Sociological Issues in Ethnicity

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The Interview
Conclusion
References

Introduction

More than a century ago, Marxists theorists predicted that the social class would replace some primitive basis of political relationship as language and ethnicity. But at the beginning of a new millennium, ethnicity is still a virulent and resilient political force, extending its tendrils to totalitarian states, developing nations, as well as peaceful democracies. Ethnicity and race relations are two social contexts that have been used by the human race both positively and negatively (Eller, 1999). Positive ethnicity has been used by civilizations to facilitate harmonious coexistence of members of one ethnic group. People have been able to identify and share in values and beliefs that have informed their cultural orientations through positive ethnicity. But negative ethnicity has brought untold suffering to the human race inform of genocides and wars. The world has witnessed ethnic groups rising up against each other, and spearheading ethnic cleansing of unimaginable magnitude. This was the case in Luanda, where the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups rose against each other. In what appeared to be an ethnically motivated genocide, over 500,000 citizens lost their lives.

Sociologists, anthropologists, and other scholars have spent considerable time trying to understand ethnicity and race issues, which seem to have the power to propel whole ethnic groups into full-scale wars. This research paper, through interviewing a member of the black-American community, will attempt to bring out all sociological issues surrounding ethnicity and its historical background.

Ethnicity is a relative term that has been coined from an ethnic group. By definition, an ethnic group is viewed as a group of individuals who identify with each other on the foundations of real or presumed common ancestry, or on the basis of preferential endogamy (Forbes, 1997). An ethnic group must have a shared group identity, which is easily recognizable through common linguistic, cultural, behavioral, religious, and biological traits.

Having known what an ethnic group is, it is imperative to define ethnicity in relation to the interview with the black-American respondent. Broadly put, ethnicity serves as an important channel through which various individuals can identify themselves. My respondent identifies himself as a black-American, having different biological traits from a Hispanic, Latino, or an Asian. Ethnicity is a phenomenon that is inherent to human experience and therefore serves as a fundamental factor in human life (Restrepo, 2004).

The Interview

To understand the issues of ethnicity better, a one-on-one interview was conducted with a member of the black-American community. Besides the demographic questions, the respondent was asked to comment about his religion, association and friendship, social status, culture, race, nationalism, discrimination, and other issues viewed as pertinent to issues on ethnicity. This paper attempts to give an analysis of the interview based on the broad categories listed above. The analysis is offered below.

Ethnicity and race

The respondent was a black-American, with historical association to a tiny African country called Kenya. He was born in Kenya but his parents later became US citizens due to the nature of the work that they did. The respondent stayed in Kenya until he finished his primary level education, and then flew to join his parents in the United States. The respondent has now lived in US for a total of 14 years and now considers himself as a US citizen.

Through undertaking the interview, it was vehemently clear that race was fundamentally different from ethnicity. Whereas ethnicity describes a cultural heritage, race is seen to describe a biological descent (Sanchez, 1994). Race is inherited while ethnicity is socially learned. To this effect, ethnicity is regarded as a product of social associations while race is viewed in terms of the indispensable qualities that are inherent to human groupings. My respondent had internalized the cultural heritages of the minority black-American neighborhood he was staying in, and to a larger extent the black-American community in the US. When it came to his race, he was inherently a black person from Kenya’s biggest cultural grouping – the Kikuyu.

According to Hylland Eriksen, ethnic studies have traditionally been dominated by two schools of thoughts – the premordialists and the instrumentalists (Edwards, 2002). Proponents of the primordial view perceive ethnic relations collectively as an external social bond. Ethnicity is treated by the instrumentalist’s proponents as an ad-hoc arrangement or political arrangement used by interest groups as a resource for attaining secondary objectives such as status, power, and wealth. My respondent became a US citizen because of his parents influence over the political leadership of his native country, Kenya. His parents belonged to the politically correct elitist tribal (racial) grouping, and held top diplomatic jobs that enabled them to relocate to the US. Through the instrumentalist approach, the respondent’s family was able to utilize ethnicity to attain a secondary objective of relocating in the US.

