Supraethnicity (fromLatin prefixsupra- / "above" andAncient Greek wordἔθνος / "ethnos = people") is a scholarlyneologism, used mainly insocial sciences as a formal designation for a particularstructural category that lies "above" the basic level ofethnicity. It is often paired withsubethnicity, a similar technical term with the exact opposite meaning, also designating a particular structural category, but that which lies "under" the level of ethnicity. Both terms are used inethnic studies in order to describe structural and functional relations between basic (common) form ofethnic identity and various related phenomena that are classified as belonging to "higher" (supraethnic) or "lower" (subethnic) levels. Formally, both categories (supraethnic and subethnic) are designating levels, not the contents. For example, there are several distinctive phenomena that are manifested on the supraethnic level, like:metaethnicity, multiethnicity (pluriethnicity),panethnicity,polyethnicity, or transethnicity, each of them having their own distinctive contents, but all of them sharing the same structural "supraethnic" level. There have been attempts to define some common, not only structural but also functional properties of supraethnicity, but such attempts were challenged by the present state of terminological diversity and inconsistency within theethnic studies.[1][2][3]
Leman, Johan (1999). "Religions, modulators in pluri‐ethnic cities: An anthropological analysis of the relative shift from ethnic to supra‐ethnic and meta‐ethnic faith communities in Brussels".Journal of Contemporary Religion.14 (2):217–231.doi:10.1080/13537909908580863.
Reifowitz, Ian (2003).Imagining an Austrian Nation: Joseph Samuel Bloch and the Search for a Supraethnic Austrian Identity, 1846-1918. New York: Columbia University Press.
