Ethnicity E-Book

Steve Fenton

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Key Concepts
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 390

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

In this extensively revised edition, Steve Fenton updates his concise and accessible introduction to ethnicity, drawing on new published work and recent social and historical changes. Discussing an extended range of theorists and illustrations from around the world, Fenton explores and clarifies the core meanings and the shifting ground of this contested concept. More space is given to ideas of 'threat' and 'competition' in conceptualizing ethnicity, as well as to recent issues in migration, especially increased migration to the US from Central and South America. Fenton situates ethnic identities and interest in the changing modern world, and seeks to explain the contemporary conditions of delineation along ethnic and racial lines. Without assuming the centrality of ethnic difference, this book asks: Does it matter? When does it matter? Is it as important as many have assumed?

The second edition of Fenton's highly regarded Ethnicity will continue to be an invaluable text for students of sociology, politics and international relations coming to the subject for the first time. Its innovative and challenging approach will also appeal to more advanced scholars of race and ethnicity.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Key Concepts

Title page

Copyright page

Preface to the First Edition

Preface to the Second Edition

First Edition Acknowledgements

Second Edition Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Ethnos: Descent and Culture Communities

Shared references

Stock, type, people, breed

Nation

Race

The demise of race

Culture and ethnicity are not the same

Defining the core and the divergences

Summary

2 Multiple Discourses of Ethnicity: Differences by Country and Region

The USA

Immigration to the USA

Changes of the late twentieth century

Ethnicity and changing ideas of race

Where have all the races gone? The case of the UK

Discourse of races in postcolonial Malaysia

Asia and Latin America

Ethnic classification across the world

Summary: ethnicity and nation in their place

3 The Demise of Race: The Emergence of ‘Ethnic’

Ethnic group (ethnie) and nation

The demise of race

Scholarly, popular and political ideas

Lloyd Warner and American ethnic groups

The scholarly tradition: Max Weber and ethnic groups

Anthropology and social anthropology

Real groups

Summary

4 The Primordialism Debate

Primordialism

‘Primordial’ as a sociological concept

Edward Shils and primordial, personal, sacred and civil ties

Clifford Geertz and the integrative revolution

After Geertz

Judith Nagata and mobilized identities

Summary: primordial ethnic groups

5 How Real are Groups? Political Ethnicity, Symbolic Ethnicity and Competition Theory

Cultures and boundaries

Competition theory

Class as a complicating factor in ethnic competition analysis; ethnicity as a complicating factor in class analysis

Critiques of groupism

Summary

6 Migration and Ethnicity

Forced migrations

Migrants and plural societies

World migration

Internal migrants

Professional migrations

Undocumented workers

Migration, gender and family

Questions of integration and citizenship

The case of the USA: migration and ethnicity in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries

America’s growing Hispanic population

Hispanics and Mexican Americans: social profiles

Likely futures for new migrants and their families and for American ethnicities

The renewed debate about the concept of assimilation

Occupational structure: the hourglass labour market

Summary: the opposing views

7 Social Conditions of Ethnicity: Global Economy and Precarious States

Theorizing the conditions of ethnic action

Features of the contemporary world

Postcolonial economic conditions

William Julius Wilson and the disappearance of work

Economic change and Hispanic migration into the USA

Precarious, factionalized, democratizing states: unstable geopolitical conditions

Ethnic conflict, violence, insecurity and the state

Ethnicity and geopolitics

Post-Soviet Russia

Summary

8 Ethnic Majorities and Nationalism in Europe: Globalization and Right-Wing Movements

The nation

Nation, class and resentment

Nation and majority

Class, welfare, the state and immigrants

Right-wing movements in Europe

Multiculturalism and identity politics

Summary: reflections on nation, resentment and identity

9 Ethnicity and the Modern World: General Conclusions

A theory of ethnicity?