My respondent said that he had completely internalized the values and beliefs of the black-American neighborhood community. Members of this respective neighborhood come from different races and countries. But despite their racial backgrounds, this group is informed by a subjective belief in their common ancestry because of some unique similarities in their customs, physical physique and types, or because of their shared memories of migration and colonization. This reinforces Max Weber’s definition of an ethnic group (Sanchez, 1994). The ethnicity status of my respondent has been molded on the shared beliefs about colonization and oppression of the members, not withstanding their different racial backgrounds. My respondent’s ethnicity status is also informed by the shared biological make-up of the group – that of having a black skin (Forbes, 1997).

From the encounter with my respondent, it is crystal clear that race and ethnicity are different constructs, though related. They are social constructs that are both defined in reference to a communal genealogy (Forbes, 1997). Like my respondent’s experience with the neighborhood black-American community, ethnicity connotes some shared behavioral, linguistic, cultural, or religious traits. For example, to call the respondent an “African” would immediately elicits a clutch of racial, religious, linguistic, and cultural characteristics that are commonly shared within the ethnic group. By sharp contrast, race refers to concentrations of hereditary genetic configuration in conjunction with shared physical characteristics that appear to fluctuate and vanish in the course of time through the rationality of cultural or geographic isolation (Jessee, 2007). My respondent was initially a black person of the kikuyu race from Kenya. But this indigenous racial orientation evaporated when my respondent flew to America and started to identify with the black community neighborhood.

However, caution must be exercised not to confuse national, cultural, linguistic, and geographic groups as racial groups principally because the cultural traits of people within such groupings have no known genetic association that can be referred as racial trait (Hutchinson, 2000). In an ethnographic research conducted in the span of forty years, American anthropological researchers argued that ethnic and racial categories are representative markers that portray different ways that individuals from different parts of the globe have been integrated into world-wide economy.

Ethnicity and social stratification

During the interview, my respondent was asked about his perception on the American reward system and the distribution of power and authority, and if ethnicity has a role to play in the distribution. He said that most government positions go to the whites, with the blacks sharing in the spoils of blue collar jobs. In the analysis, it is vehemently clear that biological characteristics such as the color of ones skin are vital determinants of a person’s place in a deeply stratified society (Jessee, 2007). According to the responses given by the respondent, racialism and racism in the US are practiced legally in the strict sense of the word that it is normal for a particular racial group to discriminate against the interests of particular ethnic groupings. Ethnicity comes into play in that a particular ethnic orientation can be used against an individual to discriminate against that particular individual or his group. Thus it can be effectively argued that ethnicity is a major contributing factor to the social stratification in the American society.

Ethnicity has brought about a form of social stratification in society through which individuals and ethnic groups are differentiated along material and non-material characteristics. Material characteristics include things such as income and wealth, while non-material characteristics include status and power. Ethnicity is directly linked to the social inequalities found in the American society, which has inarguably contributed to the unequal distribution of non-material as well as material rewards. When an ethnic group is stratified, a set of social characteristics or behaviors are assigned to it. Since differences in social status can be used as a social resource to buy income and wealth statuses, individuals are encouraged to create status differences. In this kind of association, cultural or biological differences between individuals or social groups are potentially subjugated to create differences in status. It therefore becomes relatively easy to discriminate individuals on the variations of age, biological sex, disability, or color of the skin (Forbes, 1997).

Race has time and again influenced social stratification, which reveals an individual’s status within the social standing and introduces power variations as individuals of different races interact with one another. On the contrary, ethnicity connotes common shared meaning and culture. It includes perceptions, feelings, expectations, thoughts, and actions of a group as a direct result of shared historical experiences (Eller, 1999).

Ethnicity and culture

The respondent was asked to comment on his cultural orientation in relation to the ethnic grouping of the black-American community. In a broad context, culture includes just about everything about a particular set of individuals. In the analysis, Weberian assertion about culture and ethnicity was reinforced. Culture informs the ethnic orientation of a particular group. Culture governs the way people believe and act, and how they view and do things in the group. It informs the ethnicity of the group through the sharing of particular features such as the culture itself, language, religion, physical appearance, customs, and values (Albuquerque, & McElroy, 1999).

