tokenpocket钱包最新版app|ethnic origins or ancestry

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群体遗传学中种族使用上的区分 Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry - 知乎

群体遗传学中种族使用上的区分 Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry - 知乎首发于GWASLab切换模式写文章登录/注册群体遗传学中种族使用上的区分 Race/Ethnicity/AncestryGWASLabgwaslab.com 分享生物信息，统计遗传学学习心得。英文中的常用的表示种族的词语包括Race，Ethnicity以及Ancestry。但在中文中通常都翻译成种族。本文就这些词的使用区分做简单介绍与讨论。种族概念的区分首先介绍Population，这是一个最为广义的词语，可以用于表示任何一群体，可大可小。通常含义基于上下文，没有明确区分。例如，在中国人群中的全基因组关联分析就可以说成 GWAS in a Chinese population.Race, 种族(人种)，是一个由社会构建的区分系统，但该系统基于对内在的生物学特征或差异错误的认知，典型的例子便是物理特征（诸如肤色）以及社会文化的特征。举例，种族歧视应当被消除。Ethnicity, 种族 (民族)，是一个表示某一群体的社会政治概念，通常有相连的地理位置，基于共同的遗产或相似文化，例如语言，宗教信仰等。举例，中国有五十六个民族，这个民族就是Ethnic group，汉族Han Chinese 就是一个Ethnic group。Ethnicity与Ancestry容易混淆的点在于，多数情况下Ethnicity所表示的群体通常情况下也会有共同的家系或是遗传继承，但有一些地区Ethnicity表示的仅为社会文化实体而没有遗传学基础。Ancestry, 种族 (族裔/祖先)，是一个更为复杂的概念，包括了生物学以及社会学的成分。在西方，这个词通常反应群体的社会文化以及所来自大陆的起源，而在东方，以及南半球，这个词通常反映家系或是遗传继承。多数情况下，ancestry是群体遗传学文章中更应当使用的词语。举例，使用频率较高的有 European ancestry， East Asian ancestry， South Asian ancestry等等。举一个例子来综合上述概念，某研究组收集了中国人群的基因数据用于GWAS研究，那这个群体泛称就可以是一个中国人群体 a Chinese population，其中有汉族和傣族，这里的族就是ethinc group（Han Chinese 和 Chinese Dai），而整个群体在群体遗传学上则都属于East Asian Ancestry。群体遗传学领域使用上的区分一个核心上的区别点就在于是否主观与客观， race以及ethinitity存在主观成分，而ancestry则为客观描述性的词语，反映基因组中的某些固定特征。在生物学或遗传学文章中，单纯描述遗传学意义的种族时应使用客观性的词语，即ancestry。群体遗传学中跨种族跨群体的英文使用简单来说应当使用 cross-population, cross-ancestry, multi-population 或 multi-ancestry 而不是 trans-ethnic原因trans有多种含义，应当使用更准确且而不引起歧义的cross或者multiethnic包含社会学成分，存在易变的主观成分，应当使用ancestry，或更广义的population基于一些历史原因，早期的文章常常混用，早期的文章中例如Brown, B. C., Ye, C. J., Price, A. L., & Zaitlen, N. (2016). Transethnic genetic-correlation estimates from summary statistics. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 99(1), 76-88.中使用了，Transethnic，但其含义应为cross-ancestry，比较合适的用例如Momin, M. M., Shin, J., Lee, S., Truong, B., Benyamin, B., & Lee, S. H. (2023). A method for an unbiased estimate of cross-ancestry genetic correlation using individual-level data. Nature Communications, 14(1), 722.参考群体遗传学中种族使用上的区分 Race/Ethnicity/AncestryKachuri, L., Chatterjee, N., Hirbo, J. et al. Principles and methods for transferring polygenic risk scores across global populations. Nat Rev Genet (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-023-00637-2Kamariza, M., Crawford, L., Jones, D., & Finucane, H. (2021). Misuse of the term ‘trans-ethnic’in genomics research. Nature Genetics, 53(11), 1520-1521.发布于 2023-08-26 13:40・IP 属地日本生物学生物信息学医学赞同 121 条评论分享喜欢收藏申请转载文章被以下专栏收录GWASLab群体遗传学，遗传统计学，全基因组关

