial theories of the 19th century. Those links begin with the prehistoric people, and their migrations, and language forming and then having barriers with the formation of its other parts from the seperated groups left behind, or split.
Linguistics is one of the fields that study common roots in terms as well as notions. Notions, of course, predate words for them. Also one should keep in mind that in an endless procession of millenia the prehistoric humans did not have an organised way of communicating their notions in their minds, to others, so the language would contain in the end also some very individual traumas of those seperate groups (that an eternity later would form the first "ethnicities").
Just to give a very very general background of how i personally approach this issue. As i said, it is not about traits, but about a common background through the abyss of time. That one is virtually entirely unconscious. Maybe it is not so, but surely it is a question on another level, and not one on the dumb "racist vs whateverist" kneejerkism commonly seen on the web.

 

[Borachio]

Hmm. I don't how one could determine the truth of this, one way or another.

Twin studies seem to lend weight to both sides, iirc. (Assuming I understood anything about them at all. Which I didn't.)

 

[Domen]

As i said, it is not about traits, but about a common background through the abyss of time.

So you think that ethnic groups at some point formed themselves, and later existed in isolation from each other rather than in interaction with each other.

Another obsolete view, in my opinion and opinion of these scholars that I have cited.

What race are Romani? Irish? Catholics? Jews? Muslims? Arabs? Russians? Socialists?

Definitely Catholics and Socialists must be separate races...

 

[AdamCrock]

Definitely Catholics and Socialists must be separate races...

AFAIK Their are from different planets Socialists are from Mars because it's the "red planet" (they have done their "pierestroyka" there and come here to finish earth as well ) and Catholics , well noone really knows where they are from. I guess they are a nomadic group

 

[Domen]

Kyriakos,

If you say that ethnicity is biological, then Adolf Hitler was apparently an ethnic Albanian or an ethnic Greek (Epirote):

Adolf Hitler had E1b1b1 (E-M215) Y-DNA haplogroup - precisely this subclade of mentioned haplogroup:

Map (distribution of Adolf Hitler's specific subclade of this haplogroup):

So he had either some Albanian, or some Greek, or some Italian ancestors.

And he inherited his Y-DNA haplogroup precisely from that group of his ancestors.

As you can see the highest concentration of people with this subclade is in Albania.

It may indicate that this specific mutation had originated in a single individual who had lived in that area.

 

[AdamCrock]

Well that would explain why he was so fascinated about the Roman culture and this Roman "hail!" or "ave ceasar!" sign He must have also been part Indian Shiva worshiper too because he had an ureasonable fascination about this symbol of the swastika, part viking too probably, some say that he was even a half jew from what I know and only a half man because he was missing one .... well let's not get into details how he doged a WWI in a hospital

 

[Lillefix]

Without reading anything in this thread I'd say that ethinicity is something that more "primitive" people have in addition to nationality. Here in Norway they sometimes talk about "ethnic" food, meaning food from Asia or Africa

 

[Domen]

Ethnic food used to be very popular among cannibals.

 

[Arwon]

The definition fiven in Australia's Mabo native title court decision strikes me as a pretty good one:

Membership of the Indigenous people depends on biological descent from the Indigenous people and on mutual recognition of a particular person’s membership by that person and by the elders or other persons enjoying traditional authority among those people

Basically: ethnicity is defined by descent, by self identity, and by recognition from the relevant community.

 

[Manco Capac]

Just like any conceptualizations of the mind, the concept of ethnicity was a primitive attempt to classify humans in appearances. Still in use, but, when adding DNA into account, we realize, despite all the cultural and physical appearances, we are still all humans.

Also, ethnicity is like stereotypes. A mean to get an idea of people without effort since we constantly use shortcut to deal everything.

 

[AdamCrock]

Also, ethnicity is like stereotypes. A mean to get an idea of people without effort since we constantly use shortcut to deal everything.

It is like a shortcut to everything isn't it ?

 

[SlamWolf]

Tough question and ethnicity isn't a clear cut term. This is my best shot at defining it.

Race refers to genetics. However, ethnicity, well I think that is whatever you want it to be. Ethnicity is defined as the culture that one lives by. You could just put down American or Panamanian or other. You're your own person after all.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Ethnicity is what you get when a group of people, relatively isolated, lives in a specific landscape for several generations and develops a certain culture and way of life to adapt to this specific landscape and the neighbouring factors.

The first and foremost boundary and the principal facility of an ethnicity is language.

Denying or ignoring ethnicity leads to ethnical conflicts and cultural deterioration.

 

[Lillefix]

Denying or ignoring ethnicity leads to ethnical conflicts and cultural deterioration.

What's that?

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

It's when they call you conservative without offering any fully fledged substitute for an old culture they are trying to cancel. Or when moral and communal values are surrendered to material and egoistical ones. Or when they try to mix every culture together effectively erasing them to one global culture but still calling it "diversity". Or when they stop developing their own culture taking the one exported from abroad. Or when they simply lose the cultural heritage.

 

[Tahuti]

Denying or ignoring ethnicity leads to ethnical conflicts

I think many will think the opposite, me included, that putting ethnicity on a pedestal will lead to ethnic conflicts. Or do you think ethnics should live more in separation from each other?

Or when they try to mix every culture together effectively erasing them to one global culture but still calling it "diversity".

I don't think cultural hybridisation equals the average of all cultures, rather, the addition of all cultures.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Every ethnicity of population of many thousands should have its own land it could call home officially with some sort of autonomy and without any other ethnicity in a country do the same to that land. When the government does not control it, ethnicities do it themselves spontaneously. Most Western countries have conflicts arising from this, like this one, or this one or the traditional car burning in Paris every New Year.

 

[Tahuti]

Every ethnicity of population of many thousands should have its own land it could call home officially with some sort of autonomy and without any other ethnicity in a country do the same to that land.

Do you think that - with great effort - it is possible to change ethnicity?

When the government does not control it, ethnicities do it themselves spontaneously. Most Western countries have conflicts arising from this, like this one, or this one or the traditional car burning in Paris every New Year.

My first thought is that those incidents have very little to do with ethnicity, that ethnicity is merely of correlative nature to those incidents and that it is the socio-economic differences among ethnic lines that are reallly to blame.

 

[AdamCrock]

Every ethnicity of population of many thousands should have its own land it could call home officially with some sort of autonomy and without any other ethnicity in a country do the same to that land. When the government does not control it, ethnicities do it themselves spontaneously. Most Western countries have conflicts arising from this, like this one, or this one or the traditional car burning in Paris every New Year.

Don't know if it matters much, but when I read Your words they are just letters .... weird ...., kind of trasparent ....

 

[Domen]

Sorry, double post.