The concept of culture has been defined differently by many scholars depending on the context of use. For the purposes of this discussion, culture is defined as a cumulative deposit of experience, knowledge, values, beliefs, attitudes, hierarchies, meanings, spatial relations, roles, notion of times, spatial relations, material objects and possessions, and concepts of the universe acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through group as well as individual striving. Culture can also be defined as a system of communication and knowledge shared by a relatively large group of individuals. More importantly, culture can be defined as the sum total of the learned behavior of individuals that are universally considered to be the tradition of those individuals and are transmitted from one generation to another (Li & Karakowsky, 2001).

Culture was seen to inform the dynamics of the black-American minority group to which the respondent belonged. This minority group is numerically inferior to the other population of the nation, and is relegated to a non-dominant position. Members within the minority group share religious, ethnic, and linguistic characteristics that distinguish them from other members of the population. Through ethnicity, members of this particular minority group share a mutual desire to preserve their traditions, culture, religion, and language. Contextually speaking, a minority group can sometimes have the numerical majority but still be in a group position that is perceived as disadvantaged. It can explicitly be argued that ethnicity has a huge role to play in the dynamics and working relationships of a minority group which makes it not to be informed by the numbers but rather by some distinguishing characteristics such as discrimination (Sanchez, 1994).

Through the discussion held with the respondent, it was revealed that members of the respondent’s ethnic group suffer various disadvantages at the hands of the dominant culture – the white culture. It was also revealed that ethnicity enabled the minority group to be identified through group features that were socially visible. Such features include a complex self-consciousness and a very strong sense of togetherness and oneness made possible through identifying with one particular ethnic orientation (Edwards, 2002). Through the interview, it was also revealed that individuals are not naturalized into a minority group through voluntary basis but culture and ethnicity has a role to play in naturalizing people into the minority group.

The above formed some enterprising revelations about the real value of ethnicity in American society. Through the interview, it was revealed that culture informs the ethnic orientation of a particular group, which later serves as glue to hold the members of that particular group together. All what that transpires in the group is informed by the culture of that group.

Ethnic nationalism

During the interview, it was revealed that the respondent defined the “nation” in reflection to ethnicity. This brings the issue of ethnic nationalism, which defines a nation by the shared heritage, a common language, common ethnic ancestry, and common faith (Nancy, 2003). Under the tenets of ethnic nationalism, individuals from each ethnic group are entitled to self-determination. Ethnic nationalism in scholarly literature is keen to base membership of the nation on heredity or descent and often articulated in terms of kinship or common blood relations. It tends to highlight common culture and shared narratives.

Culture and ethnicity informs the nationalistic orientations of a particular individual or ethnic group. Through the interview, it was found that ethnicity reflects the nationalism held by an individual to the point of identifying with nationalistic values held by the respondent. In my case, the respondent was a black-American of the Kenyan origin. Through ethnicity, he identified with the goals and aspirations of his Kenyan ancestry more than he could identify with American nationalistic values and beliefs. This clearly shows that ethnicity has a clear role to play in informing the nationalistic principles of an individual. The nationalistic values that take precedence over any other values are those that are internalized early in the life of individuals.

Ethnicity and the choice of food

Through the interview, it was revealed that ethnicity has an active role in determining the choice of food (lifestyles) of individuals. Different ethnic groupings select and choose different types of food and different feeding styles. Individuals belonging to the same ethnic group are brought up and raised in certain manner and style. This therefore means that ethnicity issues will pretty much influence their attitudes towards people, lifestyles, health, and even feeding habits. The feeding habits are instilled into the lives of individuals at a very early age and emanates from the country where the individuals originates from (Edwards, 2002). In my case, the feeding habits of my respondent were informed by the country of origin – Kenya.

