Ethnic identity is one of many identities.  It may be chosen,
imagined, displayed, imposed, hidden or set aside.  It is created in
the use that people make of it whether the use is affective or
instrumental, positive or negative.  It is a process affected by
contexts and histories, by the presence or absence of power and
agency, by events at both the local and the global levels.

Processes do not exist in a vacuum, and, in the case of ethnic
identity, particular contexts are significant:  human mobility
(emigration, immigration, natural disasters, temporary labor
migration), forced relocation (exile, genocidal wars, redrawing of
political boundaries), nationalism, and transnationalism.

Ethnic identity is both ephemeral and persistent.  In a world marked
by a global economy, by the mass movement of peoples away from
homelands, by the instant connections afforded us by modern modes of
communication, ethnic identity remains a salient form of
identification.  Indeed, it has become more salient and widespread
over the last two decades.
Yet, it retains its ability to “disappear” or to go underground.

Any understanding of ethnic identity and ethnicity has to be grounded
in its existence in the world of individuals going about their
business and in the communities in and out of which they move.  The
assignments in the class reflect this, in the reading of ethnographic
accounts and in the making of our own ethnographies, both personal and
other.

Readings will be taken from scholars such as F.G. Bailey, Walker
Conner, Marjorie Balzer, Ronald Takaki, Fredrik Barth, Edward Said,
Stuart Hall, Etienne Balibar, Immanuel Wallerstein, David Kertzer, and
Anthony Appiah.