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 Brubaker--well known for his work on immigration, citizenship, and nationalism--challenges this pervasive and commonsense "groupism." 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.

Suzanne Oboler is a well-respected Latino studies professor at Brown University. In this book, she interviews immigrants from Latin America and asks if... they identify as Latino and see themselves as having anything in common with other Latinos, those outside of their national origin group. Basically, she asks Latin Americans in the US themselves whether they accept this country's racial categorizations. What she finds is that working-class Latinos merely look at others as fellow Spanish-speakers and shrug US racial classifications off (though not in a hostile way) whereas Latin Americans from middle-class backgrounds were quite aware that the minority label opened access to affirmative action programs and other tangible benefits and thus embraced the label. This conclusion seems counterintuitive and is fascinating. Oboler grounds her discussion by talking of Puerto Rican and Chicano activism in this country. Even though she is of Peruvian descent, she is knowledgeable about the more populous Latino groups. This text is well-respected among ethnic studies scholars. Anyone interested in books on Latinos and Latinas in the US must obtain a copy of Oboler's work.

How can the concepts of culture and context be incorporated into acounts of development and research on development? This volume of New Directions for... Child Development introduces approaches based on the notion of cultural practices; these are viewed as meaningful actions that occur routinely in everyday life, are widely shard by members of the group, and carry normative expectations about the way things should be done. To illustrate use of the concept, four of the chapters describe specific research studies, drawn from anthropology, psychology, and sociology. these are framed by a general introduction to the conept of cultural practices and a commentary on its connection to toher concepts, such as activity and activity systems. This is the 67th issue of the journal series New Directions for Child Development.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the United States moved from the periphery to the center of global cultural production. At the same time,... technologies of dissemination evolved rapidly, and versions of modernism emerged as dominant art forms. How did African American, European immigrant, and other minority writers take part in these developments that also transformed the United States, giving it an increasingly multicultural self-awareness? This book attempts to address this question in a series of innovative and engaging close readings of major texts by Gertrude Stein, Mary Antin, Jean Toomer, O. E. Rölvaag, Nathan Asch, Henry Roth, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Pietro di Donato, Jerre Mangione, John Hersey, and Leo Szilard, as well as briefer examinations of many other authors and works, against the background of international political developments, the rise of modernism in the visual arts, and the ascendancy of Ernest Hemingway as a model for prose writers. In many of Werner Sollors’s sensitive readings, single sentences and paragraphs serve as the representative formal units of prose works, while throughout Ethnic Modernism the trolley (now a cute-seeming object of nostalgia) emerges with surprising frequency as a central thematic emblem of modernity.

Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires is a wide-ranging comparative study of the origins of today's ethnic politics in East Central Europe, the... former Russian empire and the Middle East. Centred on the First World War Era, Ethnic Nationalism highlights the roles of historical contingency and the ordeal of total war in shaping the states and institutions that supplanted the great multinational empires after 1918. It explores how the fixing of new political boundaries and the complex interplay of nationalist elites and popular forces set in motion bitter ethnic conflicts and political disputes, many of which are still with us today. Topics discussed include: * the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire* the ethnic dimension of the Russian Revolution and Soviet state building* Nationality issues in the late Ottoman empire* the origins of Arab nationalism* ethnic politics in zones of military occupation* the construction of Czechoslovak and Yugoslav identities Ethnic Nationalism is an invaluable survey of the origins of twentieth-century ethnic politics. It is essential reading for those interested in the politics of ethnicity and nationalism in modern European and Middle Eastern history.

This book explains the roots, politics, and legacy of Korean ethnic nationalism, which is based on the sense of a shared bloodline and ancestry. Belief... in a racially distinct and ethnically homogeneous nation is widely shared on both sides of the Korean peninsula, although some scholars believe it is a myth with little historical basis. Finding both positions problematic and treating identity formation as a social and historical construct that has crucial behavioral consequences, this book examines how such a blood-based notion has become a dominant source of Korean identity, overriding other forms of identity in the modern era. It also looks at how the politics of national identity have played out in various contexts in Korea: semicolonialism, civil war, authoritarian politics, democratization, territorial division, and globalization.

In this perceptive and revealing study, Mary Waters explores the "reinvention" of ethnicity in the lives of the grandchildren and great grandchildren of... European immigrants, asking how their ethnic heritage is lived, maintained, and celebrated. Through in-depth interviews with sixty third and fourth generation white ethnics in suburban California and Pennsylvania, the author discovers a surprisingly resilient sense of ethnicity among people who could reasonably label themselves simply "American."Mary Waters' research brings to light a fascinating history of American immigration, revealing aspects of a shared culture and ideology and the unique ways in which ethnic identities fulfill very American needs. Describing the "symbolic ethnicity" of later generation white ethnics as a quintessential American phenomenon, she argues that ethnicity has retained its importance in our lives precisely because it allows people to reconcile the contradictory American values of choice, individuality, and community.In addition to her exploration of the symbolic ethnicity of later generation middle-class whites, Mary Waters addresses its cost to society, contrasting it with the optionless ethnicity of non-white Americans. Her conclusions in Ethnic Options constitute an invaluable contribution to our understanding of contemporary American life.

