Ethnicity as socially constructed and self-ascribed

Overview

Hybrid or multiple ethnic identities and how ethnic boundaries can shift over time.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

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1. 1

   What does it mean to say ethnicity is socially constructed?

   Model answer

   It means that ethnic categories are produced by societies rather than found in nature. Which differences count as ethnic, where the boundaries fall and what the categories are called are all decided socially, by states through censuses and law, by institutions such as schools and churches, by political movements and by everyday interaction. The differences themselves may be real, but their organisation into named groups, and the significance attached to them, is a human product that can and does change.

2. 2

   What does self-ascription mean in the study of ethnicity, and why does it matter?

   Model answer

   Self-ascription means that a person's ethnicity is in large part the identity they claim for themselves rather than one measured from outside. It matters because it is the working basis of data collection: censuses and surveys ask people to tick the category they consider themselves to belong to. It also means the same person may be counted differently in different countries or at different times, and that a group's recorded size can change without any migration or births, simply because people answer differently.

3. 3

   If ethnicity is self-ascribed, why is ascription by others still important?

   Model answer

   Because how a person is treated depends on how others classify them, not only on how they see themselves. Someone may identify strongly with the majority society yet be assigned to a minority by their name, appearance, accent, address or school, and face discrimination on that basis. Ethnic identity therefore has two sides: the internal claim and the external label, and where the two conflict the external label can force the internal one, a process sometimes described as a reactive strengthening of the identity being imposed.

4. 4

   How do census categories shape the ethnic groups they are supposed to measure?

   Model answer

   The list of tick boxes tells people which identities are officially recognised and which are lumped together or absent. Groups campaign to be listed separately because a category confers visibility, statistical evidence of disadvantage and grounds for funding or protection. Categories also change between censuses, with new options such as mixed identities added, so apparent growth or decline in a group may be an artefact of the question rather than a real population change. The measuring instrument therefore helps to create its object.

5. 5

   Why is ethnic identity often described as situational?

   Model answer

   Because its salience varies with context. The same person may foreground a regional or occupational identity at work, a religious identity at a festival, a national identity abroad and a local identity at home, moving between them without contradiction. Which identity is emphasised depends on who else is present, what is at stake and what identities others are claiming. Ethnicity is therefore better understood as something people do in particular settings than as a fixed attribute they carry unchanged everywhere.

6. 6

   What are hybrid or multiple ethnic identities, and why are they becoming more common?

   Model answer

   They are identities that combine two or more ethnic affiliations, either through mixed parentage or through belonging simultaneously to a heritage culture and a wider national one, often expressed in hyphenated terms. They are becoming more common because of sustained international migration, rising rates of intermarriage, generations born and schooled in the destination country, and cheap communication keeping links with the country of origin alive. Censuses have responded by adding mixed categories and by allowing more than one box to be ticked.

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