A Critical Review of Approaches to Ethnicity

Abstract

This article attempts to critically review established approaches to ethnicity and to suggest a new term to it. Most researchers on ethnicity have located their own work conceptually in either the primordial perspective or the circumstantial perspective. However, the dichotomy has been overdrawn. At an analytical level, one the one hand, the synthesis of these two approaches has been emphasized. Ethnic groups form, persist and are related to the wider society because of many factors; some factors derive from cultural heritage and others are of a situational or circumstantial nature. On the other hand, a large number of empirical studies have demonstrated that an ethnic group can be understood in terms of both the primordial dimension and the circumstantial context. In short, any theory or empirical study of ethnicity should take into account not just the instrumental functions of ethnicity in the pursuit of social interests, but also the cultural formulations and the shared sense of descent that people derive from their ethnic identities. Viewed in this way, ethnic expression changes and primordial ties of ethnicity can be transformed into rational and instrumental interests. I also maintain that an ethnic group should be understood in terms of both the expressive dimension and the instrumental aspect, and both aspects should be understood in dialectical relationship with one another. In this paper, I suggest the term ‘mediating reference point’ to help overcome the theoretical limitations of the primordial-circumstantial dichotomy and to provide a richer interpretation of ethnicity. In my view, ethnicity, which mediates between diverse human relations and between different values and norms, is expressed and utilized differently at both the individual and collective levels, whether it influences the life process of ethnic groups either positively or negatively.