Ethnogenesis (from Ancient Greek ἔθνος (éthnos) 'group of people,nation' and γένεσις (génesis) 'beginning, coming into being';pl. ethnogeneses) is the formation and development of anethnic group.[1][2] This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification.
The termethnogenesis was originally a mid-19th-centuryneologism[3][original research?] that was later introduced into 20th-century academicanthropology. In that context, it refers to the observable phenomenon of the emergence of new social groups that are identified as having a cohesive identity, i.e., an "ethnic group" in anthropological terms. Relevant social sciences not only observe this phenomenon but also search for explanations for its causes. The termethnogeny is also used as a variant ofethnogenesis.[4]
Ethnogenesis can occur passively or actively.
A passive ethnogenesis is an unintended outcome, which involves the spontaneous emergence of various markers of group identity through processes such as the group's interaction with unique elements of their physical environment, cultural divisions (such as dialect and religious denomination), migrations and other processes. Afounding myth of some kind may emerge as part of this process.
Active ethnogenesis is the deliberate, direct planning and engineering of a separate identity. However, it is clear that active ethnogenesis may augment passive ethnogenesis. Active ethnogenesis is usually inspired by emergent political issues, such as a perceived, long-term, structural economic imbalance between regions or a perceived discrimination against elements of local culture (e.g., as a result of the promotion of a single dialect as a standard language at the national level). With regard to the latter, since the late-18th century, such attempts have often been related to the promotion (or demotion) of a particulardialect; nascent nationalists, as well as proponents and opponents of a process ofnation-building,[5]have often attempted to establish a particular dialect (or group of dialects) as a separate language, encompassing a "national literature", out of which a founding myth may be extracted and promoted.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, societies challenged by the obsolescence of thosenarratives that previously afforded them coherence have fallen back on ethnic or racial narratives to maintain or reaffirm their collective identity orpolis.[6]
Language has been a critical asset for authenticating ethnic identities. The process of reviving an antique ethnic identity often poses an immediate language challenge, as obsolescent languages lack expressions for contemporary experiences.
In the 1990s, proponents of ethnic revivals in Europe included those from theCeltic fringes inWales and nationalists in theBasque Country. Activists' attempts since the 1970s to revive theOccitan language inSouthern France are a similar example.
Similarly, in the 19th century, theFennoman movement in theGrand Duchy of Finland aimed to raise theFinnish language from peasant status to an official national language, which had been solelySwedish for some time. The Fennomans also founded theFinnish Party to pursue their nationalist aims. The publication in 1835 of the Finnishnational epic,Kalevala, was a founding stone of Finnish nationalism and ethnogenesis. Finnish was recognized as theofficial language of Finland only in 1892. Fennomans were opposed by theSvecomans, headed byAxel Olof Freudenthal (1836–1911). He supported continuing the use of Swedish as the official language; it had been a minority language used by the educated elite in government and administration. In line with contemporaryscientific racism theories, Freudenthal believed that Finland had tworaces, one speaking Swedish and the other Finnish. The Svecomans claimed that the Swedish Germanic race was superior to the majority Finnish people.
In the late 19th and early 20th century,Hebrew underwent a revival from aliturgical language to avernacular language with native speakers. This process began first withEliezer Ben-Yehuda and the creation of theBen-Yehuda Dictionary[7] and later facilitated by Jewish immigration to Ottoman Palestine during the waves of migration known as theFirst- andSecond Aliyot.Modern Hebrew was made one of three official languages inMandatory Palestine, and later one of two official languages inIsrael (Arabic being the other).[8] In addition to the modernization of the language, many Jewish immigrants changed their names to ones that originate from Hebrew or align withHebrew phonology, a process known asHebraization[9] This indicates that Hebrew revival was both an ethnogenic and linguistic phenomenon.
InIreland, the revival of theIrish language and the creation of Irish national literature was part of the reclamation of anIrish identity beginning at the end of the 19th century.