In this timely book Milton J. Esman surveys a recurrent and seemingly intractable factor in the politics of nations: ethnicity. As the author notes,... virtually no contemporary nation-state is ethnically homogeneous. Most address the political effects of domestic ethnic difference, and many fail in the attempt-with devastatingly violent results.Esman focuses on ethnic mobilization and the management of conflict, on the ways ethnic groups prepare for political combat, and on measures that can moderate or control ethnic disputes, whether peaceful or violent.Opening with a broad synopsis of current understandings of ethnicity and its varying political salience, he illustrates his theories by analyzing experiences in South Africa, Israel-Palestine, Canada-Quebec, and Malaysia. He also outlines the political issues and dilemmas, transnational as well as domestic, caused by the vast labor migrations of Mexicans to the United States, North Africans to France, Turks to Germany, and Koreans to Japan.Can economic growth and prosperity ease ethnic conflicts? Esman addresses this question and draws conclusions based on the empirical chapters. In his view, ethnic pluralism and ethnic politics are not collective psychoses or aberrations, to be deplored and exorcised, but rather pervasive realities that observers can confront and politicians can manage.

In "Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism", June Alexander presents a history of inter-war America from the perspective of new Slovak and Eastern European... immigrant communities. Like the groups that preceded them, Slovak immigrants came to define being American as adhering to its political principles; they saw no contradiction between being patriotic Americans and maintaining pride in their ancestry. To counter the negative effects of the 1924 immigration law, Slovaks mobilized a variety of political and cultural activities to insure group survival and promote ethnic pride. In numerous localities 'Slovak days' brought first and second generation immigrants together to celebrate their dual identity. June Granatir Alexander's study adds complexity and nuance to entrenched notions of conflicts between tradition-bound immigrants and their American-born children. Showing that ethnicity mattered to both generations, Alexander challenges generalizations derived from 'whiteness' studies. June Granatir Alexander is on the faculty of the Russian and East European Studies Program at the University of Cincinnati. She is also the author of "The Immigrant Church and Community: Pittsburgh's Slovak Catholics and Lutherans, 1880-1915".

Study of ethnic groups and race relations have always existed in the academy, primarily in the areas of sociology and anthropology. However, grassroots... movements for ethnic studies programs and departments came about with very different agendas for the study of these groups. It is surprising, then, that relatively few books devoted to these methods exist to document and promote this innovation among succeeding generations of graduate students, as well as current academics and professional practitioners. Ethnic Studies Research synthesizes and benchmarks ethnic studies methodologies as interdisciplinary modes of inquiry, providing state-of-the-art summary chapters on key methods and issues, extensive bibliographies, and promising new directions for the future.

This volume is directed towards professionals who work in the fields concerning death and dying. These professionals must perceive the needs of people... with cultural patterns which are different from the "standard and dominant" patterns in the United States and Canada. Accordingly, the book includes illustrative episodes and in-depth presentations of selected "ethnic patterns". Each of the "ethnic chapters" is written by an author who shares the cultural traditions the chapter describes. Other chapters examine multicultural issues and provide the means for personal reflection on death and dying. There are also two bibliographic sections, one general and one geared towards children. The text is divided into three sections - Cross-Cultural and Personal perspectives, Dying, Death, and Grief Among Selected Ethnic Communities, and Reflections and Conclusions. The book is aimed at those in the fields of clinical psychology, grief therapy, sociology, nursing, social and health care work.

This book introduces the study of ethnic women and contributes to our understanding of the relationships among gender, race/ethnicity, and social class.... The social scientific study of gender has grown exponentially for more than two decades. Until recently, however, little attention has been paid to the diversity among women.The social scientific literature on ethnicity has experienced a revival in the same decades, yet women have frequently been overlooked or misrepresented in that literature. When ethnic women do appear they are typically depicted as selfless wives and mothers or passive victims.Theses twenty original essays challenge myths and stereotypes. The authors--social scientists, social service professionals, and other scholars--explore a broad range of racial/ethnic and social class circumstances. Communities represented include the Hmong in Wisconsin, Cuban Jews in Florida, and Samoans in Hawaii. Patters of immigration and social mobility, communal institutions, and maintenance of ethnic traditions are among the topics which reflect the multiple status reality of ethnic women.

Ethnoarchaeology in Action is the first and only comprehensive study of ethnoarchaeology, the ethnographic study of living cultures from archaeological... perspectives, and is designed for senior undergraduates and above in archaeology and anthropology. Its geographical coverage is global and the book includes relevant theory, practical advice regarding fieldwork, and complete topical coverage of the discipline. Critical discussions of varied case studies make this a very readable book. It is illustrated with numerous figures and photographs of many leading ethnoarchaeologists in action.