race 和 ethnicity该怎么区别？ - 知乎

race 和 ethnicity该怎么区别？ - 知乎首页知乎知学堂发现等你来答切换模式登录/注册英语race 和 ethnicity该怎么区别？经常看到如果一段话里提到race，后面通常都会跟一个and ethnicity，它们的区别在哪儿？民族、种族？自我认知和外界标签？关注者36被浏览159,201关注问题写回答邀请回答好问题 2添加评论分享5 个回答默认排序May Wang若要了时当下了，若觅了时无了时。关注这学期正好修了一门社会学课程，讲述美国移民历史下的种族理解，首先看牛津字典和社会学字典上的两个单词的定义EthnicityIndividuals who consider themselves, or are considered by others, to share common characteristics that differentiate them from the other collectivities in a society, and from which they develop their distinctive cultural behaviour, form an ethnic group. Race:each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics 简言之，Race应该翻译成种族，它是以“外表”来区别，正如我们常说的黄种人，白种人，黑种人。种族歧视主义的英文就为Racist 而Ethnicity应该定义成族群，它是以后天的”文化认同“来区别，由于共同的信仰，语言，文化习俗和历史背景而产生的归属感，是一种主观的自我认定而形成的。这两个词还会经常同Nation（民族）相联系。对于社会学了解还是比较浅显，如果有错误还希望有所指正。发布于 2013-11-14 10:19赞同 955 条评论分享收藏喜欢收起吴蜀春菩萨畏因，众生畏果。关注工作的时候想到这个问题，给你看一个调查表里的划分吧。ethnicity下的选项分为：Hispanic or LatinoCentral AmericanCubanLatin AmericanDominicanMexicanPuerto RicanSouth AmericanSpaniardNot Hispanic or LatinoNot Applicablerace选项的划分为：American Indian or Alaska NativeAsianBlack or African AmericanNative Hawaiian or Other Pacific IslanderWhite发布于 2018-07-09 14:32赞同 142 条评论分享收藏喜欢

Ethnicity - Wikipedia

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1Terminology

2Definitions and conceptual history

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2.1Approaches to understanding ethnicity

2.2Ethnicity theory in the United States

3Ethnicity and nationality

4Ethnicity and race

5Ethno-national conflict

6Ethnic groups by continent

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6.1Africa

6.2Asia

6.3Europe

6.4North America

6.5South America

6.6Oceania

6.6.1Australia

7See also

8References

9Further reading

10External links

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Ethnicity

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Socially defined category of people who identify with each other

For other uses, see Ethnicity (disambiguation).

"Ethnicities" redirects here. For the academic journal, see Ethnicities (journal).

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An ethnicity or ethnic group is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a common nation of origin, or common sets of ancestry, traditions, language, history, society, religion, or social treatment.[1][2] The term ethnicity is often used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism.

Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, dialect, religion, mythology, folklore, ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry.[3][4][5]

By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption, and religious conversion, individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or tribes, which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from the parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity. Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis.

Although both organic and performative criteria characterise ethnic groups, debate in the past has dichotomised between primordialism and constructivism. Earlier 20th-century "Primordialists" viewed ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since the distant past.[6] Perspectives that developed after the 1960s increasingly viewed ethnic groups as social constructs, with identity assigned by societal rules.[7]

Terminology[edit]

The term ethnic is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos (more precisely, from the adjective ἐθνικός ethnikos,[8] which was loaned into Latin as ethnicus). The inherited English language term for this concept is folk, used alongside the latinate people since the late Middle English period.

In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian oikumene), as the Septuagint used ta ethne ("the nations") to translate the Hebrew goyim "the foreign nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews".[9] The Greek term in early antiquity (Homeric Greek) could refer to any large group, a host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Classical Greek, the term took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as "nation, tribe, a unique people group"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or "barbarous" nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan").[10]

In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a tribe, race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "tribal, racial, cultural or national minority group" arises in the 1930s to 1940s,[11] serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism.

The abstract ethnicity had been used as a stand-in for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953).

The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972.[12] Depending on context, the term nationality may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something unique and unusually exotic (cf. "an ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established.

Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership, the following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified:

Ethno-linguistic, emphasizing shared language, dialect (and possibly script) – example: French Canadians

Ethno-national, emphasizing a shared polity or sense of national identity – example: Austrians

Ethno-racial, emphasizing shared physical appearance based on phenotype – example: African Americans

Ethno-regional, emphasizing a distinct local sense of belonging stemming from relative geographic isolation – example: South Islanders of New Zealand

Ethno-religious, emphasizing shared affiliation with a particular religion, denomination or sect – example: Sikhs

Ethno-cultural, emphasizing shared culture or tradition, often overlapping with other forms of ethnicity – example: Travellers

In many cases, more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, Armenian ethnicity can be defined by Armenian citizenship, having Armenian heritage, native use of the Armenian language, or membership of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Definitions and conceptual history[edit]

A group of ethnic Bengalis in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Bengalis form the third-largest ethnic group in the world after the Han Chinese and Arabs.[13]

The Javanese people of Indonesia are the largest Austronesian ethnic group.

Ethnography begins in classical antiquity; after early authors like Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus laid the foundation of both historiography and ethnography of the ancient world c. 480 BC. The Greeks had developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating

shared descent (ὅμαιμον – homaimon, "of the same blood"),[14]

shared language (ὁμόγλωσσον – homoglōsson, "speaking the same language"),[15]

shared sanctuaries and sacrifices (Greek: θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι – theōn hidrumata te koina kai thusiai),[16]

shared customs (Greek: ἤθεα ὁμότροπα – ēthea homotropa, "customs of like fashion").[17][18][19]

Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists,[20] such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf, do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.[21][irrelevant citation]

According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently.