Since its independence from the Netherlands in 1830, language has been an important but divisive political force inBelgium between the Dutch and GermanicFlemings and Franco-CelticWalloons.[10]Switzerland has four national languages—German, French, Italian, andRomansh—each concentrated in four regions of the country. TheAlemannic German-speaking (die Deutschschweizer) region is in the north and east, theFrench-speaking (Romandie) region in the west, theItalian/Lombard (la Svizzera italiana) region in the south, and the small Romansh-speaking population in the south-eastern corner of the country in the Canton of Graubüen.[11][12]
Anthony D. Smith notes that, in general, there is a lack of evidence that hampers the assessment of the existence of nations or nationalisms in antiquity. The two cases where more evidence exists are those of ancient Greece and Israel. In Ancient Greece, cultural rather than political unity is observed. Yet, there were ethnic divisions within the wider Hellenic ethnic community, mainly between Ionians, Aeolians, Boeotians, and Dorians. These groups were further divided into city-states. Smith postulates that there is no more than a semblance of nationalism in ancient Greece.[13]Jonathan M. Hall's workEthnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (1997) was acclaimed as the first full-length modern study on Ancient Greek ethnicity. According to Hall, Ancient Greek ethnic identity was much based on kinship, descent and genealogy, which was reflected in elaborate genealogy myths. In his view, genealogy is the most fundamental way any population defines itself as an ethnic group. There was a change in the way Greeks constructed their ethnic identity in the Persian Wars period (first half of 5th century BC). Before that (archaic period), Greeks tended to connect themselves through genealogical assimilation. After the Persian invasion, they began defining themselves against the enemy they perceived as the barbarian “other”. An indication of this disposition is the Athenians' speech to their allies in 480 BC, mentioning that all Hellenes are bound with thehomaimon ("same blood"),homoglosson ("same language"), and common religious practices. Hall believes that Hellenic identity was envisaged in the 6th century BC as being ethnic in character. Cultural forms of identification emerged in the 5th century, and there is evidence that by the 4th century, this identity was conceived more in cultural terms.[14]
In the 2015 Community Survey of theUnited States Census, 7.2% of the population identified as havingAmerican ancestry, mainly people whose ancestors migrated from Europe after the 1400s to the southeastern United States. Larger percentages from similarly long-established families identified asGerman Americans,English Americans, orIrish Americans, leaving the distinction between "American" and specific European ethnicity largely as a matter of personal preference.
The ethnogenesis of African Americans begins with slavery, specifically in the US. Between 1492 and 1880, 2 to 5.5 million Native Americans were enslaved in the Americas in addition to 12.5 million African slaves.[15] The concept of race began to emerge during the mid-17th century as a justification for the enslavement of Africans in colonial America. Later, scientists developed theories to uphold the system of forced labor.[16]
Native Americans of darker skin tones were included in this construct with the arrival of African slaves. Some Native Americans of lighter complexions, however, owned slaves, participating in race-based slavery alongside Europeans.[17] American society evolved into a two-caste system, with two broad classes: white and non-white, citizen and non-citizen (or semi-citizen). Non-white, non/semi-citizens were regarded as "Black" or "Negro" as a general term, regardless of their known ethnic/cultural background.[18]
The lives and identities of African Americans have been shaped by systems of race and slavery, resulting in a unique culture and experience.[19] Cultural aspects like music,[20] food,[21] literature,[22] inventions,[23] dances,[24] and other concepts[25] prominently stem from the combined experience of enslaved African American people and free African Americans who were still subject to racist laws in the United States.
