Category: Ethnicity

The definitions of race and ethnicity seem to be often confused, and usually, the line between them blurs, and people do not use the terms correctly. At first, there was no difference between these two concepts, and I believed that race implies specific cultural features and characteristics. However, over time through considerable research and readings, I realized that it only defines the physical and biological aspects of the people (Blakemore, 2019). In turn, ethnicity determines the cultural side of the people and includes the traditions, customs, and common historical background (Blakemore, 2019). I always had a precise understanding of this term, although usually, I assigned the same characteristics to the race. Thus, the race is about the biological specifics, and ethnicity has the cultural and historical context underneath it.

Despite the fact that both race and ethnicity are deeply interconnected and extremely important in defining human nature from a social perspective. It is impossible to separate one from another, but some have more power and influence in society. While race is associated with biological features, it is related to the supposed cultural background that the representatives of a certain race might have. However, it is not entirely accurate, and often it is more complicated than it may seem at first. For instance, Asian people can be born in European countries and among the European traditions and, despite their physical characteristics, hardly have something in common with their origins. It eventually will determine the person more since they learned from the specific culture that may not match their race according to the common assumptions. Therefore, ethnicity is more important and strongly influences human interactions, especially if they are free from prejudices and stereotypes.

Reference

Blakemore, E. (2019). Race and ethnicity explained. National Geographic. Web.

The matters of race are still of considerable importance in todays world. While the age of colonialism is over, the increasingly globalizing post-colonial world introduces new racial and ethnic hierarchies on both domestic and worldwide scale. Contemporary art reacts to these developments and mirrors them in the works of such artists as David Hammons, Roberts Colescott, William Pope L., Penny Siopis, and Julie Mehretu. In general, the artists of the late 20^th focused on domestic racialized hierarchies, but the 21^st century brought a global outlook of racial and ethics problems and the attempts to see past race.

David Hammons was one of the artists who interpreted race in the second half of the 1980s. He already made a name for himself during the previous decades through his works during the Civil Rights era, as well as his puzzling Bliz-aard Ball Sale in 1983, when the artist sold snowballs.¹ However, within the time frame of this paper, Higher Goals, created in 1986, is or greater interest. Entirely in line with Hammons deliberate strategy to make unsaleable works, Higher Goals was a temporary sculpture constructed of telephone poles 20 to 30 feet high with basketball hoops on their tops.² Each of the poles is studded with bottle caps arranged in careful geometrical patterns.

The artwork interpreted and questioned the place of African Americans in the post-Civil Rights era with particular attention to the social lifts available to black youth. Although its composition did not point specifically to the matters of race, the use of basketball imagery still hinted to basketball as a predominantly black sport. Apart from that, Hammons always maintained that he, as a black artist, had a moral duty to graphically document what he felt socially.³ In this sense, Higher Goals was a comment on the arduous path to success for a black person in America. Professional sports were and are among the limited number of social lifts available for an African American, but achieving success in this highly competitive field is no easier than climbing a 30-feet pole. For every athlete who is able to reach the top, there are thousands of those who do not  just as numerous as the bottle caps studded into the poles. Finally, one should not disregard the deliberately unsaleable nature of the piece.⁴ By intentionally making his artistic reflection on black athletes unavailable for purchase, Hammons criticized the commercialization of African American bodies in professional sports.

Another artist to analyze this theme in his works was William Pope L., famous for his practice of performative crawl interventions. One of his works related directly to the matters of race and, in particular, commercialization of black sports bodies was the Budapest Crawl of 1999. In this performance, Pope, dressed in white athletic shorts, a sports jersey, Nike sneakers, and elbow and kneepads, crawled from the Danube River to the building of the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest.⁵ While traversing the capital of Hungary, Pope held a bottle of cologne in one hand and a small globe in another.⁶ As a performance artist, Pope used his Budapest Crawl to attract attention to the increasing international commodification of a black body.

The design of the performance attracted attention to racial matters, beginning with a sharp contrast between the artists black skin and his white clothes. The sports uniform was also a pivotal element in making the performance a sharp social commentary. Throughout the 1990s, black athletes and, in particular, basketball superstars became a central feature in sports advertising for the company Nike, thus enacting a discursive relation between race, advertising, and brand recognition.⁷ Moreover, advertising often represented black athletes as examples of racialized sexual desire, thus reducing them to consumable objects.⁸ In this historical context, Popes Budapest Crawl was a protest against the commodification of the black body as a sexualized consumable, symbolized by cologne as associated with male sexual appeal. The artists mode of moving was an apt choice to highlight the point. Nikes basketball commercials of the 1990s focused on Michael Jordans ability to fly  even his logo depicted the athlete as reaching upward and defying gravity.⁹ Popes lowly crawl, on the other hand, served as a counterpoint, suggesting that, no matter how high a black male athlete can fly, mass culture still regards him as a commodity.

By addressing this theme, Pope sent a more consistent and coherent message on the commercialization of black athletes and their bodies in the late 20^th century than Hammons did in 1986. Hammons focus was entirely domestic, but Popes decision to set his performance in Europe was an attempt to address the issue on the global level, corresponding to the worldwide character of sports advertising. Still, even while the means of addressing the issue became international, the core problem at the heart of the artwork remained American. Pope criticized commodification of black bodies in sports advertising and inquired whether it translated into a better way of life for black athletes and black America in general.¹⁰ Thus, while he broadened the scope of addressing racial issues as compared to Hammons, the issues themselves remained the same domestic American problems. This contradiction may be one of the reasons why the European audience in Budapest did not pay much attention to Popes performance in 1999.¹¹ Despite the globe in the artists hand, the performance was not global in theme  only in its scope.

Yet another notable artist who addressed topics of race and ethnicity during the 1990s was Robert Colescott. In his Grandma and the Frenchman: Identity Crises painted in 1991, Colescott depicted a woman with a multitude of hairs, noses, and ears of many races as well as their skin colors. According to the artists explanation, the piece is all about identity  this woman cannot just have a two-faced Picasso head, she must be even more fragmented to reflect her immensely complex identity.¹² The image of the grotesquely misshapen head emphasizes the impossibility of representing this identity in strictly racial terms for the people of mixed ancestry. In essence, Identity Crises uses an absurd image to highlight the absurdity of racialized divisions. If the people around are of mixed heritage  and have been so for generations  hierarchies of power based on race become entirely senseless.

Yet senseless as they are, such hierarchies and labels persist, as demonstrated by Colescotts later painting dubbed Lightning Lipstick. This piece depicts a light-skinned woman looking at her dark-skinned reflection in the mirror and exclaiming in Spanish: Soy Latina! (I am a Latina!). The dark reflection, however, disagrees with the womans self-assessment and designates her as Negrita (Black woman). Lightning Lipstick interprets the identity conflict faced by the darker-skinned Hispanics and defined by the interpolation of ethnic and racial categories in American society. While they identify as Latinos, thus basing their identity on their ethnic and cultural background, others, especially the white North Americans, see them as blacks because of their color.¹³ Just as Identity Crises, this painting aims to emphasize the immensely complex racial and ethnic history of America and its population. The images of a female black slave and a man in stereotypically Spanish clothes underline this message, much like the facial features do in Identity Crises. Colescott denies racialized hierarchies just as empathically as Hammons or Pope, but, instead of limiting himself to the black-and-white dichotomy, broadens his scope by tying to embrace American diversity in its entirety.

If the artists of the 20^th century preferred to address matters of race and ethnicity in a domestic context, those of the new millennium offered a more global outlook, as demonstrated by South African Penny Siopis. In her Overboard, Siopis depicts a black person half-submerged into a bloodlike red liquid. Siopis paintings are notable for being personal and political at the same time, and, in this case, the political subtext appears to be racial.¹⁴ The force that drags the black body down is likely the same force that has thrown it overboard, out of social context. Siopis suggests that, even in the post-colonial world, new racial hierarchies emerge and assert themselves. Yet, unlike Popes or Hammons works, the painting contains no references to specific domestic issues. Instead, it examines the black body and blackness per se  on a global rather than national scale.

Another example of the same tendency is Ethiopian-born Julie Mehretu. Unlike her predecessors, Mehretu addresses racial and ethnic issues on the worldwide scale, paying attention to the Black Lives Matter or the Middle East refugee crisis simultaneously.¹⁵ Her Mural created in 2009 is a vibrant abstractionist representation of the intricacies of the contemporary globalized world. Figures of all sizes, shapes, and colors reflect the chaos of the rapidly decolonizing world and the new racial and ethnic interactions that emerge after the fall of colonialism.¹⁶ The scale of the work makes it impossible to embrace in a single look: one has to either examine the painting piece-by-piece or risk being overwhelmed by its sheer chaotic magnitude. Instead of sending a message on a single racial or ethnic theme in a national context, Mural encourages a deep, lengthy contemplation of the globalized world with its racial and ethnics tensions.¹⁷ Thus, Mehretu demonstrates a genuinely global approach to the matters of race and ethnicity.

Another characteristic feature of Mehretus work is an attempt to see past color. In stark contrast with Mural, her Conjured Parts (eye): Ferguson, painted in 2016, uses color sparingly and as a background, putting the grey figures at the forefront of the piece. Mehretu admits that, for her, color has always had a sort of social role, a descriptive role.¹⁸ Hence, the reluctance to use color in the painting devoted to one of the most racially significant events of the last years may signify the artists desire to see past these descriptive social roles. In this sense, one may interpret Ferguson as an attempt to overcome social labels assigned to the color and, by extension, race and ethnicity and envisage post-racial art.

To summarize, the interpretation of race and ethnicity in contemporary art from 1985 to the present went from covering domestic problems in a domestic context to globalized outlooks and attempts to see past race. Hammons Higher Goals criticized limited social lifts for African Americans as well as the commodification of black bodies. Popes Budapest Crawl addressed the same domestic problem on an international scale. Colescotts paintings highlighted both absurdity and resilience of ethic and racialized hierarchies among the people of mixed heritage. Finally, Siopis and Mehretus pieces look at race and ethnicity globally and emphasize their overwhelming complexity in a contemporary world, while Mehretu also attempts to move past color, race, and ethnicity as relevant categories.

