on final

civilization term was used by

samuel huntington

• published book clash of civilizations

• the term civilization is no longer used in the discipline of anthropology, use of term ethnicity is more common as we often talk of ethnic groups

• ethnic groups used to be described as races, but now we use term ethnic groups

an ethnic group is a named social group

based on perceptions of shared ancestry and common history that culturally distinguishes that group from other groups

→ think of settlers in north america that are culturally diverseeth

ethnicity: the people share a

nationality

• groups are not homogenous. ethnic groups are always very diverse - elders may have dif ideas about things than others - regarding morality, education, sex, dif voting habits (ie vietnamese in germany)

• each ethnic group identity has a strong psychological or emotional component

• socioeconomic factors are also crucial - jobs and class → american tongues provides interesting examples of this; accent is about both geographic location and class

• ethnic identity unifies and divides people

• ethnic identity is much more complicated than we think; ethnic groups are never homogenous

ones ethnic group identity is seldom

absolute → it is not absolute

• ie italian and polish americans

• one may assume and have different ethnic identities at the same time (canada and us/north america one person can have multiple ethnic identities → ie euro american vs african american; native american vs white american; italian american vs polish american → italian americans within the group is not homogenous it is not the same; did they come from the north or south - both have differences

ethnic identity is

always situational

there are no

simple ethnic divisions, but there are several hierarchically ranked categories within each ethnic group

main attributes of ethnic groups

sense of solidarity (smth in common with ppl youve never met), origin myth (refers to common or shared historical experiences - experiences tells us history is not objective, it is understood by peoples experiences → origin myths serve as the ideological charter of the common identity of the group, origin myth defines peoples sense of belonging), language

origin myth: myth does not mean that historical events did not happen. myth means that

this collective history is considered more significant than other histories (certain events are considered more important than others), which is why mythic themes are significant and myth becomes embedded in many aspects of the popular culture of a group

• we learn origin myth passively rather than consciously (which is where banal nationalism comes into play) term banal nationalism was coined bu michael billig

origin myth is taught

at school

• american, russian, japanese, turkish histories are not just the history of the nation state, they are also the history about the people (myth is about nation state and people)

• history is objective but selective

canada selective history

• 1497 - john cabbot

• 1867 - british north america act

• battle of vimy ridge 1917

• first nations entered canadian history only recently - theres a debate over residential schools

ethnic boundary markers are an important component of ethnic identity. they are not milestones/stone markers, they are factors

used to demonstrate or denote ethnic group membership

• ethnic boundary markers demonstrate identity to and distinctiveness to non members

• they are relational; they define the group

• green vs orange in ireland - national colours of ireland but in the past there were contested symbols

speech and language are symbols of personal and ethnic identity

• lang/dialect can be an ethnic boundary marker, but remember that a common language does not mean a common identity ie 2 ppl can speak same language with dif accents. accents give info of social class. ie same language but dif alphabets ie former yugoslavia → latin for croats and cyrillic for serbs

• religion is another ethnic boundary marker, especially in multicultural regions and old empires

the case of the city of l’viv (ukraine): l’viv was part of the austrian hungarian empire (contained of polant, ussr, ukraine)

it used to be a multicultural city as it was inhabited by poles (catholics) and jews and the surrounding countryside was inhabited by ukranians (orthodox/greek catholics)

• ethnic and religious diversity was erased by wars, population resettlements and ethnic cleansing

• used to be multicultural city, but now it is largely ukrainian not multicultural

physical characteristics sometimes indicate ethnic identity ie

nuer and dinka are very tall, so are many inhabitants of the greek island of crete, which distinguishes them

• keep in mind intermarriage resulting from massive movements of people (im/emmigration) has affected ethnic identity → it is not homogenous

• pressure from conservative governments to create homogenous identity

the list of ethnic boundary markers can be endless. there is a fluidy of ethnic groups and ethnic groups are not stable groupings as some

vanish while others come into being

• many ethnic groups vanished in the last 500 years because of colonialism → ie tasmania in southern australia: the last full blooded tasmanian died in the late 19th century

the emergence of a new ethnic group is called

ethnogenesis

• it happens when a portion of an ethnic group splits away and forms a new group and/or when members of 2+ ethnic groups fuse (marriage) and form a new group → ie american indians in the central states of the us (on pg 368), also the metis in canada

there are different types of ethnic groups. ethnic groups cover a wide range of social

groupings, which include: 1. nationality (which is DIFFERENT from citizenship), nationality = an ethnic group that claims exclusive rights to a discrete geographic region called the homeland. 2. sub nationality = a dependent and politically subordinate subset of a nationality that does not make any claims to homeland or sovereignty - no territory associations

• italian/polish/african/scottish americans are subnationalities as they do not have a sense of distinct geographic homeland/location within the us

• north americans are in a dif situation - same to first nations in canada and australia - they are nationalities as they have a strong sense of territory and recognized governments - but they have limited rights of self determination (

• ethnic identity comes to the fore incertain cercumstances: when certain lands are threatened (ie by natural resource extraction, which happens often in canada)

• civilization pg 369-70

stateless nationalities are difficult to understand in north america. ie ireland

ireland is the oldest british colony until the irish free state was declared in 1921 and established in 1922

• problem is northern ireland was colonized by scots, who did not identify as irish. their wishes were recognized both by irish and british states. ireland is divided into 3 parts