Approaches to Ethnicity

Approaches to Ethnicity

It is possible to distinguish four major approaches and a number of subapproaches, some of which cut across the major ones. They are ethnicity conceived as a primordial phenomenon, as an epiphenomenon, as a situational phenomenon, and as a purely subjective phenomenon. The primordialist approach is the oldest in sociological and anthropological literature. It argues that ethnicity is something given – ascribed at birth and deriving from the kin structure of human society – and hence more or less fixed and permanent.

The other three approaches emerged in confutation of the primordialist view. The epiphenomenon interpretation is best represented by Michael Hechter’s theory of internal colonialism and the cultural division of labour and to a lesser extent by the writings of Edna Bonacich. Hechter divides the economic structure of society into two sectors, the centre and the periphery. The periphery consists of marginal jobs where the products are not unimportant to society, as, for example, in agricultural work, but which offer little in the form of compensation when compared to employment at the centre. It is this sector of the social structure that gives birth to ethnicity and the people concentrated in this peripheral labour area who become ethnic groups. They develop solidarity and maintain their own culture. Thus, as an epiphenomenon, ethnicity refers to minority groups only. It is something created and maintained by an uneven economy, a product of economic exploitation.

The logic of the situational approach is based on the theory of rational choice. According to this interpretation, ethnicity is something that may be relevant in some situations but not in others. Individuals may choose to be regarded as members of an ethnic group if they find it to their advantage. Perhaps the best examples of this approach are found in the work of Michael Banton, Daniel Bell, and Jeffrey Ross. Banton sees it as a rational choice for an individual in...