Ethnicity as theory

Sociology of ethnicity: identity and action in context

Late capitalism and the modern social world

The contradictions of late capitalist modernity

Individualism

Two worlds – the liberal and the authoritarian

Four principal problematics

Modernity and ethnicity

Ethnicity in its place

Bibliography

Index

Key Concepts

Barbara Adam, Time

Alan Aldridge, Consumption

Alan Aldridge, The Market

Jakob Arnoldi, Risk

Colin Barnes & Geof Mercer, Disability

Darin Barney, The Network Society

Mildred Blaxter, Health 2nd edition

Harriet Bradley, Gender

Harry Brighouse, Justice

Mónica Brito Vieira and David Runciman, Representation

Steve Bruce, Fundamentalism 2nd edition

Margaret Canovan, The People

Alejandro Colás, Empire

Anthony Elliott, Concepts of the Self 2nd edition

Steve Fenton, Ethnicity 2nd edition

Katrin Flikschuh, Freedom

Michael Freeman, Human Rights

Russell Hardin, Trust

Geoffrey Ingham, Capitalism

Fred Inglis, Culture

Robert H. Jackson, Sovereignty

Jennifer Jackson Preece, Minority Rights

Gill Jones, Youth

Paul Kelly, Liberalism

Anne Mette Kjær, Governance

Ruth Lister, Poverty

Jon Mandle, Global Justice

Judith Phillips, Care

Michael Saward, Democracy

John Scott, Power

Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism

Stuart White, Equality

Copyright © Steve Fenton 2010

The right of Steve Fenton to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2010 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4265-9

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4266-6(paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5844-5(Single-user ebook)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5843-8(Multi-user ebook)

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Preface to the First Edition

In this book I have sought to meet the aims of the Key Concepts series. This is to provide an introduction to a key concept in the social sciences; to discuss some of the main literature in this field; and to provide a commentary on important debates within the subject. All this I have sought to do with respect to ethnicity. In addition, I have tried to establish a framework for thinking about ethnicity within the context of ‘modernity’ or ‘late capitalist modernity’. This is an attempt to resituate ethnicity within a much broader sociological canvas.

In the early chapters I argue that an understanding of ‘ethnicity’ must be set alongside our understanding of ‘race’ and ‘nation’. The meanings of these words are not the same as that of ‘ethnic group’ but they cover a great deal of the same terrain and it is important to acknowledge this.

In looking at important debates and literature I concentrate in chapters 4 and 5 on the debates surrounding ‘primordialism’ or the idea of ‘primordial identities’; and on the debates about the work of Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan which set the tone for much of the discussion of ethnicity in the USA. Although many examples are taken from the USA and the UK, I have drawn on materials about Malaysia to show how discourses of ethnicity are articulated in different ways in different social contexts.

In the later chapters, I look at some aspects of ‘late capitalist modernity’ and the place of ethnicity within it. This includes global migration, local and global inequalities, the strength of the state, the theme of individualism, and the question of national identity and majority ethnicity. I have tried to cover key areas in ways which will help new readers as well as providing something for more experienced readers.

Preface to the Second Edition

The main purpose of the changes I have made to Ethnicity (2003) for this second and revised edition has been to update the material. This is with regard both to new published work and to the social changes of the recent period. The opening chapters are the least changed because they remain as a fundamental review of the key concepts and ideas in the field. In chapter 2, I have added to the discussion of ‘discourses of ethnicity’ by adding the cases of Japan, Brazil and Singapore, and a world study of ethnic terminology.

Larger changes come in the later chapters. Chapter 5 had previously been an assessment of some key moments in the ethnicity literature, and the 1960s and 1970s work of Glazer and Moynihan formed a large part: this discussion is now much reduced. In the second edition, more space is given to a vital strand in ethnicity conceptualization – the idea of ‘threat’ or ‘competition’. This is well suited to the general argument of my book – that we must look carefully at the material contexts of action, where action is ethnically ‘aligned’. I explore the work of Edna Bonacich, who argues that we can understand ethnic antagonism within a context of class conflict and competition. The examples in these case studies are mainly from the USA so that these additions have the secondary effect of examining studies of the historic relationship of ‘black’ and ‘white’ in American society.