Ethnicity is not solely based on race. However, due to the race-based history, system, and lifestyle of American society, African Americans tend to prefer to identify racially, rather than ethnically.[26] This racialized identity has created the common misconception that African Americans are virtually a mono-racial African-descendant ethnic group in the United States. Still, the genetic architecture of African Americans is distinct from that of non-American Africans.[27] This is consistent with the history of Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans intermixing during the transatlantic slave trade and race being a social construct created in the United States.[28][29] Black American ethnicity stems from the unique ethnogenesis of their ancestors. This distinct cultural heritage, forged through generations of shared experience in the United States, differs from that of Black immigrants and their descendants, who, despite being racialized as Black in America, retain their own distinct cultural and ethnic identities.[30][31] Though both might be racially categorized as "Black," an African immigrant and a Black American have distinct ethnic identities. The immigrant's roots are in their specific African nation, while Black Americans' ethnicity stems from the unique US experiences of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, shaping a distinct culture with its own music, food, and traditions.[32][33][34] This blurring of identities has led to misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Black Americans by those who, while also Black, do not share their specific ethnic background (Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, etc.)[35][36]
Despite typically carrying segments of DNA shaped by contributions from peoples of Indigenous America, Europe, Africa, and the Americas,[37] the genetics of African Americans can span across more than several continents.[38] Within the African American population, there are no mono-ethnic backgrounds from outside of the U.S., and mono-racial backgrounds are in the minority. Through forced enslavement and admixing, the African American ethnicity, race, lineage, culture, and identity are indigenous to the United States of America. African American ethnicity, race, lineage, culture and identity are not indigenous to America. The transatlantic and Intra-American slave trade both invalidate that statement.[39][citation needed]
Herwig Wolfram offers "a radically new explanation of the circumstances under which theGoths were settled inGaul,Spain andItaly".[40] Since "they dissolved at their downfall into a myth accessible to everyone" at the head of a long history of attempts to lay claim to a "Gothic" tradition, the ethnogenesis by which disparate bands came to self-identify as "Goths" is of wide interest and application. The problem is in extracting ahistorical ethnography from sources that are resolutely Latin and Roman-oriented.
Clayton Anderson observed that with the arrival of the Spanish in southwestern North America, theNative Americans of theJumano cultural sphere underwent social changes partly as a reaction, which spurred their ethnogenesis.[41] Ethnogenesis in theTexas Plains and along the coast occurred in two forms. One way involved a disadvantaged group being assimilated into a more dominant group that they identified with, while the other way involved the modification and reinvention of cultural institutions. Nancy Hickerson argued that the disintegration of 17th-century Jumano, caused in part by the widespread deaths from introduced diseases, was followed by their reintegration asKiowa.[42] External stresses that produced ethnogenetic shifts preceded the arrival of the Spanish and their horse culture. Drought cycles had previously forced non-kin groups to either band together or disband and mobilize. Intertribal hostilities forced weaker groups to align with stronger ones.
From 1539 to 1543, a Spanish expedition led byHernando de Soto departedCuba forFlorida and theAmerican Southeast. Although asked to practice restraint, Soto led 600 men on a violent rampage through present-day Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and East Texas. Frustrated with not finding gold or silver in the areas suspected to contain such valuable materials, they destroyed villages and decimated native populations. Despite his death in 1542, Soto's men continued their expedition until 1543 when about half of their original force reached Mexico. Their actions introduced European diseases that further weakened native populations. The population collapse forced natives to relocate from their cities into the countryside, where smaller villages and new political structures developed, replacing the older chiefdom models of tribal governance. By 1700, the major tribal settlements Soto and his men had encountered were no more. Smaller tribes began to form loose confederations of smaller, more autonomous villages. From that blending of many tribes, ethnogenesis led to the emergence of new ethnic groups and identities for the consolidated natives who had managed to survive the incursion of European people, animals, and diseases. After 1700, most North American Indian "tribes" were relatively new composite groups formed by these remnant peoples who were trying to cope with epidemic illnesses brought by and clashes with the Europeans who were exploring the area.[43]
European encroachment caused significant demographic shifts in the size and geographic distribution of the indigenous communities, leading to a rise in mortality rates due to conflict and disease. Some Aboriginal groups were destroyed, while new groups emerged from the cultural interface of pre-existing groups. One example of this ethnogenesis is theMétis people.[44]
During the Middle Ages inItaly, theItalo-Dalmatian languages differentiated from Latin, leading to the distinction of Italians from neighboring ethnic groups within the former Roman Empire. Over time, ethnological and linguistic differences between regional groups also developed, from theLombardians of the North to theSicilians of the South. Mountainous terrain allowed the development of relatively isolated communities and numerous dialects and languages beforeItalian unification in the 19th century.
In classical antiquity, Jewish, Greek, and Roman authors frequently referred to theJewish people as anethnos, one of the numerousethne that lived in theGreco-Roman world. Van Maaren demonstrates why ancient Jews may be regarded as an ethnic group in current terms by using the six characteristics that co-ethnics share as established by Hutchinson and Smith:[45]
The separateMoldovan ethnic identification was promoted under Soviet rule when the Soviet Union established an autonomousMoldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924. This republic was situated between theDniester andSouthern Bug rivers (Transnistria), distinct from theUkrainian SSR. Scholar Charles King concluded[46] that this action was partly support for Soviet propaganda and help for a potential communist revolution in Romania. Initially, people of Moldovan ethnicity supported territorial claims to the regions ofBessarabia andNorthern Bukovina, which were part of Romania at the time. The claims were based on the fact that the territory of eastern Bessarabia with Chisinau had belonged to the Russian Empire between 1812 and 1918. After having been part of the Romanian Principality of Moldova for 500 years, Russia was awarded the East of Moldova as compensation for its losses during the Napoleonic Wars. This marked the beginning of the 100 years of Russian history in East Moldova. After theSoviet occupation of the two territories in 1940, potential reunification claims were offset by theMoldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. When the Moldavian ASSR was established, Chișinău was named its capital, a role it continued to play even after the formation of theMoldavian SSR in 1940.
The recognition ofMoldovans as a separate ethnicity, distinct fromRomanians, remains today a controversial subject. On one hand, the Moldovan Parliament adopted "The Concept on National Policy of the Republic of Moldova" in 2003. This document states that Moldovans and Romanians are two distinct peoples and speak two different languages. It also acknowledges that Romanians form an ethnic minority in Moldova, and it asserts that the Republic of Moldova is the legitimate successor to the Principality of Moldavia. On the other hand, Moldovans are only recognized as a distinct ethnic group by former Soviet states.
Moreover, in Romania, people from Wallachia and Transylvania call the Romanians inhabiting western Moldavia, now part of Romania, as Moldovans. People in Romanian Moldova call themselves Moldovans, as subethnic denomination, and Romanians, as ethnic denomination (like Kentish and English for English people living in Kent). Romanians from Romania call the Romanians of the Republic of Moldova Bessarabians, as identification inside the subethnic group, Moldovans as subethnic group and Romanians as ethnic group. The subethnic groups referred to here are historically connected to independent Principalities. The Principality of Moldavia/Moldova founded in 1349 had various extensions between 1349 and 1859 and comprised Bucovina and Bessarabia as regional subdivisions. That way, Romanians of southern Bukovina (today part of Romania and formerly part of the historical Moldova) are called Bukovinians, Moldovans and Romanians.
In the2004 Moldovan Census, of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16.5% (558,508) chose Romanian as their mother tongue, and 60% chose Moldovan. While 40% of allurban Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their mother tongue, in the countryside, barely one out of seven Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their mother tongue.[47]
Prior to thedissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the term "Palestinian" referred to any resident of the region ofPalestine, regardless of their ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or religious affiliation. Similarly, during theLeague of NationsMandate of Palestine, the term referred to a citizen as defined in the1925 Citizenship Order. Starting in the late 19th century, Arabic-speaking people of Palestine began referring to themselves as "Arab" or by the endonym "Palestinian Arab" when referencing their specific subgroup.
Following the foundation of the State ofIsrael, theJews of the former Mandatory Palestine and the Arabs who received Israeli citizenship developed a distinct national identity. Consequently, the meaning of the word shifted to a demonym referring to the Arabs who did not receive citizenship in Israel,Jordan (West Bank residents), orEgypt (Gaza residents).[48]
InSingapore, most of its country's policies have been focused on the cohesion of its citizens into a unitedSingaporean national identity. Singapore's cultural norms, psyche, and traditions have led to the classification of "Singaporean" as a uniqueethnocultural and socio-ethnic group that is distinct from its neighboring countries.[49]
In 2013, Singapore's Prime MinisterLee Hsien Loong stated that "apart from numbers, that a strong Singapore core is also about the spirit of Singapore, who we are, what ideals we believe in and what ties bind us together as one people."[49] According to a 2017 survey by theInstitute of Policy Studies, 49% of Singaporeans identify with both Singaporeans and their ethnic identity equally, while 35% would exclusively identify as "Singaporeans."[50]
Within the historical profession, the term "ethnogenesis" has been borrowed as aneologism to explain the origins and evolution of so-calledbarbarian ethnic cultures,[51] stripped of its metaphoric connotations drawn from biology, of "natural" birth and growth. That view is closely associated with the Austrian historianHerwig Wolfram and his followers, who argued that such ethnicity was not a matter of genuine genetic descent ("tribes").
Rather, using Reinhard Wenskus' termTraditionskerne ("nuclei of tradition"),[52] ethnogenesis arose from small groups of aristocratic warriors carrying ethnic traditions from place to place and generation to generation. Followers would coalesce or disband around these nuclei of tradition; ethnicities were available to those who wanted to participate in them with no requirement of being born into a "tribe". Thus, questions of race and place of origin became secondary.
Proponents of ethnogenesis may claim it is the only alternative to the sort ofethnocentric andnationalist scholarship that is commonly seen in disputes over the origins of many ancient peoples such as theFranks,Goths, andHuns.[53] It has also been used as an alternative to the Near East's "race history" that had supportedPhoenicianism and claims to the antiquity of theAssyrian people, including theirvarious names.
Some historians have explored how theconscription and exploitation offrontier populations for military service during episodes ofcivil war has directly fueled processes of ethnogenesis. Using theHan Dynasty andLate Roman Empire as case studies, one scholar found that, asemperors, usurpers, and aspirants to imperial power vied for dominance, they drew disproportionately on minority groups inhabiting the empires' inner and outer frontiers to supply troops and material needed for military superiority. These patterns of extraction and militarization not only deepened themarginalization of these communities but also accelerated the formation of distinct ethnic identities.[54]
The process of emerging ethnicity has been called 'ethogenesis,' the development and public presentation of a self-conscious ethnicity. [...] Roosens [1989: 47], inCreating Ethnicity, definedethnogenesis as 'how people feel themselves to be a people and how they continue to maintain themselves as such,' even in the face of contradictory historical evidence.
[...] Singer and Sturtevant demonstrated that contemporary ethnic identities were producedinternally through the same historical events involved in nation building, governance, and economic development.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)I generally use the terms "Palestinian Arab," "the Arabs of Palestine," or (where the meaning is clear) simply "Arab" to refer to the Arab community in Palestine during the mandate period. Adding the term "Arab" when referring to the people whom we would today simply call "the Palestinians" may seem redundant, but in fact it avoids an anachronism, for it was really only after 1948 that the Palestinian Arab people came to call themselves, and be called by others, simply Palestinians. During the mandate period most Palestinian organizations and institutions (in today's sense) officially called themselves "Arab," sometimes with "Palestinian" as a modifier; hence the Arab Executive, the Arab Higher Committee, the Arab Workers' Congress, the Palestinian Arab Workers' Society, and so forth.
