Chapter 7: Ethnicity
Chapter Outline
Introduction. Ethnicity is identity with a group sharing the cultural traditions of a homeland. Geographers are interested in ethnicity because it represents an element of local diversity. Ethnic diversity is not as threatened by the forces of globalization as is the diversity of language or religion. Geographers are also interested in the social classification of people by race because of the past and present spatial sorting of people according to racial characteristics.
Case Study: Ethnic Diversity in America. The case study uses President Barack Obama as an illustration of complex ethnic identities in the United States.
Key Issue 1. Where Are Ethnicities Distributed?
Distribution of Ethnicities in the United States. The United States' most numerous ethnic groups display regional concentrations. These groups are Hispanics (15 percent, clustered in the Southwest), African Americans (13 percent, clustered in the Southeast), Asian Americans (1 percent, clustered in the West) and American Indian (1 percent, clustered in the Southwest and Plains). African Americans and Hispanics are clustered in urban areas (more likely to live in cities than rural areas). Cities exhibit ethnic clustering at the neighborhood level.
African American Migration Patterns. The distribution of the African American ethnicity in the United States is a product of three migrations: The forced migration of slaves from Africa, the 20th-century economic migration of African Americans to northern cities, and the ongoing intra-urban movement out of inner cities to other urban neighborhoods.
Differentiating Ethnicity and Race. Race and ethnicity are often confused. Race is genetically transmitted while ethnicity is culturally transmitted, so it is incorrect to predict cultural characteristics based on race. The U.S. Census asks people to classify themselves according to fourteen races, some based on skin color, others on national origin.
The United States has a long tradition of spatial segregation of races. As discriminatory laws and practices were outlawed, whites fled to suburbs, resulting in continued racial inequality.
In South Africa racial segregation and discrimination was practiced into the 1990s in the system of apartheid.
Key Issue 2. Why Have Ethnicities Been Transformed into Nationalities?
Nationality, the identification with a group sharing legal attachment and loyalty to a country, is similar to ethnicity but carries different meaning. Several ethnic groups may share one nationality. More problematically, a country may have ethnic groups with desires for self-rule (self-determination), leading to conflict.
The concept of a state composed entirely of one ethnicity is a nation-state. There are no true nation-states since no country has only one ethnicity within its borders. Denmark is an example but it is still not a "perfect" nation-state. Western Europe is generally organized into approximations of nation-states. The formation of loyalty to a particular state, nationalism, can be beneficial to a state's internal governance but can also lead to intolerance of differences.
Multinational States. These states contain two or more ethnic groups with traditions of self-determination. Examples include the United Kingdom, the former Soviet Union, and present-day Russia. There has been recent conflict over ethnic groups' desire for self-rule in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, all former Soviet republics.
Revival of Ethnic Identity. Many ethnic identities which had been subsumed by Communist governments are now expressing pride in their distinct identities.
Key Issue 3. Why do Ethnicities Clash?
Ethnic Competition to Dominate Nationality. Ethnic competition for control of a state can result in total war, as in the case of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Eritrea rebelled from Ethiopia and eventually became independent. Sudan has experienced several civil wars in different areas. Somalia is still experiencing strife between competing clans. Lebanon has distinct ethnicities organized on the basis of religion.
Dividing Ethnicities Among More than One State. When an ethnic group's distribution spans a national boundary, conflict can result as the ethnic group on one side may wish to reunify with the group on the other side. A prime example is the conflict between India and Pakistan over the states of Jammu and Kashmir. Another example of ethnic conflict in South Asia is that between the Sinhalese and Tamil in Sri Lanka.
Global Forces, Local Impacts: Dividing the Kurds. The Kurds are an ethnic group whose homeland straddles the border between Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Many Kurds would like an independent homeland but the countries in which they are a minority are unwilling to let go of that territory.
Key Issue 4. What is Ethnic Cleansing?
Ethnic cleansing is a more powerful group's removal of all members of an ethnic group from an area to create more territory for the powerful group. Ethnic cleansing may take the form of large-scale forced migration or genocide, where members of the ethnic group are targeted for extermination.
Ethnic Cleansing in Europe. Ethnic cleansing in Europe was infamous in World War II Europe as people were forced to move from changing boundaries as well as the Nazi genocide of Jews and other ethnicities. Former Yugoslavia is a more recent example of ethnic cleansing. After the collapse of the Communist government of Yugoslavia, ethnic Serbs and Croats practiced ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the hopes of unifying their regions with Serbia and Croatia. Serbs also practiced ethnic cleansing in the province of Kosovo, where the Albanian majority population was forced to migrate to Albania. Kosovo became an independent state in 2008.
Ethnic Cleansing in Central Africa. Colonial boundaries being drawn in a way that grouped historic enemies together or split others apart has resulted in opportunities for ethnic conflict. Rwanda's major groups of Hutus and Tutsis have practiced genocide against one another and taken part in conflicts in neighboring countries.