In chapter 6, I have concentrated on updating material about migration, especially reflecting on increased migration to the USA from Central and South America. The debates about segmented assimilation are connected to the question of Hispanic or Latino migration. New migration to the USA is also apparent in the changes I have made to chapter 7, where the focus is on political and economic power and inequalities. It is in chapter 8 that I have, perhaps, most shifted the argument. In the 2003 edition the emphasis was on ethnicity, racism and the ‘discontents of modernity’. Although elements of this argument remain, I am less convinced of it than I was then. If we are to show how and why action comes to be informed by ethnic identities and interest – especially where it is marked by a high degree of antagonism – then we must be more specific about which aspects of the modern world make for a more ethnicized or racialized world. Put another way, we need to show which dimensions of modernity impel actors to act along the lines of ethnic divisions.

The economic and political uncertainties are, in 2009, greater than ever. If I were pushed, I could essay a forward view of the implications of these present uncertainties for ethnic divisions and antagonisms. But that is not my principal purpose here – and may give too many hostages to fortune. I hope the reader of this book will have a broader understanding of the field and the tools with which they can make such judgements themselves.

First Edition Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Rachel Kerr and Louise Knight of Polity Press who have been very helpful at every stage of the preparation of this book. Their support is very much appreciated.

My colleagues at the University of Bristol, Department of Sociology, have given me a great deal of help. Many thanks to Gregor McLennan for his encouragement. Very special thanks go to Tom Osborne and Harriet Bradley who both read the typescript and gave me excellent critical commentary.

From outside Bristol I have received both important comments and encouragement from John Rex; for this I am most grateful. In recent years I have had the pleasure of meeting up again with my dissertation supervisor, Edward Tiryakian, and this has been another stimulus to my thinking. My email conversations with Michael Banton have also helped me to clarify things and argue them out. I have had a lot of help and encouragement from Stephen May, now at the University of Waikato.

During a period of study leave in Malaysia, I had the most engaging and informative conversations at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang and the University of Malaysia at Sarawak; special thanks to Kntayya Mariappan at USM and to Michael Leigh and Zawawi Ibrahim at UNIMAS.

To all these people I am most grateful.

And finally, as ever, my love to Jenny, Alex and Lynda.

Steve Fenton, 2003

Second Edition Acknowledgements

As in 2003 I want to recognize how much I have learnt from Ed Tiryakian, Michael Banton and John Rex.

I have benefited a lot from – and much enjoyed – conversations and emails with other friends and colleagues, including Rohit Barot, Jon Fox, Robin Mann, Bob Carter, Ann Morning and Patricia Fernandez-Kelly. Many thanks too to Karen Paton and Jonathan Skerrett.

Steve Fenton, 2009

Introduction

For a term which only came to be widely used in the 1970s, ‘ethnicity’ now plays an important part in the sociological imagination, and in policy and political discourses. It is worth attempting to be clear about it. In the present volume I have tackled this question along two different lines. The first task is to establish how we might sensibly use the terms ‘ethnic group’ and ‘ethnicity’. The second is to explore the social conditions under which ethnic identities become significant in social action. The first requires being clear about what it means to speak of a person’s ‘ethnic identity’ or ‘belonging to an ethnic community’. We should not assume that all people do either of these things. In many cases, people would look at you quite blankly if you asked them to speak about their ‘ethnicity’. The second task requires exploring a wide range of circumstances which influence whether people are at all likely to make ethnicity a relevant category of social action. In pursuing the first task, I have looked at the explicit and implicit meanings of the terms ‘ethnic’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘ethnic group’, and the related terms ‘race’ and ‘nation’. In the second task, I have outlined, sometimes with full knowledge and sometimes speculatively, the circumstances under which ethnic identities become an important dimension of action. The first part of the book addresses the questions most valuable to new students of the field; the second part will, I hope, appeal to new and experienced students alike.

With regard to the definition of ethnicity, a key debate is whether, for the purposes of sociological theory, the terms ‘ethnic group’ and ‘ethnicity’ refer to sociological realities which are substantial, embedded in group life and individual experience; or whether these terms point to some rather more diffuse and ill-defined identities which have fleeting moments of importance, and should be understood as ‘socially constructed’ rather than profound and ‘real’. In theorizing the conditions under which ethnicity becomes sociologically important – even decisive – I conclude that a theory of ethnicity has to be a theory of the contexts under which it is situationally relevant. This conclusion is diffused through the book, but it can be rehearsed at the beginning as well as recapitulated at the end. I conclude that: