Anthropological approaches to ethnicity and conflict in Europe and beyond

It is widely assumed that the spread of civil wars since the late 1980s has been due to ethnic loyalties resurfacing after the cold war. The paper argues that this is a misleading and misinformed point of view. The academic discipline which has been most important in developing the concept of ethnic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal on minority and group rights 1996, Vol.4 (3-4), p.217-246
Main Authors: ALLEN, TIM, EADE, JOHN
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Ethnic conflict
Ethnic groups
Ethnic identity
Ethnicity
globalisation
Globalization
Interethnic conflict
Minority rights
Physical anthropology
Political anthropology
Race
Racism
Sociobiology
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Summary:It is widely assumed that the spread of civil wars since the late 1980s has been due to ethnic loyalties resurfacing after the cold war. The paper argues that this is a misleading and misinformed point of view. The academic discipline which has been most important in developing the concept of ethnicity is anthropology. Few anthropologists understand ethnicity as something that explains conflict in itself, and most perceive it as an aspect of social interaction rather than a set of cultural characteristics associated with a particular group. Anthropologists reject the idea that ethnicity is given in nature, although they recognise that its power is linked to the fact that is can appear to be so. Various models and theories of ethnicity are discussed under the headings of essentialist, instrumentalist and relationalist approaches. The paper ends by discussing some of the specific issues raised by anthropological studies among populations in Europe and North America, and draws attention to the dangers of conflating ethnicity with biological conceptions of race.
ISSN:1385-4879
1571-8115
DOI:10.1163/15718119620907300