Theories of Nationalism & Ethnicity

1. Theories of Nationalism & Ethnicity

2. Theoretical Debates • What is an ethnic group and a nation? • Why do ethnic groups and nations exist? • When did ethnic groups and nations appear?

3. Why Did the Ethnic Group Arise? Instrumentalist Ethno-Symbolist Primordialist Key segment of group Elites, ruling class Romantic Intellectuals, Masses Entire Community or Social Organism Motives Behind Ethnic Groups Elite Wealth, Power, Status Meaning, Security, Belonging + instrumental motives Instinctive Kinship, Maximization of Group Fitness Source of Ethnogenesis Elites in competition with each other Intellectual-driven historicism and consciousness-raising, Warfare, culture contact Evolutionary struggle in prehistory Ethnic Groups Origin Modern period (post-1789) In History (after 6000 BC) Pre-History Process of Ethnogenesis Invention of the modern state or competing sub-state elites, who determine people's identities from above Created by intellectuals (religious or secular-romantic), but informed by traditional culture and mediated by popular sentiment Emerged organically as peoples met through migration and war Why Did the Ethnic Group Arise? Why Did the Ethnic Group Arise?

4. When Did the Ethnic Group Arise? Modernist Perennialist Primordialist Ethnic Groups Origin Modern period (post-1789) In History (after 6000 BC) Pre-History Pre-Modern Social Structure Cosmopolitan Elite strata, localized masses (i.e. no imagined &/or integrated communities of territory and genealogy) Great difference: some vertically-integrated ethnic groups, some more loosely integrated units, some un-integrated, Groups rise and fall Ethnic groups ever-present throughout history, in all times and places Process of Ethnogenesis Invention of the modern state or competing sub-state elites Created by intellectuals (religious or secular-romantic), but informed by traditional culture and mediated by popular sentiment Emerged organically as peoples met through migration and war Major Theorists Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, Anthony Giddens Anthony Smith, John Armstrong, Walker Connor, Adrian Hastings Pierre van den Berghe, Joshua Fishman, Stephen Grosby

5. Primordialism – Pierre Van den Berghe • Collective nepotism – or cooperation • Relatedness ‘read’ off cultural markers • Evolutionary successof ethnic cooperation

6. Ethno-Symbolism – Anthony Smith • Social facts, moving through history • 'Essentials' of culture and lifestyle DO shape self-understandings and constrain invention • Culture as a motivating force

7. Instrumentalism - Eric Hobsbawm • State and national political elites create ethnic groups to divide working class or otherwise advance their own claims for wealth, power, status. • Motives are not biological or cultural, but political and economic. • Nations were created after 1780

8. Modernism – Ernest Gellner • Nations created in modern period, post-1789 • Prior to 1789- local id, local genealogy, religious/imperial conception, no territorial self-conception

9. Modernism – Ernest Gellner • culture played a stratifying role for elites, no vertical integration • Kingdom, principality, empire means of keeping a small elite living off producers • elite literacy in international modes

10. Modernism – Anthony Giddens • Nation is a ‘Power-container’ created by the state • Nations were created in the modern period through state systems

11. Perennialism – Adrian Hastings • Nations have a much longer history than even Smith allows • England in the time of Bede was already a nation • Religion and vernacular languages helped create national identity

12. Perennialism – Anthony Smith • Nations Created on the Basis of Pre-Modern Ethnic Groups • Romantic Intellectuals, not the ‘Ruling Class’ were key

13. Perennialism vs. Modernism Modernists argue that: • There is a lack of record of popular sentiment • There is a record of discord within ethnies: China, North America, Italy, Georgia • We see the rise and fall of groups, the change of peoples' names over time in particular area • There is elite competition within groups

14. Perennialism vs. Modernism Perennialists argue that: • reference to others (natio, ethnos, gens) since antiquity • elite writings mention ethnie, nation, from classical, biblical times • language vernaculars spread early in Europe • regna, myths focused on common customs and myths of descent • military clashes could involve whole communities: zulu, mongol, norman, isrealites, swiss • regional variants of class strata cultures (orthodox, latin, muslim) existed

15. Genealogy or Politics? • Europe in the 9th Century • Europe in the 17th Century • Europe in the 20th Century