One is between "primordialism" and "instrumentalism". In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as an externally given, even coercive, social bond.[22] The instrumentalist approach, on the other hand, treats ethnicity primarily as an ad hoc element of a political strategy, used as a resource for interest groups for achieving secondary goals such as, for instance, an increase in wealth, power, or status.[23][24] This debate is still an important point of reference in Political science, although most scholars' approaches fall between the two poles.[25]

The second debate is between "constructivism" and "essentialism". Constructivists view national and ethnic identities as the product of historical forces, often recent, even when the identities are presented as old.[26][27] Essentialists view such identities as ontological categories defining social actors.[28][29]

According to Eriksen, these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology, by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in the Caribbean and South Asia.[30]

Max Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status. This was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race".[31]

Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth, whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of the term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s.[32] Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates or logical a priori to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with a focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "... categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact, and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories."[citation needed]

In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities:

... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed.[32]

In this way, he pointed to the fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had the added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states.[32]

According to Paul James, formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing:

Categorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive.[33]

Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have a mercurial character.[34] Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness".[32] He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization.[32] This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation.

Kanchan Chandra rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory), choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by the belief of common descent.[35] Jóhanna Birnir similarly defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location."[36]

Approaches to understanding ethnicity[edit]

Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As Jonathan M. Hall observes, World War II was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship, a commonplace of origin, language, religion, customs, and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in the genes.[37]

Examples of various approaches are primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism, and instrumentalism.

"Primordialism", holds that ethnicity has existed at all times of human history and that modern ethnic groups have historical continuity into the far past. For them, the idea of ethnicity is closely linked to the idea of nations and is rooted in the pre-Weber understanding of humanity as being divided into primordially existing groups rooted by kinship and biological heritage.

"Essentialist primordialism" further holds that ethnicity is an a priori fact of human existence, that ethnicity precedes any human social interaction and that it is unchanged by it. This theory sees ethnic groups as natural, not just as historical. It also has problems dealing with the consequences of intermarriage, migration and colonization for the composition of modern-day multi-ethnic societies.[38]

"Kinship primordialism" holds that ethnic communities are extensions of kinship units, basically being derived by kinship or clan ties where the choices of cultural signs (language, religion, traditions) are made exactly to show this biological affinity. In this way, the myths of common biological ancestry that are a defining feature of ethnic communities are to be understood as representing actual biological history. A problem with this view on ethnicity is that it is more often than not the case that mythic origins of specific ethnic groups directly contradict the known biological history of an ethnic community.[38]

"Geertz's primordialism", notably espoused by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, argues that humans in general attribute an overwhelming power to primordial human "givens" such as blood ties, language, territory, and cultural differences. In Geertz' opinion, ethnicity is not in itself primordial but humans perceive it as such because it is embedded in their experience of the world.[38]

"Perennialism", an approach that is primarily concerned with nationhood but tends to see nations and ethnic communities as basically the same phenomenon holds that the nation, as a type of social and political organization, is of an immemorial or "perennial" character.[39] Smith (1999) distinguishes two variants: "continuous perennialism", which claims that particular nations have existed for very long periods, and "recurrent perennialism", which focuses on the emergence, dissolution and reappearance of nations as a recurring aspect of human history.[40]

"Perpetual perennialism" holds that specific ethnic groups have existed continuously throughout history.

"Situational perennialism" holds that nations and ethnic groups emerge, change and vanish through the course of history. This view holds that the concept of ethnicity is a tool used by political groups to manipulate resources such as wealth, power, territory or status in their particular groups' interests. Accordingly, ethnicity emerges when it is relevant as a means of furthering emergent collective interests and changes according to political changes in society. Examples of a perennialist interpretation of ethnicity are also found in Barth and Seidner who see ethnicity as ever-changing boundaries between groups of people established through ongoing social negotiation and interaction.

"Instrumentalist perennialism", while seeing ethnicity primarily as a versatile tool that identified different ethnics groups and limits through time, explains ethnicity as a mechanism of social stratification, meaning that ethnicity is the basis for a hierarchical arrangement of individuals. According to Donald Noel, a sociologist who developed a theory on the origin of ethnic stratification, ethnic stratification is a "system of stratification wherein some relatively fixed group membership (e.g., race, religion, or nationality) is used as a major criterion for assigning social positions".[41] Ethnic stratification is one of many different types of social stratification, including stratification based on socio-economic status, race, or gender. According to Donald Noel, ethnic stratification will emerge only when specific ethnic groups are brought into contact with one another, and only when those groups are characterized by a high degree of ethnocentrism, competition, and differential power. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture, and to downgrade all other groups outside one's own culture. Some sociologists, such as Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings, say the origin of ethnic stratification lies in individual dispositions of ethnic prejudice, which relates to the theory of ethnocentrism.[42] Continuing with Noel's theory, some degree of differential power must be present for the emergence of ethnic stratification. In other words, an inequality of power among ethnic groups means "they are of such unequal power that one is able to impose its will upon another".[41] In addition to differential power, a degree of competition structured along ethnic lines is a prerequisite to ethnic stratification as well. The different ethnic groups must be competing for some common goal, such as power or influence, or a material interest, such as wealth or territory. Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings propose that competition is driven by self-interest and hostility, and results in inevitable stratification and conflict.[42]

"Constructivism" sees both primordialist and perennialist views as basically flawed,[42] and rejects the notion of ethnicity as a basic human condition. It holds that ethnic groups are only products of human social interaction, maintained only in so far as they are maintained as valid social constructs in societies.