Bibliography

Angelis, Alessandra De. An Artists Dance through Medium and Vision. In Penny Siopis: Time and Again, edited by Gerrit Olivier, 277-283. Johannesburg: Wits UP, 2014.

Barber, Tiffany E. William Pole L.s Budapest Crawl and Black Male Sports Bodies in Advertising in the 1990s. In Out of Bounds: Racism and the Black Athlete, edited by Lori Latrice Martin, 321-254. Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO, 2014.

Dufur, Mikaela. Race Logic and Being Like Mike: Representation of Athletes in Advertising, 1985-1994 In African Americans in Sport, edited by Gary A. Sailes, 67-84. New York: Routledge, 2017.

Filipovic, Elena. David Hammons: Bliz-aard Ball Sale. London: Afterall Books, 2017.

Gleeson, David. David Hammons: Give Me a Moment. Art Monthly 399 (2016): 24.

Harney, Elizabeth. Reimagining Global Modernity in the Age of Neo-Liberal Patronage: The History Paintings of Julie Mehretu. In What Was History Painting and What Is It Now?, edited by Mark Salber Phillips and Jordan Bear, 234-253. Montreal, McGill-Queens UP, 2019.

Pinder, Kimberly N. Biraciality and Nationhood in Contemporary American Art. In Race-ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History, 391-401. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Woubshet, Dagmawi. An Interview with Julie Mehretu. Callaloo 37, no. 4 (2014): 782-798.

Illustrations

Footnotes

1. Elena Filipovic, David Hammons: Bliz-aard Ball Sale (London: Afterall Books, 2017), 1.
2. David Gleeson, David Hammons: Give Me a Moment, Art Monthly 399 (September 2016): 24.
3. Filipovic, David Hammons, 39.
4. Gleeson, David Hammons, 24.
5. Tiffany E. Barber, William Pole L.s Budapest Crawl and Black Male Sports Bodies in Advertising in the 1990s, in Out of Bounds: Racism and the Black Athlete, edited by Lori Latrice Martin, (Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO, 2014), 237.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 236.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 237.
10. Mikaela Dufur, Race Logic and Being Like Mike: Representation of Athletes in Advertising, 1985-1994, in African Americans in Sport, edited by Gary A. Sailes (New York: Routledge, 2017), 68.
11. Barber, Budapest Crawl, 237.
12. Kymberly N. Pinder, Biraciality and Nationhood in Contemporary American Art, in Race-ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History (New York: Routledge, 2002), 396.
13. Ibid., 396.
14. Alessandra De Angelis, An Artists Dance through Medium and Vision, in Penny Siopis: Time and Again, edited by Gerrit Olivier (Johannesburg: Wits UP, 2014), 277.
15. Elizabeth Harney, Reimagining Global Modernity in the Age of Neo-Liberal Patronage: The History Paintings of Julie Mehretu, in What Was History Painting and What Is It Now?, edited by Mark Salber Phillips and Jordan Bear (Montreal, McGill-Queens UP, 2019), 235.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., 238.
18. Dagmawi Woubshet, An Interview with Julie Mehretu, Callaloo 37, no. 4 (2014): 782-783.

Introduction

Culture

Culture refers to the practices, values and beliefs shared by a group. It encompasses group life from daily routines, and daily interactions, to the most important part of group life. It includes everything produced by society and includes all social rules. For example, a family always take their dinner at 8.30 pm every day.

After that, culture is also a pattern of ideas, customs, and behaviors shared by a specific group of people or society. These patterns will differentiate a person from the other person that have a different culture. For example, Malaysian people have many differences from American people such as the way of wearing clothes.

Based on (Andrews and Boyle, 2008), culture can be defined as a system of beliefs, values, and behaviors expected to provide a social structure for everyday life. Culture defines roles and interactions with others, within families and communities, and is evident in the attitudes and institutions that are unique to specific groups.

[bookmark: _Hlk43320034]In conclusion, culture can be best defined as customs, beliefs, laws, religions and moral perceptions, arts and skills acquired by humans as members of a society or group. It is clearly seen in attitudes and institutions and unique to certain groups. For example, people who live at rural areas have different behaviors than people who live in the city. People who live at rural areas think it is common to live in rough areas such as climbing hills to arrive to the house while people who live in the city are not familiar with it. Other than that, people at rural areas may always use herbs to cure their injury or illness while people who live at the city goes to the hospital to receive treatment.

Ethnicity

Ethnicity is a term that describes a shared culture within a group of practices, values ​​and beliefs. This culture may include languages, religions and traditions and other similarities shared within a group. For example, in Sabah, the Kadazandusun races have the ‘Kaamatan’ festival every year on the month of May. This is their tradition to give honor to the rice spirit. This festival has been celebrated since ancients time.

Other than that, ethnicity refers to the social category of people who share a common culture, based on their common race, language or religion, which gives them their own social identity. For example, there are three main races in Malaysia which are Malay, Chinese and Indian. The things that differentiate their ethnicity are their skin color, dialect or language, traditions, and religion. We will easily know their races based on their ethnicity.

Based on (Ashley Crossman, 2019), in sociology, ethnicity is a concept referring to a shared culture and a way of life. This can be reflected in language, religion, material culture such as clothing and cuisine, and cultural products such as music and art. Ethnicity is often a major source of social cohesion as well as social conflict. In addition, the world is home to thousands of ethnic groups, from the Han Chinese the largest ethnic group in the world, to the smallest indigenous groups, some of which include only a few dozen people. Almost all of these groups possess a shared history, language, religion, and culture, which provide group members with a common identity.

In conclusion, ethnicity can be best defined as cultures that are shared by a group of people that can make them different from others. Ethnicity also shows the characteristic on a group of people of the same race. For example, Malay people wear ‘Baju Melayu’ and ‘Baju Kurung’ on the Hari Raya celebration because it is their tradition. Besides that, ethnicity is important to preserve the tradition of the ancestors. From that, our tradition will be not extinct and the new generation can learn it.

Discussion

Culture and Ethnicity as health determinants

Culture and ethnicity play important roles in health determinants. For example, eating habits are based on some cultures and ethnicity in the world. Most of the American people love to eat fast food and drink alcohol in an excessive way. These habits can lead them to get dangerous diseases such as high blood pressure, heart attack, obesity and liver cirrhosis. Other than that, eating habits that are not based on pyramid food causes many people die because of disease. From that, people should practice eating healthy food to avoid dangerous diseases from wrong eating habits.

After that, culture and ethnicity cause people to trust that diseases are caused by two factors which are physical and supernatural. Based on the physical factors unclean water are closely linked to disease. For example, unclean water can cause people who lived at the area infected with cholera and can lead to death. Other than that, diseases that cause by supernatural factors are like the influence of ghosts and spirits. For example, hysteria and epilepsy are thought to be caused by a spirit or a ghost entering the body. From that, exorcist services are sought to dispel such evil spirits.

Next, stigma against a disease or condition is also one of the health determinants based on culture and ethnicity. Culture influences society’s stigma against disease and its condition. Culture also determines the cause of why society is a stigma against a disease or condition. For example, in many cultures, depression is a common stigma and if you meet a psychiatrist you will be considered as a crazy person.

Last but not least, reaction to illness and pain by culture and ethnicity. This determinant of health show how a culture or ethnicity reacts to illness and pain. For example, in some cultures and groups, coping with pain without showing pain is a norm, even facing of severe pain such as wounds caused by sharp objects. In other cultures, they express pain in a simple way.

The environment also one of the health determinants based on culture and ethnicity. A clean environment is very important for long-term healthiness. This is because a clean environment can avoid the microorganism to grow and multiply. From that, a dangerous disease can be prevented and reduce the health problem in a country. Some cultures and ethnicity in the world live in an unclean environment that causes them to get infected by the dangerous disease and lead to death. For example, the animals that are raised by the villagers are close to home and sometimes people and animals live under one roof. This culture can cause disease to occur between humans and animals.

Lastly, the influence on how individuals get treatment help if they are ill or in poor health. This is also the determinant of health based on culture and ethnicity. Some people who live in the village usually get treatment from a shaman first if they are sick. This is because they believe that the illness has a relationship with supernatural factors. There are also people who live in the village who does not trust a shaman and get treatment from the hospital because they think it would be more comfortable and their privacy are protected.

Difference between culture and ethnicity

The difference between culture and ethnicity can be seen from the definition. Culture is the idea, custom and social behavior of a group of people or society while ethnicity is defined as a fact or condition that belongs to social groups of people that share the same race or cultural tradition. For example, culture is related to our daily lifestyle while ethnicity is related to our race, religion and tradition.

Other than that, the way of identifying culture and ethnicity are also have differences. We can identify ethnicity through physical appearance, beliefs and practices while we cannot identify culture through physical appearance. For example, identifying culture are usually represented by material items. It is often symbolically identified through language, clothing, music and behaviors.

Next, the way of people inherits culture and ethnicity are also the differences between culture and ethnicity. For example, ethnicity is biologically inherited from parents and ancestors while culture is acquired through social interaction. In addition, if our parents’ races are Kadazandusun, our ethnicity will automatically become Kadazandusun. Other than that, someone who are Malay will be familiar with the Kadazandusun culture if he always does his daily activities with the Kadazandusun people.

Lastly, the difference between culture and ethnicity are based on the community’s acceptance of someone’s ethnicity and culture. Ethnic mobility can occur if there is mutual acceptance in both ethnicities while culture is so dynamic and constantly changing, that anyone can acquire another culture through social interaction. For example, we can easily influence by someone’s culture just by making friends with them while we cannot easily accept someone’s ethnicity if we do not familiar with it.

Role of culture and ethnicity differences in behavior and health outcome

The role of cultural and ethnic differences in behavior and health outcome is the perceptions of health and disease. This means that culture and ethnicity determine the perception of health and disease. The impact of this behavior is can worsen the health and illness of the patient. For example, people who have a culture that defines a disease as merely a mild illness and does not want to get treatment will leave him unaware of his actual disease. Other than that, the impact of this behavior also causes the disease that can be treated in the early stages delay in treatment and cause the disease to worsen and lead to death.

After that, stigma against a disease or condition. Individuals with this problem are ashamed to seek treatment. This can cause patients to be excluded from society and even families are reluctant to openly support the patient. This can cause the individual’s disease to become worse and cause the individual to feel helpless. In addition, the person’s disease that can be treated at the early stage will delay and cause the disease cannot be cure anymore.

Besides that, patients’ individual beliefs about the cause of illness is also one of the behaviors in health outcomes. Some ethnicity always think that medical providers cannot cure a disease that they are not familiar with. For example, the individual chooses to goes to a shaman rather than go to the hospital. This is because they choose to receive traditional treatment and finally, it worsens their health and disease conditions. The person gets the wrong treatments from the shaman because the shaman does not have the technology to detect the patient’s real disease. All the shaman thought was, the disease is due to supernatural powers and evil spirits. From that, the shaman cannot tell the person what disease had infected him. This condition can lead patients to death because of dangerous diseases.

Moreover, the sex differences and marital differences between cultures and religious behavior have a bad outcome to health. Cultural and religious issues can make it difficult for patients to admit things like homosexuality, premarital sex and cheating that lead to unplanned illness or pregnancy, or even depression. For example, almost all teenagers in this modern world have been involved in sex before marriage. This behavior causes the issue of baby abortion to increase. Other than that, sex between the same gender such as homosexuality are also a behavior that are famous among teenagers and adult. This behavior can lead HIV and AIDS disease to spread and cause many dangerous illnesses.

Lastly, the socioeconomic factors among culture and ethnicity to the health outcome. Many ethnic minority groups have higher poverty rates than White British ethnic groups. Poverty is in terms of income, unemployment and people who have no place to live. This behavior caused them to have no ability to maintain their health condition. For example, poor people cannot afford to pay the cost of treatment at the hospital to treat their disease. From that, their health condition will become worse and lead them to death.

Effect of culture and ethnicity on health inequalities

The effect of culture and ethnicity on health inequalities is discrimination. Nazroo (1998) argues that ethnicity encompasses a wide range of issues, including language, religion, migration, culture, lineage and forms of identity. Each of these, individually or in groups, contributes to health differences between different ethnic groups. In the United Kingdom, rates of disease-related deaths and premature deaths among ethnic minorities are generally higher than those of indigenous peoples with better health (Wild & McKeigue, 1997).

Other than that, the prevalence of various diseases is not the same is also the effect of culture and ethnicity on health inequalities. Different ethnicities and cultures also affect health inequalities in chronic health problems. For example, in the United States, lung cancer is more common among Southeast Asian immigrants than American men because smoking is found to be more common in Asian men. In addition, different ethnicities and cultures also affect health inequality for the risk of infectious diseases. For example, compared to white Americans, Southeast Asian immigrants are 13 times more likely to have tuberculosis and 25 times more likely to have Hepatitis B. In order to get treatments, immigrants have to pay a higher fee to get treatments at the hospital because they are not American people.

Next, the effect of risk inequality for stress. People have different types of stress which are including stress about education, family problems, bullied problems and financial status. This behavior can lead a person to take a short course in life such as suicide and drug abuse to release their tension. In addition, health also one of the stress factors in life. For example, based on culture and ethnicity, the lower income family may have a low quality of health because they cannot afford to get treatments at the hospital. This situation leads them to work harder and be stress to find the money for getting high-quality of health. In other cases, ethnic minorities may experience greater levels of pressure than the general population as a result of specific pressures such as discrimination, racial harassment and the demand to maintain or experience cultural change.

Last but not least, infant mortality rates are also the effect of culture and ethnicity in health inequalities. The effect of ethnicity on health are clear based on the research of babies’ death. Malaysia state that ethnic minorities like Indonesia are more prone to increasing infant mortality because they are unable to access good health care since pregnancy. This is because Indonesia is a country with a big population of people and most of them have a low standard of living. For example, many of Indonesian people have low financial status, especially the people who live at rural areas. From that, the women that are pregnant are hard to get treatments and care because they have problems with finances. They cannot pay for the hospital bills which are very expensive.

Lastly, culture and ethnicity cause barriers for getting a screening test. The number of female doctors which is lower in some areas of the United Kingdom compared to the high ethnic minority population has a negative impact on screening tests among Asian women (Naish et al. 1994). Other than that, many Somali women do not access screening programs due to issues such as language use, travel, and so on (Abdullahi et al, 2009). This effect causes women to become unaware that either they have an infection of any disease or not. For example, dangerous diseases like cervix cancer, syphilis, herpes and Trichomonas Vaginalis.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have learned that culture and ethnicity have different meanings. Culture can be best defined as customs, beliefs, laws, religions and moral perceptions, arts and skills acquired by humans as members of a society or group. It is clearly seen in attitudes and institutions and unique to certain groups. In addition, ethnicity can be best defined as a culture that are shared by a group of people that can make them different from others. Ethnicity also show the characteristic on a group of people with the same races. These two words has a different meaning but they played important role in people live to show their identity.

Other than that, I also have learned that, culture and ethnicity have a role as a determinant of health. The determinants of health based on culture and ethnicity are eating habits, physical and supernatural factors of disease, stigma against a disease or condition, reaction to illness and pain, environmental condition and the influence on how individuals get treatment help if they are ill or in poor health. These determinants of health are important in order to maintain our body health.

In addition, the difference between culture and ethnicity divided into four category which are definition, way of identifying the culture and ethnicity, way of people inherits the culture and ethnicity and community acceptance of someone ethnicity and culture. The four categories describe the difference of culture and ethnicity in every aspect in life.

Last but not least, there are five roles of cultural and ethnic differences in behavior and health outcome. The five roles that I have learn is the perception of health and disease, stigma against a disease or condition, patients’ individual beliefs about the cause of illness, sex differences and marital differences between cultures and religions behavior and socioeconomic factors. These roles lead to different health outcomes to a person based on their culture and ethnicity.

Lastly, I also have learned the effect of culture and ethnicity on health inequalities. There are five effects that I have learned which are discrimination, the prevalence of various diseases is not the same, risk of inequality for stress, infant mortality rate and barriers for getting a screening test. These effects happen because of human behavior. For example, smoking habits among men causes them to have lung cancer.

To conclude, we must practice a good behavior to avoid the health inequalities that are caused by a bad culture and ethnicity. For example, a bad culture is related to drinking alcohol in excessive quantities, smoking cigarettes and drug abuse. Adhering to a healthy lifestyle can keep your body healthy and live longer. In addition, we should practice the traditions of our ancestors in order to avoid the tradition to be extinct from this world. From that, the new generations can learn our ancestors’ traditions from us.

The world as we know it today has significantly changed. After two world wars, thousands of conflicts, and countless efforts to achieve peace, we can now say democracy prevails. We can count almost 200 sovereign nation-states in the world now, most of them being democratic. But looking in the past, this was not the case. The world was comprised of societies, later on out of colonies till it reached the world as we know it today.

How this was achieved is still a debate among scholars, with opinions varying and many different theories created. Some theories, such as the modernist approach, support the idea that the nationalist movement brought about the idea of nation-states. Other theories, such as primordialism, look at things from a different point of view, suggesting that nationalism existed from the beginning of time. Another issue created thus, is the problem of ethnicity.

Oftentimes, news outlets mention conflicts surrounding ethnic groups. The issue of ethnicity frequently comes up, and tensions between different ethnical minorities or majorities are created. The question deriving from these problems is how ethnicity is connected to nationalism. Moreover, what is ethnicity exactly and why does it create such issues?

In the following essay the concept of ethnicity will be explored, in order to establish a connection between ethnicity and nationalism. Moreover, the question of how ethnicity affects democracy will be explored. The various ethnic groups around the world, nowadays wield great influence in their respective nation-states, gaining a lot of attention. Does this help democracy or does ethnicity actually undermine the democratic processes? Such questions will be researched, in the interest of establishing a relationship between ethnicity and democracy, and understanding how the former affects the latter either negatively or positively.

Comprehending the Concepts

Understanding the concepts of ethnicity and democracy is of vital importance, before moving on to establishing a connection between them. The meaning of these terms will provide significant information in realizing how they came into existence, and why an interconnection may exist between them.

Democracy

“No one is born a good citizen, no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth.” Kofi Annan

Taking into account what Kofi Annan mentioned, and going into a more etymological definition, democracy derives from the Greek words “demos” and “Kratos” and can be thought of as the power of the people.

According to one of the most influential international organs, the European Council, democracy in the modern world is differently represented throughout the world. Yet there is one common element among democracies. The possibility for people to select their representatives, and be able to exercise their powers through them. This system is generated through elections, which makes the people legal citizens with rights. Moreover, this system aims to achieve equality for everybody and the right of individual autonomy. Thus creating such rights and freedoms, in order to keep each individual safe and protected, while also safeguarding these rights

Ethnicity

The exact definition of ethnicity has not yet been agreed upon. Usually, ethnicity is regarded as a commonly recognized feature attached to a certain group of people. These features can be history, language, religion, culture and even territory. These particular characteristics provide a different identity among these groups, commonly called ethnic groups. A wide range of these groups, though are starting to seek forms of recognition within the state they are living.

Nationalism and Ethnicity

Issues arise when these groups seek for recognition. These ethnic groups, however different they may be, they have one common goal. They all seek economic, political or cultural rights and equality to the rest of the population within the state. Putting this in context, we can assume that ethnicity can be described as part of nationalism asking for political attention, thus challenging the legitimacy of the state. This may often lead to conflicts with regional or even international consequences. So how does this affect the democratic process within the states, but also around the international community?

The negative impact of ethnicity

Most scholars find a problem within societies that are highly polarized. These societies usually cannot agree upon mutual public goods, such as infrastructure or economic relief. Therefore, ethnic diversity may reach its peak and create policies that may lead to the reduction of growth. A study conducted by Easterly and Levine (1997), shows that ethnicity is directly impacting on long-term growth, thus ethnicity can affect public policies affiliated with economic growth.

In addition, competition in the political domain within such plural societies may unleash feelings of ethnic ousting. Politicians that aim for support to groups within their ethnic group can cause instability and lead to uprisings. This can eventually lead to democratic reductions and violence, as minorities may feel left abandoned. Cyprus and the Turkish minority of the island could be a paradigm of such destabilization, which has caused major problems that have yet to be solved. Another view, suggests that high levels of pluralism within societies may utterly undermine democracy. This can happen in states where ethnic groups have the ability to influence a wide number of people and dominate the state. Moreover, many theorists pinpoint ethnicity with extreme right-wing ideologies which can have a much more severe impact on the democratic process.

Ethnicity and Democracy, the bright side

Realizing that the application of western democracy is not an easy task, is very important in this case. Issues may always arise in pluralist societies, but there are many examples of success stories. The United States has managed to produce a multiethnic society with steady rates of democracy. Many scholars have argued that varying ethnicity within a state may actually be a component in achieving democracy. Federal democracies, even though they may cause problems, can also bring stability if the state’s ethnic group reaches an agreement collectively with the government.

In Papua New Guinea for example, pluralism provides a guarantee that no ethnic group can rise to power monopolistically. The same applies for India. Strong local institutions can help the diffusion of ethnic politics. It all depends on the level of integration and interaction among these ethnic groups, and how they perceive their role within the state.

Moreover, there is evidence showing that ethnicity can reduce the economic growth of a state, but the impact an authoritarian regime may cause can be much more severe. And all of this can be subjected to nation-building reformation and the goal of trust-building among the various groups. Ethnic diversity may have severe impacts in democracy, but hardly in a direct manner.

Conclusion

Ethnicity may be regarded as a form of nationalism, that affects political states and the international community. Plural societies may not always provide grounds for democratic development and stability due to the differences created by religion, culture, language or more. Yet politics and democracy is not solely practiced among ethnic lines. Western Democracy, as we know it cannot be measured by preferences because its outcomes are more important than procedural standards.

Does that make ethnicity unimportant in the process of democratization? Not really. Ethnicity may indirectly influence democracy, through economic or social factors and cause conflicts among the different ethnic groups. But it all depends on the level of integration among the ethnic regimes and their interaction with the rest of the society. Elites and political goals can cause a strong feeling of ethnic rejection, thus leading to uprisings and conflict. However, achieving to minimize the feeling of excludability may lead to stable and strong democracies, examples of which exist all around the world. As long as the interests of each ethnic group are equally met, democracy is safeguarded and equality among them can be achieved successfully.

Introduction

Background of the Study

The term ‘society’ came from the Latin word societas, which in turn was derived from the noun socius (‘comrade, friend, ally’; adjectival form socialis) used to describe a bond or interaction between parties that are friendly, or at least civil. Without an article, the term can refer to the entirety of humanity (also: ‘society in general, ‘society at large, etc.), although those who are unfriendly or uncivil to the remainder of society in this sense may be deemed to be ‘antisocial. In abstract terms, society is defined as a network of relationships between people or between groups of people. Maclver(1937) defined it in more or less the same terms as the “web of social relations which is always changing”( Maclver, 1937). Furthermore, Scottish economist, Adam Smith describes society as ‘may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility without any mutual love or affection, if only they refrain from doing injury to each other” (Briggs,2014). Human society is, as Comte declared, an extremely complex phenomenon. The scientific study of social phenomena is impossible without specialization. But it seems more difficult than in the study of the natural world to arrive at a satisfactory division of the subject’s easily perceptible features; e.g. political, economic, religious, and family institutions. With the advent of sociology, this division was implicitly challenged, but it has nevertheless been reproduced to some extent within sociology itself (Bottomore,2010).

The concept of ethnicity is the reflections on the nature of ethnic groups are twofold: Firstly, what characteristics are markers of ethnic groups, and secondly, are those characteristics relatively fixed, i.e. primordial, or subject to human agency, i.e. constructed (Cartrite,2003) Ethnic identity and ethnic movements are not new phenomena. Developed and developing countries are equally sensing the challenges of ethnic political movements..The term ethnicity is derived from the Greek word ‘ethnos’ normally translated as ‘people’ or ‘tribe’ (Yadav, 2009). The dominant sociological approach to ethnicity has long taken the form of straight-line theory, in which acculturation and assimilation of social and cultural attributes such as language, religion, custom, food, music and beliefs are viewed as secular trends that culminate in the eventual absorption of the ethnic group into the larger culture and general population(Gans, 1979). Ethnicity is an important means of identifying people. There is no common understanding on what ethnicity is about and what are the distinct differences among ethnicity, race and communalism.

The definition of ethnicity has been used in different ways, depending on the context, in both academic and practical levels. Many Scholars follow wider usage in considering ethnic groups to be minorities (Gellner, 1997). However Max Weber (1961), previously elaborated the term ‘ethnicity’withimplicationofseveraldimensions. These include a common sense of descent that extends beyond family background, political solidarity with other groups, common customs, language, religion, values, morality, and etiquette. However, empirical operationalizations do not appear related to this and other explications; in addition, only single rather than multiple indicators are used(Weber,1961 ). Further than Weber, Barth stressed the constructed nature of ethnicity and elaborated it in subtly. Using the variety of indicators he defines ethnicity may indicate a number of disagreements about the nature of ethnicity. A basic disagreement is between an ‘objectivist’ and a ‘subjectivist’ perspective. (Barth,1998). Yinger (1997) believed that an ethical group is a segment of a larger society whose members are believed to have a common origin, share important segments of a common culture, and participate in shared activities in which the common origin and culture are important ingredients. Looking at the above points, we might say that ethnic identity refers to the ethnic group with which an individual is most closely associated through culture, origin, language, and other partners. Ethnic identity is a complex and multifaceted part of the development of an individual. Ethnicity refers not only to physical characteristics but also to cultural characteristics. Varshney (2002) discusses the two distinct ways in which the term “ethnic” is used. He argues

In its narrow sense, “ethnic means “racial” or “linguistic.” This is the sense in which the term is widely understood in popular discourse, both in India and elsewhere. For example, for politics and conflict based on religious groupings, such as Hindus and Muslims, Indian scholars, as well as bureaucrats and politicians since the British days, have used the term “communal,” not ethnic. There is however a second sense in which ethnic groups are defined in the social sciences. This usage is broader in its implication. As Horowitz argues, all conflicts based on accretive group identities- race, language, religion, tribe, or caste- can be called ethnic. In this umbrella usage, ethnic conflicts range from 1) the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Northern Ireland and Hindu –the Muslim conflict in India to 2) black white conflict in the United States and South Africa, 3) Tamil- the Sinhala conflict in Sri Lanka, and 4) Shia-Sunni troubles in Pakistan. In the narrower construction of term, 1) is religious, 2) racial, 3) linguistic, (4) sectarian. The term “ethnic” often in the past would have been reserved for the second and third but not extended to the first and the fourth (p. 4).

The larger meaning is increasingly becoming the standard meaning in social science even if it is still not agreed on in activism and politics. Ethnicity is simply the larger set of subsets to which religion, race, language and sect belong (Varshney, 2002).

Jonathan M. Hall observes World War II was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than as biological entities. Their consistency was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship, common origin, language, religion, customs, and national character. Ethnic groups are therefore conceived as being mutable rather than stable, built in discursive practices rather than in genes (Hall, 2002).

Different approaches have been used by different scholars in defining ethnicity. Different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society, different approaches have come. In their opinion, many scholars are divided on how ethnic identity is formed and why it persists. Anthropological theories of ethnicity can be grouped into three basic categories: Primordialist theories, Instrumentalist theories, and Constructivist theories. These theories broadly reflect changes in anthropology approach over the past 20 years, i.e. the shift from theories of cultural evolution to structural-functional theories, to theories of conflict, and finally to postmodern theories.

Table 1 – Three Basic Approaches to Understanding Ethnicity

• Perspective
• Description
• Primordialist Theories
• Ethnic identity is a biologically given or natural phenomenon. ethnicity is fixed at birth and permanent
• Instrumental Theories
• Ethnicity relies on the purely instrumental use of ethnic identity for political or economic purposes.
• Constructivist Theories

It holds that ethnic groups are only products of human social interaction, maintained only in so far as they are maintained as valid social constructs in societies. It is therefore fluid and subjective.

Source: Modified from (Phadnis & Ganguly, 2001; Yadav, 2009).

Ethnic movements and Social Inclusion

Any launched campaign and movement aimed at bringing about changes in the existing status of ethnic groups and communities is called an ethnic movement. An ethnic movement’s target may vary depending on its objectives, which may include improving minority group status, influencing policy, or demanding independence. In any area of ethnic communities such as language, the anticipated change in the ethnic movement would be; culture; identity; representation. Methods of ethnic movements also vary from place to place. Whereas, social inclusion is the act of making all groups of people within a society feel valued and important. It can be taken as the process of improving the term for individuals and groups to take part in society. Social inclusion is aimed at empowering poor and marginalized people to exploit the rapidly growing opportunities of the world. It ensures that individuals have a voice in decisions that affect their lives and enjoy equal access to markets, services, and political, social, and physical spacesSocial inclusion refers to removing institutional barriers and enhancing incentives to increase access to development opportunities for various individuals and groups. Social inclusion requires changes in policies, rules and social practices and shifts in the perspectives and behavior of people toward excluded groups (Aditya, 2007). The key areas to be prepared in this regard are: the inclusion of friendly administrative structures, laws and policies, political engagement along with changes in the thinking process from self-centered to equity and rights-based (Aditya, 2007).

Social inclusion is a broad term and encompasses several concepts. According to a definition given by the World Bank, social inclusion “is the process of improving the terms on which individuals and groups take part in society—improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those disadvantaged on the basis of their identity” ( Das, 2013).

Alternatively, Social exclusion is the process in which individuals or people are systematically blocked from (or denied full access to) various rights, opportunities, and resources that are normally available to members of a different group, and which are fundamental to social integration and observance of human rights within that particular group (Walsh, 2006).

Social inclusion is a process through which efforts are made to ensure that everyone has equal opportunities. The multidimensional process aimed at creating conditions that enable every member of society to participate fully and actively in all aspects of life, including civic, social, economic and political activities, as well as participation in decision-making processes. Social inclusion can also be seen as the process through which societies are fighting poverty and social exclusion. Social inclusion is aimed at empowering poor and marginalized people to exploit the burgeoning opportunities of the world. It ensures that individuals have a voice in decisions affecting their lives and enjoy equal access to markets, services and political, social and physical spaces (ICT, 2015)

In ethnicity discourse, ethnicity and social inclusion often come together. There are different arguments about what social inclusion is and how it relates to ethnicity. The purpose of promoting or resisting social change is to enact ethnic movements. An ethnic movement’s target may vary depending on its objectives, which may include improving minority group status, influencing policy, or demanding independence. According to some scholars, social inclusion is multidimensional and addressing one aspect does not necessarily address the essence of social inclusion. It is a meaningful and institutional arrangement to integrate marginalized and unheard sections of society into the decision-making process at the national level. It is therefore closely related to decision-making, power practices and resource access and control. Aditya (2007) considered that inclusiveness essentially means creating opportunities in the governance system for a section of society. It also means creating opportunities for social and economic development, especially for the deprived class (Aditya, 2007). Bhattacharya (2007) viewed that symbolic representation and one time appointments don’t carry the essence of inclusion though it has been referred and pointed out accordingly in the context of Nepal. Close relationships have been found across the world between social inclusion and ethnic movements (Yadav, 2009). In the case of Nepal, too, most ethnic movements are closely linked to social inclusion issues.

1.2. Statement of the problem

There is a quite unique history of the construction of ethnicity in Nepal. The ruling class always tended toward some other ethnic groups, and thus there was internal colonization that built race as an ethnicity based on the Hindu caste system dominant in Hinduism (Pokhrel, 2011). The culture of people is transmitted from one generation to another through the means of language however language of ethnic groups has been ignored by the state itself. As per the 2001 census, 92 languages are spoken in Nepal. These languages belong to four language families: The Dravidian language family; The Austroasiatic language family; The Sino- Tibetan language family; Indo-European language family (Kunwar, 1996). Language has also played a crucial role in the formation of ethnicity as Nepalisation of the language i.e. one nation one language Nepali, and people having another mother tongue than Nepali deprived from the opportunities and corners as an ethnic group.

With the restoration of multiparty democracy in 1990, ethnic groups and Dalits aspired to a democratic and plural society. The 1990 Constitution declared Nepal a multi-ethnic and multilingual Hindu constitutional monarchical kingdom, granted all citizens equal rights, and banned all forms of discrimination based on religion, sex, race, caste, or ethnicity.It also recognized other languages of different communities as national languages. But democratic participation discourses contrast sharply with existing disparities (Upadhyaya, 2013). Nepalese ethnic movements have been tilted toward instrumentalism, according to scholars, in contemporary Nepali society, ethnic racialization has a political purpose, and psychological and cultural strategies have been adopted to accommodate and resist differences (Pokhrel, 2011).

The active involvement of ethnic organizations in the 1990 people’s movement showed their concern not only about the political system but also about socio-political changes and economic participation. As noted above, the 1990 political movement and the political changes it brought with it cultivated awareness among ethnic groups and thus formed organizations ‘to preserve their cultural identity and fight for equal rights and participation in the state of Nepal’ (Kraemer, 2007). Following the formation of Nepal as a republic state, ethnic groups are aware of their rights and are active in reinterpreting and rewriting history based on the idea of race, language, religion and territory. There is a great role of many scholars as they create awareness on ethnic communities and mobilization of ethnic leaders for the inclusion of ethnic communities. Increased political participation of ethnic communities in newly restored democratic systems in 1990 and post-1990 and self-conscious ethnic community forced the state to bring about changes in the structure of the state, thus making the structure of the state inclusive. The global concept of human rights, media, democratic values, and civil society system and role compel the state to provide positive action to marginalized individuals and groups excluded. However, most ethnic leaders still claim that ethnic groups are discriminated against, marginalized, and excluded. This study focused on how Nepal’s ethical movements contributed to institutionalizing social inclusion practices in Nepal in this context.

1.3. Research Questions

The following research questions will guide this study

• What are the agendas of ethnic movements in Nepal?
• How have the ethnic movements influenced social inclusion practices?
• How do ethnic movements contribute in institutionalizing social inclusion practices?

1.4. Objectives of the study

• General Objective

The overall objective of the research is to assess the relationship between Nepalese ethnic movements and their impact on institutionalizing social inclusion practices in Nepal.

• Specific objectives

The specific objectives are;

• To assess the issues and agendas of ethnic movements in Nepal in respect to social inclusion.
• To analyze the role of ethnic movements in social inclusion at the policy and practice levels.

1.5. Justification of the Study

The idea to do a thesis on this topic came into being due to the ongoing interest of the researcher to understand Nepal’s ethnic issues and beyond. Particularly after 2006, caste and ethnic polarization increased. Given the circumstances of so-called high caste people, the exclusion and marginalization of ethnic communities have been blamed, whereas so-called high caste people have not accepted it, thereby contributing to the widening of animosity between different castes, communities, and ethnic groups. Ethnic/communal violence is likely to erupt in the near future if the current growing trend of ethnic / caste polarization continues to be the same and ethnicity politicization continues. Against this background, this research creates an opportunity to assess whether ethnic movements are intended solely to address ethnic issues or are intended to capitalize on ethnic sentiments for other purposes. Therefore, the research may provide a new direction in addressing long-standing ethnic issues and movements.

1.6. Conceptual Framework

Ethnic movements and activism will be taken as a point of view for research during the period from 1990 to 2012. The inclusion perspective will evaluate ethnic activism and movements on it and the major milestone set out thereafter. To be precise, how ethnic movements have contributed to institutionalizing the country’s practice of social inclusion; what are the main agendas of ethnic movements; what the contributing factors in Nepal’s ethnic movements will be evaluated and interpreted within the scope of the research goal.

(Ethnic Movements in Nepal

-Agendas of ethnic movements

-Key factors contributing to social inclusion practices

How ethnic movements contributed to institutionalizing social inclusion practices)

Source: Modified from (Tamang, 2015; Varshney, 2002; Aditya, 2007)

1.7. Organization of the Study

The report is organized into various chapters altogether five. The first chapter basically contains the background of the study, a statement of the problem, research questions, objectives, justification of the study, and the conceptual framework of the study. The second chapter deals with the available literature on the concerned topic by scholars, institutions, and organizations. The third chapter discusses the research methodology followed to carry out the study. The fourth chapter presents the interpretation and analysis of the data. The final chapter contains the findings and summary of the study.

Sociology is an area of scientific inquiry that researches human societies and the social elements that comprise our societies. In detail, social elements refer to the interactions, social institutions, and interpersonal relationships of which support the development of society. These social elements are present in the everyday lives of many people. Sociologists use social elements in order to analyze varied categories such as ethnicity and race, socioeconomics and social status, as well as family dynamics. These categories of sociology are supported through the use of connections between sociological scientific research studies such as those in Garth Massey’s novel, “Readings for Sociology” and personal social examples we see in our communities. Therefore, by referencing sociological studies in “Readings for Sociology” and comparing the ideas to personal examples I’ve experienced, I can analyze how ethnicity, socioeconomics, and family dynamics play a part in our society and my life.

The first topic of sociology I will discuss is ethnicity. Ethnicity is a sociological topic that argues that there are non-physical characteristics and cultural aspects of someone’s upbringing that aid in the development of a specialized individuality. In our modern society, race connects to the idea of ethnicity and identity according to Waters in “Readings for Sociology”. Waters writes, “White Americans can exercise […] the option of whether to claim any specific ancestry, or to just be ‘White’ or American, and [choose] which of their European ancestries to choose to include in their description of their own identities” (Waters, 2015, p. 228-229). So, white Americans can “pass” as any desirable European culture as well as deny any association with European culture, whereas, people of color, who are in the numerical minority of society, do not have as much free choice and maneuvering when it comes to the idea of ethnicity. Therefore, minority groups have a much more difficult time in being able to separate their identity from society’s assumptions of what their ethnicity should be according to racial presumptions. In general, society seems to develop a certain bias based off of appearances guided by racial ignorance, and so assumes an ethnicity for those who are unable to naturally “pass” as other ethnicities. For instance, as a White first-generation Lithuanian immigrant, I can both deny and affirm my ethnic ties to my original birthplace due to the generational diminishment of the discrimination once attached to European backgrounds. However, people of color may not be able to separate their identities from ethnic ties to their assumed ‘origins’ due to society’s continued racism and discrimination towards people of color. Ethnicity, however not only displays ties to racial identity but also connects to the establishment of specific cultural beliefs.

Ethnicity can establish a marital belief that encourages conjugal love rather than romantic love through the idea of arranged marriages, especially those in the Indian social structure. In “Readings for Sociology”, Gupta notes, “most Indian marriages are arranged, although sometimes opinions of the partners are consulted, and in cases of adults, their opinions are seriously considered” (Gupta, 2015, p. 385). Although the idea of arranged marriages has been around for a very long time, throughout the generations there have been some changes made to the structure of arranged marriages. One change would include having more leniency towards mate selection. In our modern-day American lives, most marriages we see are love marriages, unlike in India. For example, in my personal life, there has never been one moment where my parents have discussed future sutures. Instead, I was expected to find a potential suitable mate on my own and marry for romantic love. However, the same ‘grooming’ process applies to my prospective spouse, in the sense that it would be with my parents’ blessings that I would have the confidence to marry my match. From an individual perspective, if my parents felt my spouse would be unfit, there would be serious doubt cast upon my intended spouse. Keeping this in mind, not only can my personal life be affected by society, such as my parents’ opinions, but also I can have a certain influence on society through the idea of socioeconomics.

The second topic of sociology I will examine is socioeconomics. Socioeconomics is a branch of sociology in which studies the relationship between social factors, such as behaviors, and economic factors, such as income, and what consequences their interrelation produces in our institutions. By way of example, socioeconomic research can investigate the interactions between employees working in an institution and the institution’s costumers. In “Readings for Sociology”, Paules writes about the relationship between waitresses and customers explaining how waitresses viewed “a low tip or stiff [as reflecting] the negative qualities and low status of the customer who is too cheap, too poor, too ignorant, or too coarse to leave an appropriate gratuity” (Paules, 2015, p. 300). Therefore, waitresses consider inadequate tipping, or not tipping at all, as a reflection of the poor characteristics of an individual. On the other hand, costumers believe a small tip indirectly hints that the waitresses’ service may have been inadequate to their standards. I have worked in the food industry, and so I recognize that sufficient tipping is necessary. However, from a consumer’s perspective, it would be difficult to view the tipping process as anything other than a rating system for the quality of the service. In other words, it is more difficult for even myself to tip 15-20% if the service was poor. Nevertheless, socioeconomics is not only limited to the interactions between waitresses and consumers.

Socioeconomics can also relate the interactions between employees working in a commercial store to the store’s costumers. In “Readings for Sociology”, Dodson mentions how managers were blaming themselves for the lack of employees’ incomes. One manager named Bea talks about one of her employees, Nancy, noting, “‘I couldn’t help but feeling that I was to blame, or partly. Nancy doesn’t make what she deserves….I am not saying they all work that hard, but…really, many do’” (Dodson, 2015, p. 280). Managers, like Bea, blame themselves for the fact that their employees may not be making enough money to cover personal expenses. Therefore, supervisors feel obligated to give aid in any way that they can, and so would step over the boundaries established as managers and take advantage of any abundant commerce in the store’s inventory. Some bosses would even individually subsidize their employee’s hours. For instance, in my personal experience of working at Dunkin’ Donuts, there were many instances where my manager would allow one of the employees, who was a busy single mother of four, to take food home for the family, as well as take the necessary time off if she needed to care for her children. Moreover, not only can employers look out for the needs of their employees but also society, in general, can look upon their connections to family and friends for the aid they need which can be shown through the sociological idea of family dynamics.

The third topic of sociology I will consider is family dynamics. Family dynamics is a category of sociology in which analyzes the structure of family and the interactions between family members. In “Readings for Sociology”, Stack states, “the responsibility for providing food, care, clothing, and shelter and for socializing children within domestic networks may be spread over several households” (Stack, 2015, p. 402). Domestic networks are the relationships between family members and close friends where each member shares the accountabilities of each individual family, especially if the situation were to involve giving support financially. Therefore, families would help other families by expanding responsibilities to kinsmen, thereby broadening the traditional boundaries seen in typical family structures. For example, in my own family, financial responsibilities are shared among our entire domestic network of family and close friends. My family members and my parents’ close friends back in Lithuania rely upon our financial success in America as a means of their financial stability in Lithuania. Nonetheless, kinsmen and domestic networks are not the only type of relationships that the sociological idea of family dynamics can analyze. Sociologists can use the idea of family dynamics to research the more intimate relationships such as those between a husband and wife.

Throughout many generations and countries, the normalized interactions between a prospective wife and husband vary greatly. In many cultures, the idea of love before marriage, in marriage, or as a means for getting married is viewed as a disadvantage to a marital agreement. In “Readings for Sociology”, Coontz acknowledges that men and women, “describe their marital behavior, no matter how exemplary it may actually be, in terms of convenience, compulsion, or self-interest rather than love or sentiment” (Coontz, 2015, p. 397). The idea of romantic love is often overlooked as a means for making a marriage successful in many cultures. Often, in most cultures, love is ranked as the lowest factor in considering a marital agreement. For instance, in my personal life, as a modern century woman living in America, the relationship ideal in my community of friends and family would be romantic love. Although the idea of love is a personal important factor to consider before marriage, as I grow older, I come to realize that there are also other important factors to consider.

All in all, many sociological topics apply to our daily lives. These sociological topics integrate into the many social elements in our society today through the interactions and behaviors, social institutions, as well as interpersonal relationships we see in the communities around us. However, personal examples are not the only sources that we can analyze to be able to apply these sociological concepts. There are also relevant sociological studies and research, such as in Garth Massey’s novel “Readings for Sociology”, that can be used in order to analyze how race and ethnicity, social economics, and family structures perform a role in our lives and societies.

Ethnicity can have a significant influence on our identity and experiences of belonging. What impact do globalization, increased mobility and/or migration have on ethnicity today?

The essay will be focusing on the impact of globalisation on ethnicity. One can identify globalisation as the intensification of social relations worldwide that link distant localities in such a way that things happening one place are shaped by events that occurred in other countries (Aas 2007). Globalisation has resulted in the integration of people in the world. In the essay, the primary focus will be on the fact that globalisation has had both a positive and negative impact on ethnicity through the creation of homogenous identity, diversity, labour market deterioration and the concept of othering. The negative impacts of globalisation on ethnicity outweigh the positive impacts globalisation has.

Globalisation has a positive impact on ethnicity in that it creates and brings exposure to more diversity. Ritzer and Dean (2019) stated that globalisation allows people to retain ethnic identity and diasporic groups to spread. An example would be someone leaving their home country to go and study in other country for university. A student visa would allow individuals to study and work part-time in the country. This is positive for ethnic groups as they are able to leave their countries of origin to go to other countries to broaden their knowledge and to allow them to gain ideas that they can take to their countries of birth to improve the country’s structure. According to Ferguson and Sherrell (2019), there were 398 563 overseas students in Australia. Forrest (2003) believed a multicultural perspective would focus on the positive aspects of ethnic diversity and identity of ethnic groups. Ethnic groups could get advantages in places of employment because companies will want a diverse workplace. Globalisation has a positive impact on ethnicity in that ethnic groups benefit through the creation of multicultural states that look to have more diversity which increases migration from people.

In addition, globalisation has a positive impact on ethnicity in that it creates a homogenous identity (Ritzer & Dean 2019). Homogenous can be understood to be a uniform structure or composition throughout. Due to globalisation, more people have been bought in contact through virtual means such as television and social media, migration, and tourism (Hawkins). English has become a common language and is taught to everyone for everyone in order to communicate effectively. This has allowed everyone to be able to communicate with one another as the language will not be particularly for any race but instead will available to all people. Countries have allowed others to gain from taking features that they had. Globalisation has led to unity amongst all nations and was likened to a ‘melting pot’ where different ethnicities come together (Hawkins). This unity brings about an inclusion for people with ethnic identities. Ethnic people will have a belonging in society from globalisation which creates a sense of identity amongst the people. This shows that globalisation has a positive impact in ethnicity as it creates a unified world and ethnic people begin to feel included.

However, it can be argued that a homogenous identity may have negative impacts as through globalisation, traditional values and moral restraints are eroded (Ishiyama 2004). This is because the homogenous identity created will be through the diffusion of western values in nations (Castles 2000). This will have a negative impact on ethnic identities as they lose their cultural values and traditions due to the infusion of other values.

Furthermore, globalisation has negative impacts on ethnicity. One of the impacts is the deterioration in the labour market. Globalisation has led to the increase in the use of technology which has resulted in companies downsizing as there is not much need for humans (Aas 2007). An example would be post office workers. Due to the increase in technology, more people write emails instead of sending letters physically which has resulted in the reduction of the people needed to work in a post office. As a result, the rate of unemployment increases. These affect ethnic groups largely due to ethnic discrimination where ethnic groups are less likely to be called to interviews (Hawkins). Watson (2007) has stated that there has been a growth in poverty due to globalisation as ethnic groups are the first to be disadvantaged when it comes to job loss. This shows that globalisation has negative impacts on ethnicity as due to the advancement and rise in technology, many people become redundant and lose their jobs with ethnic groups being more vulnerable.

Moreover, globalisation has had a negative impact on ethnicity because it brings about a concept of ‘othering’. This is because Ritzer and Dean (2019) stated that globalisation is re-racialisation. Ethnicity has led to the increase in migration of people from one country to another. This has led to overpopulation of the people and as a result ethnic people are disadvantaged. In a video ‘go back where you came from’ by the SBS, Australians stated that it was not their responsibilities to look after refugees with the refugees stating how they are being treated like criminals. Globalisation has led to a ‘them’ and ‘us’ approach where ethnic groups are seen as them and often discriminated as a result. In 1996, the Queensland senator stated how she wanted multiculturalism abolished due to the fear that there would be more ethnic identities that would swamp Australia (Hawkins). This shows that globalisation has had a negative impact on ethnicity in that globalisation has resulted in ethnic groups being treated like others and negatively.

To conclude, globalisation has had both a positive and negative impact on ethnicity. The positive impacts were that it has created a homogenous identity and a more diverse culture. This will allow ethnic groups to stand with their identities. The negative impacts were that the homogenous identity leads to a loss of traditions and values, globalisation led to deterioration on labour markets and it created the concept of othering. These have all particularly affected ethnic groups as they become disadvantaged and are treated negatively. Finally, one can state that even though globalisation has had both positive and negative impacts on ethnicity, it has more negative impacts on ethnicity.

Introduction

Our world is more like a room stuffed with people in different ethnicities than a spheroidic. Using our greatest mighty homeland, People’s Republic of China, as an example. China has roughly nine million and six hundred thousand square kilometers of territory stuffed with one point four billion of population and there are different ethnicities like Han, Uyghur, Mongol and Tibetan etc. In the following section, let’s further talk about one established anthropologist and his or her contributions to the study of ethnicity.

Background of the Author

The author of “Ethnic Groups and Boundaries” was called Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth. Barth was a Norwegian social anthropologist. He was born on the twenty-second of December in 1928 in Leipzig. Barth grew up in an academic family and he was interested in origins and evolution when he was still young. He became a professor at Boston University at first and he held lots of professorships at different universities like University of Oslo, the University of Bergen, Emory University and Harvard University afterward. In the 1985, he was designated as a government scholar.

Background of the Book

Ethnic Groups and Boundaries was published at 1969s in Norway. Today this much-cited classic is regarded as the seminal volume from which stems much current anthropological thinking about ethnicity. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries introduces readers to important theoretical issues in the analysis of ethnic groups Including Norway, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mexico, Afghanistan, and Laos.

Contribution

Definition of Ethnic Group

A lot anthropologist pointed that the term of ethnic group has a few characteristic.

First of all,it is massively biological self-perpetuating which is the continuation of physical characteristics through heredity. For examples like the color of the eye, skin color or facial appearance, these are all identified by physical characteristics. Second, it shares fundamental cultural values, realized m overt unity in cultural forms. Chinese people and Chinese people in a foreign country are celebrate the lunar new year same times in different country. The diaspora retains its culture in the world. It is base on their same culture. They are the same ethnic group. Third ,ethnic group will makes up a field of communication and interaction.It is like a lot people think that Jews often discuss the use of money with their friends. Also, they have their own language to communicate with each other. Fourth, ethnic group has a membership which identifies itself, and is identified by others,as constituting a category distinguishable from other categories of the same order. Now this is the explanation of identity.

Anthropologists use these methods to define ethnic group.These methods type definition is not so far removed in content from the traditional. We still use these. It means that a race equals to a culture also equals to a language. When we knew about the race, culture and language either one thing about a man, we can easily know other two things and what ethnic group does he belong to. For Fredrik’s opinion, these is not clearly define that a formulation prevents us from understanding the phenomenon of ethnic groups and their place in human society and culture. We can not think these 4 methods is absolutely right. Racial difference, cultural difference, social separation,language barriers, spontaneous and organized enmity are affects our to understand the ethnic group of them. No objective fact can represent an ethnic group. It should use above information and history of the personal to defined his ethnic group.

So, Fredrik point out the term boundary. We can imagine each group developing for its cultural and social form in relative isolation. This history has produced a world of separate peoples, each with their culture and each organized in a society which can legitimately be isolated for description as an island to itself. The island is too small but it is isolation to develop its own culture, language etc. They can called been a ethnic group. Boundary is also can defined the ethnic group.

The Boundaries of Ethnic Group

So , the new term “Boundary” which invented by Barth , what is the core meaning of it?

Barth think that we couldn’t define a ethnic group by its culture ,society ,history ,race or language anymore,but using boundaries, . Boundaries doesn’t mean the region boundaries , it mean the social boundaries, We should define a group with exclusivity and attribution between groups. In the competition of ecological resources, a group often limits the ‘boundary’ of our group by emphasizing specific cultural characteristics, so as to distinguish it from the surrounding groups. Barth’s point of view reminds us that objective feature theory can only see the ‘characteristics’ of subjective recognition, but there is no way to explain the boundaries of ethnic groups, and there is no way to explain the experience of people on the boundary.

Barth believed that traditional anthropologists over-emphasize the importance of ‘cultural differences’ in distinguishing ‘ethnic differences.’ Because early anthropologists did not clarify the relationship between ethnic groups and culture, they often fell into the logic of defining ethnic groups with cultural traits, which led many anthropologists to actively seek different cultural traits to explain the differences between different ethnic groups and make ethnic groups The difference looks like a different cultural catalogue. It means that there is a group boundary between different ethnic groups. The ‘boundary’ of the ethnic group is like a ‘container’ that can accommodate different social cultures. People can flow at the boundary, but the boundary will still exist. The maintenance of ethnic boundaries often requires only a few cultural traits, without the need to retain most of the cultural traits. In short, Barth’s greatest contribution is to clarify the differences between ethnic groups and culture, to propose the analytical concept of ethnic “boundary”, and to point out that ethnic boundaries are generated in interactive social relations.

Therefore, Barth helps people define different ethnic group much clear by the terms “Boundaries”.

Polyethnic Social Systems

Polyethnic was formed by “poly” and “ethnic”. Polyethnic social systems was first seen and explained by Furnivall along with his study about plural society in the earlier. He said that there will be a massive dimensions of cultural diversity and nation internal divisions leaving in a society after a state with polyethnic social system dominated by one of the ethnic group among the others.

Here is an example for a typical polycentrism system.

Asia, it is a the largest continent on earth which also contained miscellaneous polycentric system in it. In the southeast area, we can actually see both analogous feudalism and prestige transaction domain welded all together. Contemporaneously, there are some regions in southwest asia are showing their economy with full monetization into it, meanwhile politically unificating is the polycentric in their characteristics. Besides those intact political form with modernity , we still see that there are some countries whose still running with ancestral fertile harmonization and political integration like the caste system in India.

In Asia, we can actually encounter distinct ritual etiquette and modernistic form of government in the same continent but not the same region, that is what we so-called polyethnic and polycentric system in Barth’s mind.

To simplify what Barth wanted to say is that we will not make any virtual profits from our so-called modernized system if we keep on using this modernized pattern continuously in this kind of epoch that putting utilitarianism in the first of our priority.

Pointing out the commonality among all these ethnic systems, they are all implying a series-wound of obstruction to play different roles in the same continent. All of them are in different position in transaction of the whole thing like the unlike ethnic identity stuffs are only chess pieces on the chessboard.

Paraphrasing it into a more comprehensive saying, which means ethnic identity is basically similar to sex and rank, all of them are some intangible and incorporeal hinders to restrict others in multilevel and different sides of activities. They are some vigorous constraints which can not be ignored and temporarily put aside. Therefore, the impacts and influences towards a person are tend to be absolutely powerful in the past.

Nowadays, we can see that there are more and more constraints has been push over and overthrow along with distinct continents has become more civilized and more into a modernized human society.

Interdependance of the Ethnic Group

In the world , there are lots of ethnic group. For each ethnic group , they are hard to survive base on an individual. That’s why ethnic group need to have a complementary with each other. In the other side , if there is no complementary , the boundaries of ethnic group will not exist because here does not have any interaction and communication between different ethnic. As a result , we know that complementary is important for maintaining the boundaries of ethnic group.

In Barth’s contribution , he also points out three reason of why maintain the boundaries is important. The first reason is complexity is based on complementary of culture differences. The second reason is the status of every member of a group must be highly stereotyped, so that each ethnic group can have complementary of their identity. The third reason is the cultural characteristic of each ethnic group must be stable, so that the complementary differences on which the systems rest can persist in the face of close inter-ethnic contact. I would use an example to explain the interdependence of ethnic group. The Norwegian is divided into two ethnic group , which is marginal farmer and lowland peasant. The two groups have different lifestyle , such as the marginal farmer is based on the exploitation of large areas and the lowland peasant tied to the farm and lives a stable and regular life. Because of the environmental difference , the two group will have interaction to complement their weakness .For instance , the marginal farmers buy up lowland calves in the spring for fattening , these are sold in the autumn and marginal farmers rent out mountain areas for the pasturing of sheep or horses because It improves the quality of the stock, since mountain pasturage is, especially for sheep, of considerably higher quality than lowland pasturage. Therefore , we can see that in the same area , there is a cultural difference and this cultural difference offer a chance to let two groups depend on each other , create a complementary.

For the identity of each ethnic group , the complementary is also based on different social status. People need to do different job to create complementary , no matter it is low ranking job or high ranking job. We know that we cannot survive in an individual , we need to depend on other people to form a group.

Conclusion

This book basically treats ethnic groups as a social organization, and Barth argues: an objective description of the ethnic group is not as good as observing the boundaries of the ethnic group want. In other words, he believes that when we study the ethnic group, if we over-emphasize the significant cultural characteristics of the ethnic group quality, it will become more like cultural analysis, not in the study of ethnic groups. Barth’s important contribution is: to study the study of ethnic identity from the cultural content to the boundary, and emphasize the line what is considered important is what deserves attention. The significance of this book is that the formation of ethnic consciousness does not lie in the shared cultural content of the ethnic group, but in the subjective group of people who distinguish between ‘my group’ and ‘he group’ boundary.

About ‘my group’ and ‘my group’, Barth defines the ethnic group from the exclusivity and attribution of the group. He believes that ‘ethnic group’ is a category identified by its own members, which causes the ethnic group to be the most ‘boundary’ rather than the ‘connotation’ of language, culture, blood, etc.; the boundaries of a group are not necessarily geographical boundaries, but Mainly ‘social boundaries.’ In the competition of ecological resources, a group limits the ‘boundary’ of our group by emphasizing specific cultural characteristics to exclude others. Bath’s view opened a new milestone in ethnic research. His views reveal the inadequacy of objective feature theory. Objective feature theory can only express the general connotation of a group at most, but cannot explain the problem of group boundaries. However, it is impossible to explore the issue of ethnic boundaries, and it is impossible to explore the issue of ethnic identity change.

