Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of human beings
whose members identify with each other,
through a common heritage that is real or
presumed.[1][2]
Ethnic identity is further marked by the re-
cognition from others of a group’s distinctive-
ness[3] and the recognition of common cultur-
al, linguistic, religious, behavioral or biolo-
gical traits,[1][4] real or presumed, as indicat-
ors of contrast to other groups.[5]
Ethnicity is an important means through
which people can identify themselves. Ac-
cording to "Challenges of Measuring an Eth-
nic World: Science, politics, and reality", a
conference organized by Statistics Canada
and the United States Census Bureau (April
1-3, 1992), "Ethnicity is a fundamental factor
in human life: it is a phenomenon inherent in
human experience."[6] However, many social
scientists, like anthropologists Fredrik Barth
and Eric Wolf, do not consider ethnic identity
to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a
product of specific kinds of inter-group inter-
actions, rather than an essential quality in-
herent to human groups.[7] Processes that
result in the emergence of such identification
are called ethnogenesis. Members of an eth-
nic group, on the whole, claim cultural con-
tinuities over time. Historians and cultural
anthropologists have documented, however,
that often many of the values, practices, and
norms that imply continuity with the past are
of relatively recent invention.[8]
According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, un-
til recently the study of ethnicity was domin-
ated by two distinct debates. One is between
"primordialism" and "instrumentalism". In
the primordialist view, the participant per-
ceives ethnic ties collectively, as an extern-
ally given, even coercive, social bond.[9] The
instrumentalist approach, on the other hand,
treats ethnicity primarily as an ad-hoc ele-
ment of a political strategy, used as a re-
source for interest groups for achieving sec-
ondary goals such as, for instance, an in-
crease in wealth, power or status.[10][11] This
debate is still an