"Modernist constructivism" correlates the emergence of ethnicity with the movement towards nation states beginning in the early modern period.[43] Proponents of this theory, such as Eric Hobsbawm, argue that ethnicity and notions of ethnic pride, such as nationalism, are purely modern inventions, appearing only in the modern period of world history. They hold that prior to this ethnic homogeneity was not considered an ideal or necessary factor in the forging of large-scale societies.

Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf, do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.[21] The process that results in emergence of such identification is called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention.[44][45]

Ethnic groups can form a cultural mosaic in a society. That could be in a city like New York City or Trieste, but also the fallen monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the United States. Current topics are in particular social and cultural differentiation, multilingualism, competing identity offers, multiple cultural identities and the formation of Salad bowl and melting pot.[46][47][48][49] Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as subcultures, interest groups or social classes, because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in a process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of endogamy resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a mythological narrative of a founding figure); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers" – characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups.[50][51][52][53][54][55]

Ethnicity theory in the United States[edit]

Ethnicity theory argues that race is a social category and is only one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Other criteria include "religion, language, 'customs', nationality, and political identification".[56] This theory was put forward by sociologist Robert E. Park in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of "culture".

This theory was preceded by more than 100 years during which biological essentialism was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism is the belief that some races, specifically white Europeans in western versions of the paradigm, are biologically superior and other races, specifically non-white races in western debates, are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify enslavement of African Americans and genocide of Native Americans in a society that was officially founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be a preoccupation with scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple creations of races (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up the idea of racial difference and found that white Europeans were superior.[57]

The ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of attributing the marginalized status of people of color in the United States to their inherent biological inferiority, he attributed it to their failure to assimilate into American culture. They could become equal if they abandoned their inferior cultures.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant's theory of racial formation directly confronts both the premises and the practices of ethnicity theory. They argue in Racial Formation in the United States that the ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of the white population and did take into account the unique experiences of non-whites in the United States.[58] While Park's theory identified different stages in the immigration process – contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation – it did so only for white communities.[58] The ethnicity paradigm neglected the ways in which race can complicate a community's interactions with social and political structures, especially upon contact.

Assimilation – shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture – did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination, though it did for others.[58] Once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled, the problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities.[59] It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not "making it" by the standards that had been set by whites, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs, or were stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking to cultural defect as the source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S."[60] It prevents critical examination of the structural components of racism and encourages a "benign neglect" of social inequality.[60]

Ethnicity and nationality[edit]

Further information: Nation state and minority group

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In some cases, especially involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner[61] and Benedict Anderson[62] see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries.

Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation, developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined.

In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". Nation-states, however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation in their nation-state.[63] Under these conditions when people moved from one state to another,[64] or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation, but lived in another state.

Multi-ethnic states can be the result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of ethnic minorities into a former nation-state.

Examples for the first case are found throughout Africa, where countries created during decolonization inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as Belgium or United Kingdom. Examples for the second case are countries such as Netherlands, which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed "multicultural" societies, especially in large cities.

The states of the New World were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations.

In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis)[65] have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to the public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent.[66] It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific collectivity.[67] Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute the kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as Britannia or Marianne.

Ethnicity and race[edit]

The racial diversity of Asia's ethnic groups (original caption: Asiatiska folk), Nordisk familjebok (1904)

Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language, and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a taxonomic grouping, based on physical similarities among groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of the term.[citation needed] Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that "racial/ethnic identity" is one concept and concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories.[68]

Before Weber (1864–1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being the result of inherited traits and tendencies.[69] With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other.

In 1950, the UNESCO statement "The Race Question", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Gunnar Myrdal, Julian Huxley, etc.), said:

National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term "race" altogether and speak of "ethnic groups".[70]

In 1982, anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways people from different parts of the world have been incorporated into a global economy:

The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all the distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values.[71]

According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion, and ethnic groupings during the period of capitalist expansion.[72]

Writing in 1977 about the usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States, Wallman noted

The term "ethnic" popularly connotes "[race]" in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, "[race]" most commonly means color, and "ethnics" are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. "[Ethnic]" is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no "ethnics"; there are only "ethnic relations".[73]

In the U.S., the OMB says the definition of race as used for the purposes of the US Census is not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference".[74]

Ethno-national conflict[edit]

Further information: Ethnic conflict

Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view, the state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of the nation-state.

