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The SAA Archaeological Record
• September 2004
ARTICLE
What is ethnicity? Ethnicity has been best defined with-
in cultural anthropology, but it has been a debated
topic and there is no single definition or theory of
how ethnic groups are formed. According to John Hutchinson
and Anthony Smith (1996:4–5), the term “ethnicity” is relatively
new, first appearing in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1953, but
its English origins are connected to the term “ethnic,” which has
been in use since the Middle Ages. The true origins of “ethnic”
have been traced back to Greece and the term ethnos, which was
used in reference to band, tribe, race, a people, or a swarm.
In more recent colonial and immigrant history, the term “eth-
nic” falls under the dichotomy of “Us” and “Them.” The “Us,”
the majority, are viewed as non-ethnics and the “Them,” new
immigrants or minorities, as ethnic. Variations of the term
have developed, including ethnic identity, ethnic origin, ethno-
centrism, and ethnicism (Hutchinson and Smith 1996:4–5).
Ethnic identity or origin refers to an individual’s ancestral her-
itage. Ethnocentrism is a belief that your cultural community
or ancestry is superior to all others, resulting in dislike or
hatred of any material, behavioral, or physical characteristics
different than your own. Ethnicism is defined as a “movement
of protest and resistance on behalf of [ethnics] against oppres-
sive and exploitative outsiders” (Hutchinson and Smith 1996:5).
Overall, an ethnic group or ethnicity has been defined in
numerous ways. Hutchinson and Smith’s (1996:6–7) definition
of an ethnic group, or ethnie, consists of six main features that
include:
1. a common proper name, to identify and express the
“essence” of the community;
2. a myth of common ancestry that includes the idea of com-
mon origin in time and place and that gives an ethnie a
sense of fictive kinship;
3. shared historical memories, or better, shared memories of a
common past or pasts, including heroes, events, and their
commemoration;
4. one or more elements of common culture, which need not be
specified but normally include religion, customs, and lan-
guage;
5. a link with a homeland, not necessarily its physical occupa-
tion by the ethnie, only its symbolic attachment to the
ancestral land, as with diaspora peoples; and
6. a sense of solidarity on the part of at least some sections of
the ethnie’s population
In a broader context, Gerald Berreman (1972, 1981) defines eth-
nicity as one level of social stratification or social inequality that
also includes race, class, kinship, age, estate, caste, and gender.
Berreman provides clear distinctions between ethnicity and
race or class. Ethnicity is linked in a dichotic relationship with
race. It is differentiated from race in that racial stratification is
associated with birth-ascribed status based on physical and cul-
tural characteristics defined by outside groups. Ethnicity is also
ascribed at birth, but the ethnic group normally defines its cul-
tural characteristics itself. Thus, racial categorizations, which
are defined by the outsider, are normally laced with inaccura-
cies and stereotypes, while ethnic classification is normally
more accurate of a cultural group because it is defined by the
group itself. Yet, ethnic classifications can also be defined and
used by outside groups to stereotype an ethnic community in
ways that are often oversimplified and that view ethnicity as a
static cultural process. Ethnicity is differentiated from class in
that “social class membership and ranking . . . is based on
attributes regarded as extrinsic to the people who comprise the
class. . . . such as amount of income, occupation, education,
consumption patterns, and ‘life-style’” (Berreman 1981:15).
Thus, an individual’s class is not predetermined at birth; an
individual’s accomplishments during his or her life can help an
individual to rise or fall in social status within the community.
Primordial and Instrumental Theories of Ethnicity
The work of Sian Jones (1997) contains one of the better sum-
maries of anthropological theories concerning ethnicity and its
application to archaeology. Overall, Jones (1997:xiii) outlines
three major terms related to “ethnic”: ethnicity, ethnic identity,
and ethnic group. Ethnicity is defined as “all those social and
psychological phenomena associated with a culturally con-
structed group identity.” Ethnic identity is defined as “that
aspect of a person’s self-conceptualization which results from
identification with a broader group in opposition to others on
the basis of perceived cultural differentiation and/or common
descent.” An ethnic group is classified as “any group of people
who set themselves apart and/or are set apart by others with
DEFINING ETHNICITY
Timothy Baumann
Timothy Baumann is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.