After the attacks on 11 September 2001, airport scrutiny moved to the top of the American government’s priorities. Consequently, the heated debate on which methods would undeniably boost security became just as imperative and fittingly controversial. Whereas many insist racial and ethnic profiling is ineffective in American airports, profiling increases security by limiting terrorists to less effective strategies while maintaining constitutional rights.

Terrorist groups typically prefer recruits that are accessible such as those of their own race and belief; racial and ethnic profiling would counter these strategies by forcing terrorists to hire possibly problematic Western recruits and thereby lowering the odds of a disastrous attack. Profiling not only has the purpose of protecting the passengers but also of countering the obvious terrorist strategies. Profiling should be used because if the airports’ first best strategy is implemented, the terrorists are forced to ‘adopt their second-best strategy, which already lowers the odds of a catastrophic loss” (Epstein); the best strategy is for the terrorist groups to hire recruits that share their race and belief because they are the most likely to be faithful to the group’s cause. In a hypothetical situation, if a Muslim group from Iran wants to recruit someone to blow up a plane, a Muslim person would be the easiest to hire and trust to execute the job.

However, with profiling, the terrorists are pressured to hire a non-Muslim person or someone who won’t get profiled in the airport to hijack and explode an airplane, and this causes the group to bare various risks. ‘Finding a Westerner who believes in the culture of willing death for a higher cause is hard, meaning the terrorists run the risk of hiring someone’ (Epstein) who will turn over valuable evidence to the government, and now they are left with a complicated ordeal. To improve the situation, the United States can capitalize on those odds by dispatching government spies who could investigate terrorist groups allowing them to gain valuable access to nthe group’s information. As can be seen, using profiling in airport security is a simple yet effective strategy to hamper the terrorists’ attacks and to change their strategies. Preventing terrorism is of utmost importance to the American government; therefore, using racial and ethnic profiling is constitutional and justified. The Fourth Amendment states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” (“Fourth Amendment”). While it’s arguable that the “right of the people to be secure” could be considered violated by pat-downs and body scanners, these efforts could hardly be called “unreasonable”. The word ‘unreasonable’ implies that certain searches are constitutional, and in the case of preventing terrorism, ‘it is futile for anyone to insist that it is illegitimate for the government to block efforts to blow up planes’ (Epson). While it is understandable for travelers not to want to be searched arbitrarily, they also have to comprehend airport profiling is a constitutional and safe method.

Though the evidence shows that racial profiling is an effective tool for the United States to combat terrorism, there is still a question of its implementation. The employment of the Israeli system, the most successful and advanced in racial profiling in airport security, has been criticized by John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) by saying that ”It’s not as straightforward as in Israel where they have a lot of experience with how to separate’ suspects’ (Epstein). On the contrary, these claims are flawed; indeed, Israel is a much smaller country with only 50 daily flights (Epstein) and consolidating profiling is simpler, but it can still be integrated into the United States if started from the most dangerous locations and expanding from there. Ultimately, the implementation of the various aspects used in the Israeli profiling system is viable.

Pistole’s argument does not consider that not only can the Israeli system be partially applied, but also that the American airline security is in desperate need for improvement, especially in comparison to the Israeli’s. As said by the Federal Aviation Administration whistle-blower Bogdan Dzakovic, ‘We could breach security 80 percent to 90 percent of the time with the very little problem before September 11. Today, it’s no different’ (‘How Should the United States Respond to Terrorism?’). In other words, airline security has some troubling issues. A recent example of this failure is when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a twenty-three-old Nigerian man, brought hidden plastic explosives abroad via his underwear, which had gone undiscovered during the passenger security checks (‘Airport Security’). This case provides a clear illustration of the problem: even after the 9/11 attacks, security continues to be feeble. Like the Israelis, the security must be comprised of educated Americans who can screen possible terrorists. And to do so funding has to be put in salaries and education, similar to how the middle-eastern country educates its screeners (“Profiling would help”). With the ability to reduce the odds of catastrophe and to protect the fliers, racial and ethnic profiling has extensive potential in the United States. Fully securing an airport might ultimately be an impossible endeavor, and there are currently technological develops to help provide even more security than there ever was before. Until then, it is of the utmost importance for the United States to use what is available and what that means right now is racial and ethnic profiling.

Works Cited

1. ‘Airport Security.’ Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/PC3010999021/OVIC?u=graas&sid=OVIC&xid=5375f39d. Accessed 13 Feb. 2019.
2. Epstein, Richard A. “Profiling Should Be Used as a Security Strategy.” US Airport Security, edited by Margaret Haerens and Lynn M. Zott, Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010858219/OVIC?u=graas&sid=OVIC&xid=bb8ced47. Accessed 29 Jan. 2019. Originally published as “Better to Profile than to Pat Down,”, 13 Dec. 2010.
3. LII Staff. “Fourth Amendment.” LII / Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute, 10 Oct. 2017, www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment.
4. ‘Preface to ‘How Should the United States Respond to Terrorism?’.’ National Security, edited by Helen Cothran, Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010273104/OVIC?u=graas&sid=OVIC&xid=e335e2fd. Accessed 13 Feb. 2019.
5. “Profiling would help police our airports.” Washington Times [Washington, DC], 26 Nov. 2010, p. B02. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A242909870/OVIC?u=graas&sid=OVIC&xid=3f605ce7. Accessed 29 Jan. 2019.

Race

The term race is given by the society to the group of people who are different in biological characters (skin color, eye color) from other people. It is not connected to families and ancestors. however, it relates to the geographical regions more. When the sociologist did the study, it revealed that the differences in color of skin has fallen in misuse. In many parts of the world black color or brown color people are treated badly by the white people. Some of these physical variations are inherited and genetics. However, we cannot do anything with this. It is the thinking of that person who do racism that different appearance people are inferior to him. He believes that, it is his birth right to insult them. while, it is not at any cost. Every person has self-respect. It has been noticed that the names of social racism are changing with time. It is used to categorize a person by his physical appearance without his skills.

Ethnicity

Most of the sociologist believe that, the ethnicity is part of race. However, it is not like race. In addition to it its meaning changes with time. Ethnicity is the heritage culture of the group of people. It involves the language, traditions, religion and form of dress. It is learned from ancestors. It is a bit different from race. It can be defined as the group of people different in language, culture, customs. Ethnic groups are originated when two or more groups have different historical and social experience. (Crossman)

Nationality

Nationality can be defined as the illtreated behave by residential people of any nation to the people coming from the foreign. For instance, the residential people do not want foreign to come to come to their country. For example,

1497px-Sahajdhari_Sikh Figure 11.1. The Sikh turban or “Dastaar” is a required article in the observance of the Sikh faith. Baltej Singh Dhillon was the first Sikh member of the RCMP to wear a turban on active duty. This sparked a major controversy in 1990, but today people barely bat an eye when they see a police officer wearing a turban. Race and ethnicity are part of the human experience. How do the signs of racial and ethnic diversity play in a role in who we are and how we relate to one another? (Photo courtesy of Saynam Bahga).

From the above discussion, we come to know the whole society is divided into many parts(groups). Further, in these groups there are still some categories. One of the common examples of this is the minority group. It has been explained as the group of people who are being separated from their societies because of their cultural characterizes (Sociologist Louis Wirth (1945)).

In some cases, minority groups lose its own identity when they adopt the culture of any other category or group. The most common example of this is immigration of people from other countries to Canada. They adopt the culture, language, religious tradition of the country. This process is known as Assimilation.

Government advertisement in 1907 to encourage immigration and settlement of the western provinces.

One of the racial examples is the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. white police officer named Darren Wilson shot him six times. The sociologists believed the reason behind it was the convergence among prejudice, stereotype and discrimination.

Stereotype

The term stereotype can be defined as simple views about a group. Further, it depends on another person that whether he has positive stereotype or the negative stereotype. In maximum number of cases, it is overserved that these stereotypes are always opposite to each other.

The stereotype is more dangerous. It is often seen that the stereotype is the major reason of bulling incidents in schools. It makes a person nervous and scary to be open towards the public, most of them are known to be gays or lesbians.

Prejudice

The term prejudice can be defined as the views and ideas about a person without getting any specific information about that person. Or it may be defined as the thinking about a person by getting information from others. In one seminal work, prejudice is defined as phycological process of dividing people in different groups according to their emotional or natural behavior. (Psychologist Gordon Allport,)

Discrimination

From the behalf of sociologists, discrimination is defined as the actions against the people different in religion, culture, health and age. In the 19 centuries, the companies used to do discrimination with the employers. They used to hire people based on from which nation or category they belong. Earlier it was very common in US.

Multiple Identity

Before the twentieth century, one more issue came in front of the society. It was believed that, if an Indian women marriage to non-Indian person, she used to lose her status of Indian. Moreover, her children had to lose the identity also. However, in case, Indian man marries non-Indian women. He was able to retain his identity and his children could enjoy this status also. https://www.jobilize.com/sociology/test/multiple-identities-stereotypes-prejudice-and-by-openstax

Conclusion

We must reduce the racism based upon the Race, Nationality, and Ethnicity. While we attempt in the Community Tool Box to offer simple, well ordered guidelines for network work, changing a gathering of individuals’ partial demeanors and an organization’s bigot activities isn’t so just completed and it doesn’t occur incidentally. Lessening racial preference and bigotry is a mind-boggling task that fluctuates from network to network, so it doesn’t loan itself well to basic, 1-2-3 arrangements that can be embraced and connected without having an exhaustive comprehension of the unique circumstance and condition (Hampton and Lee). Something like this takes realizing your locale well and picking systems that best fit your locale’s needs, history, setting, energies, and assets.

Considering that, we offer an assortment of exercises and methodologies you can lead in battling racial bias and prejudice with the goal that you can choose which of these strategies may work best in your work environment, school, neighborhood, and network.