The 19th century saw the development of the political ideology of ethnic nationalism, when the concept of race was tied to nationalism, first by German theorists including Johann Gottfried von Herder. Instances of societies focusing on ethnic ties, arguably to the exclusion of history or historical context, have resulted in the justification of nationalist goals. Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the 19th-century consolidation and expansion of the German Empire and the 20th century Nazi Germany. Each promoted the pan-ethnic idea that these governments were acquiring only lands that had always been inhabited by ethnic Germans. The history of late-comers to the nation-state model, such as those arising in the Near East and south-eastern Europe out of the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as those arising out of the USSR, is marked by inter-ethnic conflicts. Such conflicts usually occur within multi-ethnic states, as opposed to between them, as in other regions of the world. Thus, the conflicts are often misleadingly labeled and characterized as civil wars when they are inter-ethnic conflicts in a multi-ethnic state.

Ethnic groups by continent[edit]

Africa[edit]

Main article: List of ethnic groups of Africa

This section may contain information not important or relevant to the article's subject. Please help improve this section. (June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Ethnic groups in Africa number in the hundreds, each generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture.

Asia[edit]

Main articles: Ethnic groups in Asia, East Asian people, South Asian ethnic groups, Ethnic groups of Southeast Asia, and Ethnic groups in the Middle East

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Assyrians are one of the indigenous peoples of Northern Iraq.

Ethnic groups are abundant throughout Asia, with adaptations to the climate zones of Asia, which can be the Arctic, subarctic, temperate, subtropical or tropical. The ethnic groups have adapted to mountains, deserts, grasslands, and forests.

On the coasts of Asia, the ethnic groups have adopted various methods of harvest and transport. Some groups are primarily hunter-gatherers, some practice transhumance (nomadic lifestyle), others have been agrarian/rural for millennia and others becoming industrial/urban. Some groups/countries of Asia are completely urban, such as those in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore. The colonization of Asia was largely ended in the 20th century, with national drives for independence and self-determination across the continent.

In Indonesia alone, there are more than 1,300 ethnic groups recognized by the government, which are located on 17,000 islands in the Indonesian archipelago

Russia has more than 185 recognized ethnic groups besides the eighty percent ethnic Russian majority. The largest group is the Tatars, 3.8 percent. Many of the smaller groups are found in the Asian part of Russia (see Indigenous peoples of Siberia).

Europe[edit]

Main article: Ethnic groups in Europe

The Basques constitute an indigenous ethnic minority in both France and Spain.

Sámi family in Lapland of Finland, 1936

The Irish are an ethnic group from Ireland of which 70–80 million people worldwide claim ancestry.[75]

Europe has a large number of ethnic groups; Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities within every state they inhabit (although they may form local regional majorities within a sub-national entity). The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people or 14% of 770 million Europeans.[76]

A number of European countries, including France[77] and Switzerland, do not collect information on the ethnicity of their resident population.

An example of a largely nomadic ethnic group in Europe is the Roma, pejoratively known as Gypsies. They originated from India and speak the Romani language.

The Serbian province of Vojvodina is recognizable for its multi-ethnic and multi-cultural identity.[78][79] There are some 26 ethnic groups in the province,[80] and six languages are in official use by the provincial administration.[81]

North America[edit]

Main articles: Ethnic origins of people in Canada, Ethnic groups in Central America, Demographics of Greenland, Demographics of Mexico, Ethnic groups in the United States, Indigenous peoples of the Americas § North America, Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Mexico, and Caribbean people

The indigenous people in North America are Native Americans. During European colonization, Europeans arrived in North America. Most Native Americans died due to Spanish diseases and other European diseases such as smallpox during the European colonization of the Americas. The largest pan-ethnic group in the United States is White Americans. Hispanic and Latino Americans (Mexican Americans in particular) and Asian Americans have immigrated to the United States recently. In Mexico, most Mexicans are mestizo, a mixture of Spanish and Native American ancestry. Some Hispanic and Latino Americans living in the United States are not mestizos.[citation needed]

African slaves were brought to North America from the 16th to 19th centuries during the Atlantic slave trade. Many of them were sent to the Caribbean. Ethnic groups that live in the Caribbean are: indigenous peoples, Africans, Indians, white Europeans, Chinese and Portuguese. The first white Europeans to arrive in the Dominican Republic were the Spanish in 1492. The Caribbean was also colonized and discovered by the Portuguese, English, Dutch and French.[82]

A sizeable number of people in the United States have mixed-race identities. In 2021, the number of Americans who identified as non-Hispanic and more than one race was 13.5 million. The number of Hispanic Americans who identified as multiracial was 20.3 million.[83] Over the course of the 2010s decade, there was a 127% increase in non-Hispanic Americans who identified as multiracial.[83]

The largest ethnic groups in the United States are Germans, African Americans, Mexicans, Irish, English,

Americans, Italians, Poles, French, Scottish, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Norwegians, Dutch people, Swedish people, Chinese people, West Indians, Russians and Filipinos.[84]

In Canada, European Canadians are the largest ethnic group. In Canada, the indigenous population is growing faster than the non-indigenous population. Most immigrants in Canada come from Asia.[85]

South America[edit]

Main article: Ethnic groups in South America

The Founding of the Brazilian Fatherland, an 1899 allegorical painting depicting Brazilian statesman José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, one of the founding fathers of the country, with the flag of the Empire of Brazil and the three major ethnic groups in Brazil

In South America, although highly varying between regions, people are commonly mixed-race, indigenous, European, black African, and to a lesser extent also Asian.