Ethnicity has been directly linked to the choice of food that individuals consume. For example, afro-Caribbean and African ethnic groups are known to consume foods that contain a lot of rice, wheat, and meat. Asian and Eastern ethnic groups will consume food rations that contain a lot of spices and herbs. This is all influenced by the values, belief system, attitudes, and perceptions that a particular group holds, otherwise known as ethnicity. But it is influenced by social and cultural constructs in that the choice of food is influenced by other dominant cultures that surround the ethnic group (Sanjay, 2008). In my case, the respondent’s choice of food has been overly influenced by the western dominant culture to a point that he has forgotten his traditional choices of food.

Ethnicity and religion

My respondent held an Adventist religious orientation. This religious orientation was not inherent to his traditional Kenyan culture but it was learnt out of the interactions between the individuals of his black-American neighborhood community. It is perceived that ethnicity informs the religious orientation of a particular group. Religion in the mainstream American society is ethnically oriented. This idea can be reinforced by how anger is directed against members of the Muslim religious orientation after the tragic events of September 11 bombings of the World Trade Centre (Sanjay, 2008).

Religion is at the centre of ethnicity since it reveals an ethnic group’s belief or non-belief of a supernatural deity. Social interactions revolve around the religious beliefs and inform the lives of members of a particular group. In some instances, negative religious ethnicity has been found to cause untold suffering in the lives of people like it was the case in former Yugoslavia, where ethnic cleansing occurred based on religious affiliations. The Balkan war is a stark reminder of how religion is directly related to ethnicity.

Positive religious ethnicity on the other part has been used by ethnic groups to describe and illustrate their religious orientations, and to a wider context the lifestyles of that particular groups. This can best be reinforced by the Roman Catholics. Their religious orientation has been known to influence the way of life and ethnic orientations of its proponents. Catholics all over the world are driven by certain way of life and holds perceived values and beliefs to be mutually important. This can serve to show how both ethnicity and religion influences each other in the shaping of an ethnic group (Restrepo, 2004).

Conclusion

Without doubt, the interview with my black-American respondent revealed the close correlations between ethnicity, race, social stratification, and culture, choice of food, nationalism and religion. It was also revealed that ethnicity was at the core of social interactions in society. It was a social construct arising from the already mentioned factors. Ethnicity is coined from an ethnic group- a primary representation of individuals. Ethnicity is at the forefront of helping individuals to identify with one another through the foundations of a real or presumed common ancestry. Through ethnicity, individuals in a group share in one group identity which is easily recognizable through common linguistic, behavioral, religious, and biological traits (Sanchez, 1994).

Through the interview, various ethnicity issues have been brought up from past historical perspectives of sociologists such as Max Weber to modern ethnic orientations, and how it has been used in the world to bring both positive and negative results. We have seen how ethnicity has been particularly used to cause mayhem and genocide in various countries including Luanda and the former Yugoslavia. All in all, ethnicity has been perceived as a crucial determinant in race relations and will continue to influence how people interact with each other through the various ethnic groups that exist in the world.

References

Alburquerque, K., & McElroy, J. Race, Ethnicity, and Social Stratification in Three Windward Islands. 1999.
Edwards, W.B. Social Stratification – Ethnicity, Gender and Class. 2002. Web.
Eller, J.D. From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict: An Anthropological Perspective on Ethnic Conflict. University of Michigan Press (1999). ISBN: 978-0472085385
Forbes, H.D. Ethnic conflict: Commerce, Culture, and Contact Hypothesis. Yale University Press (1997). ISBN: 9780300068191
Hutchinson, J., & Smith, A.D. Nationalism: Critical Concepts in Political science. Routledge (2000). ISBN: 0415217563
Jessee, M.K. Social Inequality and differentiation: Ethnicity and Stratification. Sociology Central. 2007
Nancy, S. Culture. 2003. Web.
Restrepo, A.D. “Human Rights and Ethnic Identity in a Sociological Perspective.” The Law and Society Association. 2004.
Sanchez, N.M. Race and Ethnicity. 1994.
Sanjay, D. “Hoe Personal Factors including Culture and Ethnicity affects the Choices and
Selection of Food we make.” The Internet Journal of Third World Medicine, vol 8, no 2 (2008).

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