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 recognition from
others of a group’s distinctiveness[3] and the recognition
of common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioral or
biological traits,[1][4] real or presumed, as indicators of
contrast to other groups.[5]
Ethnicity is an important means through which people
can identify themselves. According to "Challenges of
Measuring an Ethnic World: Science, politics, and real-
ity", 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 interactions, rather than an essential quality
inherent to human groups.[7] Processes that result in the
emergence of such identification are called ethnogenesis.
Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural
continuities over time. Historians and cultural anthropolo-
gists 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, until recently
the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct de-
bates. One is between "primordialism" and "instrumental-
ism". In the primordialist view, the participant perceives
ethnic ties collectively, as an externally given, even coer-
cive, social bond.[9] The instrumentalist approach, on the
other hand, treats ethnicity primarily as an ad-hoc element
of a political strategy, used as a resource for interest
groups for achieving secondary goals such as, for in-
stance, an increase in wealth, power or status.[10][11] This
debate is still an important point of referen