Ethnicity Without Groups"Despite a quarter-century of constructivist theorizing in the social sciences and humanities, ethnic groups continue to be conceived as entities and cast as actors. Journalists, policymakers, and researchers routinely frame accounts of ethnic, racial, and national conflict as the struggles of internally homogeneous, externally bounded ethnic groups, races, and nations. In doing so, they unwittingly adopt the language of participants in such struggles, and contribute to the reification of ethnic groups. In this timely and provocative volume, Rogers BrubakerÑwell known for his work on immigration, citizenship, and nationalismÑchallenges this pervasive and commonsense Ògroupism.Ó But he does not simply revert to standard constructivist tropes about the fluidity and multiplicity of identity. Once a bracing challenge to conventional wisdom, constructivism has grown complacent, even cliched. That ethnicity is constructed is commonplace; this volume provides new insights into how it is constructed. By shifting the analytical focus from identity to identifications, from groups as entities to group-making projects, from shared culture to categorization, from substance to process, Brubaker shows that ethnicity, race, and nation are not things in the world but perspectives on the world: ways of seeing, interpreting, and representing the social world." |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Chapter 1 Ethnicity without Groups | 7 |
Chapter 2 Beyond Identity | 28 |
Chapter 3 Ethnicity as Cognition | 64 |
Chapter 4 Ethnic and Nationalist Violence | 88 |
Chapter 5 The Return of Assimilation? | 116 |
Chapter 6 Civic and Ethnic Nationalism | 132 |
Chapter 7 Ethnicity Migration and Statehood in PostCold War Europe | 147 |
The Politics of Commemoration in Hungary Romania and Slovakia | 161 |
Notes | 205 |
239 | |
279 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
15 March accounts action American analysis analytical argued argument assimilation become bounded called celebrations central Chapter characterized citizenship civic claims cognitive collective commemorative common concept concern conflict consider constitutive constructed context course critical cultural developed discussions distinction domain eastern emphasized especially ethnic groups ethnic violence Europe European example existence experience forms framing groups historical Hungarian Hungary identification identity immigrant important individual interests interpreted involved Italy kind language leaders less liberal literature mean memory minority movements narrative nationalist nationhood nature normative official organizations participants particular past persons perspectives political population practices processes putative questions race racial recent reference region relations represented resonance rhetoric Romanian schemas seek self-understanding sense significant similar simply situations Slovak Slovakia social structure struggle suggest symbolic territorial theory tion tradition Transylvania treat turn understanding United universal Western