Oceania[edit]

Main articles: Indigenous peoples of Oceania and Europeans in Oceania

Nearly all states in Oceania have majority indigenous populations, with notable exceptions being Australia, New Zealand and Norfolk Island, who have majority European populations.[86] States with smaller European populations include Guam, Hawaii and New Caledonia (whose Europeans are known as Caldoche).[87][88] Indigenous peoples of Oceania are Australian Aboriginals, Austronesians and Papuans, and they originated from Asia.[89] The Austronesians of Oceania are further broken up into three distinct groups; Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians.

Oceanic South Pacific islands nearing Latin America were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans in the 16th century, with nothing to indicate prehistoric human activity by Indigenous peoples of the Americas or Oceania.[90][91][92] Contemporary residents are mainly mestizos and Europeans from the Latin American countries whom administer them,[93] although none of these islands have extensive populations.[94] Easter Island are the only oceanic island politically associated with Latin America to have an indigenous population, the Polynesian Rapa Nui people.[95] Their current inhabitants include indigenous Polynesians and mestizo settlers from political administrators Chile, in addition to mixed-race individuals with Polynesian and mestizo/European ancestry.[95] The British overseas territory of Pitcairn Islands, to the west of Easter Island, have a population of approximately 50 people. They are mixed-race Euronesians who descended from an initial group of British and Tahitian settlers in the 18th century. The islands were previously inhabited by Polynesians; they had long abandoned Pitcairn by the time the settlers had arrived.[96] Norfolk Island, now an external territory of Australia, is also believed to have been inhabited by Polynesians prior to its initial European discovery in the 18th century. Some of their residents are descended from mixed-race Pitcairn Islanders that were relocated onto Norfolk due to overpopulation in 1856.[97]

The once uninhabited Bonin Islands, later politically integrated into Japan, have a small population consisting of Japanese mainlanders and descendants of early European settlers.[95] Archeological findings from the 1990s suggested there was possible prehistoric human activity by Micronesians prior to European discovery in the 16th century.[98]

Several political entities associated with Oceania are still uninhabited, including Baker Island, Clipperton Island, Howland Island and Jarvis Island.[99] There were brief attempts to settle Clipperton with Mexicans and Jarvis with Native Hawaiians in the early 20th century. The Jarvis settlers were relocated from the island due to Japanese advancements during World War II, while most of the settlers on Clipperton ended up dying from starvation and murdering one and other.[100]

Australia[edit]

Main articles: Indigenous Australians and Native white Australians

The first evident ethnic group to live in Australia were the Australian Aboriginals, a group considered related to the Melanesian Torres Strait Islander people. Europeans, primarily from England arrived first in 1770.

The 2016 Census shows England and New Zealand are the next most common countries of birth after Australia, the proportion of people born in China and India has increased since 2011 (from 6.0 per cent to 8.3 per cent, and 5.6 per cent to 7.4 per cent, respectively).

The proportion of people identifying as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin increased from 2.5 per cent of the Australian population in 2011 to 2.8 per cent in 2016.

Human ancestry correlates with language and reveals that race is not an objective genomic classifier | Scientific Reports

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Human ancestry correlates with language and reveals that race is not an objective genomic classifier

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Published: 08 May 2017

Human ancestry correlates with language and reveals that race is not an objective genomic classifier

Jennifer L. Baker1, Charles N. Rotimi

ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5759-053X1 & Daniel Shriner1

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volume 7, Article number: 1572 (2017)

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AbstractGenetic and archaeological studies have established a sub-Saharan African origin for anatomically modern humans with subsequent migrations out of Africa. Using the largest multi-locus data set known to date, we investigated genetic differentiation of early modern humans, human admixture and migration events, and relationships among ancestries and language groups. We compiled publicly available genome-wide genotype data on 5,966 individuals from 282 global samples, representing 30 primary language families. The best evidence supports 21 ancestries that delineate genetic structure of present-day human populations. Independent of self-identified ethno-linguistic labels, the vast majority (97.3%) of individuals have mixed ancestry, with evidence of multiple ancestries in 96.8% of samples and on all continents. The data indicate that continents, ethno-linguistic groups, races, ethnicities, and individuals all show substantial ancestral heterogeneity. We estimated correlation coefficients ranging from 0.522 to 0.962 between ancestries and language families or branches. Ancestry data support the grouping of Kwadi-Khoe, Kx’a, and Tuu languages, support the exclusion of Omotic languages from the Afroasiatic language family, and do not support the proposed Dené-Yeniseian language family as a genetically valid grouping. Ancestry data yield insight into a deeper past than linguistic data can, while linguistic data provide clarity to ancestry data.

Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round | SpringerLink

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Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round

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AbstractMany if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race, ethnicity and/or national origins when it comes time to conduct a census. In an unpublished survey of census questionnaires, the United Nations found that 65 % enumerated their populations by national or ethnic group (United Nations Statistics Division 2003). However, this statistic encompasses a wide diversity of approaches to ethnic classification, as evinced by the spectrum of terms employed; ‘race,’ ‘ethnic origin,’ ‘nationality,’ ‘ancestry’ and ‘indigenous,’ ‘tribal’ or ‘aboriginal’ group all serve to draw distinctions within the national population. The picture is further complicated by the ambiguity of the meanings of these terms: what is called ‘race’ in one country might be labelled ‘ethnicity’ in another, while ‘nationality’ means ancestry in some contexts and citizenship in others. Even within the same country, one term can take on several connotations, or several terms may be used interchangeably.KeywordsNational CensusIndigenous GroupIndigenous StatusEthnic NationalityUnited Nation Statistical DivisionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.Abridged from the article published in Population Research and Policy Review, 27(2), p. 239–272, 2008.

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1 IntroductionMany if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race, ethnicity and/or national origins when it comes time to conduct a census. In an unpublished survey of census questionnaires, the United Nations found that 65 % enumerated their populations by national or ethnic group (United Nations Statistics Division 2003). However, this statistic encompasses a wide diversity of approaches to ethnic classification, as evinced by the spectrum of terms employed; ‘race,’ ‘ethnic origin,’ ‘nationality,’ ‘ancestry’ and ‘indigenous,’ ‘tribal’ or ‘aboriginal’ group all serve to draw distinctions within the national population. The picture is further complicated by the ambiguity of the meanings of these terms: what is called ‘race’ in one country might be labelled ‘ethnicity’ in another, while ‘nationality’ means ancestry in some contexts and citizenship in others. Even within the same country, one term can take on several connotations, or several terms may be used interchangeably.This article surveys the approaches to ethnic enumeration that 141 nations took on their 1995–2004 (or ‘2000 round’) censuses. Using a unique data set compiled by the United Nations Statistical Division, this research identifies several dimensions along which classification practices vary. Specifically, I address three research questions:

How widespread is census enumeration by ethnicity, in global terms?

Among national censuses that do enumerate by ethnicity, what approaches do they take, in terms of both their question and answer formats?

What geographic patterns, if any, do ethnic enumeration practices follow?

2 Classification by EthnicityThis chapter uses a broad definition of ‘ethnic enumeration’ that includes census references to a heterogeneous collection of terms (e.g., ‘ethnic group,’ ‘race,’ ‘people,’ ‘tribe’), which indicate a contemporary yet somewhat inchoate sense of origin-based ‘groupness.’ Despite the fluidity between the conceptual borders of ethnicity, race and nationality, at their cores they share a common connotation of ancestry or ‘community of descent’ (Hollinger 1998). Each concept relies on a different type of proof or manifestation of those shared roots – ethnicity discerns it in cultural practices or beliefs (e.g., dress, language, religion), race in perceived physical traits, and nationality through geographic location – yet they all aim to convey an accounting of origins or ancestry. As a result, in the research to be described I have included all three of these terms – and others – as indicators of one underlying concept of origins. For this umbrella concept I use the label ‘ethnicity’ rather than ‘ancestry,’ however, to emphasize the immediacy that such categories can have when individuals identify themselves. As Alba (1990: 38) points out, ancestry involves beliefs about one’s forebears, while ethnicity is a matter of ‘beliefs directly about oneself.’ He illustrates the difference as being one between the statements, ‘My great-grandparents came from Poland’ (ancestry) versus ‘I am Polish’ (ethnicity).Identifying a core meaning shared by varied ethnicity-related terms makes possible a global comparative study of ethnic categorization. Previous academic comparisons of census ethnic enumeration have usually included only a few national cases, as part of an intensive examination of the social, historical and political factors behind diverse classificatory regimes (e.g., Kertzer and Arel 2002a; Nobles 2000). And the broader surveys available are generally either regional (e.g., Almey et al. 1992), not based on systematic samples (e.g., Rallu et al. 2004; Statistics Canada and U.S. Census Bureau 1993), or focused on informal conventions rather than official categorization schemes (e.g., Wagley 1965). As a result, no comprehensive international analysis of formal ethnic enumeration approaches precedes this study. One of the fundamental contributions made here is thus an empirical one, in the form of a profile of ethnic enumeration worldwide and typology of such practices.Providing information about a large sample of contemporary national censuses is also a major step forward for theory-building about the origins of different classificatory systems. Collecting data on the dependent variable of classification type suggests important features to measure and eventually to explain. Rallu et al. (2004) exemplify the possibilities of such an analysis by proposing four types of governmental approach to ethnic enumeration:

Enumeration for political control (compter pour dominer)

Non-enumeration in the name of national integration (ne pas compter au nom de l’intégration nationale)

Discourse of national hybridity (compter ou ne pas compter au nom de la mixité)

Enumeration for antidiscrimination (compter pour justifier l’action positive)

Rallu et al. (2004) identify colonial census administration with the first category, as well as related examples such as apartheid-era South Africa, the Soviet Union and Rwanda. In these cases, ethnic categories form the basis for exclusionary policies. In the second category, where ethnic categories are rejected in order to promote national unity, western European nations such as France, Germany and Spain are prominent. The third category is largely associated with Latin American countries, where governments take different decisions about whether to enumerate by ethnicity, but a broader discourse praising interethnic mixture or hybridity is not uncommon. The final category is illustrated with examples from Latin America (e.g., Brazil, Colombia) and Asia (China), but the principal cases discussed here are those of England, Canada and the United States, where ethnic census data serve as tools in combating discrimination. Despite the number of regions that Rallu et al. (2004) take into account, however, their conclusions are drawn from a limited set of countries rather than the complete international pool. As a result, the four-part schema they identify might be altered if a wider sample of national censuses were considered.Another element that is missing from the existing literature on ethnic enumeration is comparative content analysis of the language of census ethnicity items. The studies previously described generally focus on the question of which political motives result in the presence or absence of an ethnic question on a national census. They do not delve into the details of the precise format of the question. But such nuances offer particular applied interest for demographers and other census officials. Maintaining that such technical information is of use for the architects of population censuses, this chapter investigates what terminology is used in different countries (e.g., ‘race’ or ‘nationality’?), how the request for information is framed, and what options are given to respondents in formulating their answer. In this way, the project may suggest alternative approaches to implement when census forms are being redesigned and offer a basis for weighing the relative strengths and weaknesses of diverse formats.3 Data and MethodologyAs publisher of the annual Demographic Yearbook, the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) regularly collects international census information, including both questionnaire forms and data results. For the 2000 round (i.e., censuses conducted from 1995 through 2004), UNSD drew up a list of 231 nations and territories from which to solicit census materials. As of June 2005, this researcher located 141 national questionnaires in the UNSD collection and elsewhere (i.e., from 61 % of the countries listed) and calculated that 30 nations (13 %) had not scheduled a census in that round. Therefore questionnaires were missing from 60 countries (26 % of the original list, or 30 % of the 201 countries expected to have conducted a census within the 2000 round).The gaps in the resultant database’s coverage of international census-taking were not spread randomly across the globe, as Table 2.1 shows. The nations of Europe were best-represented in the collection, as all of the 2000 census round questionnaires available have been located. Next came Asia (including the Middle East), for which 80 % of the available questionnaires have been obtained, followed by South America and Oceania (79 % each), North America (at 51 %, including Central America and the Caribbean), and Africa (42 %). One effect of this uneven coverage is that African countries, which would make up 22 % of the sample and the second-largest regional bloc after Asia if all its 1995–2004 censuses were included, contribute only 13 % to the final sample of national census questionnaires studied. More generally, the variation in coverage suggests that while the results to be described can be considered a good representation of enumeration in Europe, Asia, South America and Oceania, this is not the case for discussion of North (and Central) America or of Africa. Moreover, the country-level data below do not indicate what percentage of the world’s population is covered by the census regimes studied here; findings are not weighted by national population in this inquiry.Table 2.1 Countries included in studyFull size table

Each census form available was checked for questions about respondents’ ‘race,’ ‘ethnicity,’ ‘ancestry,’ ‘nationality’ or ‘national origins,’ ‘indigenous’ or ‘aboriginal’ status – in short, any terminology that indicated group membership based on descent. Although language, religion and legal citizenship questions also appear frequently on national censuses and may be interpreted as reflections of ethnic affiliation, I do not include such indirect references to ancestry. (Consider for example how poor an indicator of ethnicity ‘Native English Speaker’ status would be in a multicultural society like the United States.) When an ethnicity item as defined above appeared on a census, both the question text and response categories or format were entered verbatim into a database. Translations into English were provided by national census authorities, United Nations staff, the author and others for all but three questionnaires, resulting in a final sample of 138 censuses.4 Findings4.1 Frequency of Ethnic EnumerationAmong the 138 national census questionnaires analyzed, 87 countries or 63 % employed some form of ethnic census classification (see Appendix for complete listing). As Table 2.2 shows, North America, South America and Oceania were the regions with the greatest propensity to include ethnicity on their censuses. While Asia’s tendency to enumerate by ethnicity was close to the sample average, both Europe and Africa were much less likely to do so. This regional variation may be explained by Rallu et al’s. (2004) hypothesis that concern about the preservation of national unity leads some countries to forgo ethnic enumeration. The tendency toward ethnic counting in the Americas also suggests, however, that societies whose populations are largely descended from relatively recent settlers (voluntary or involuntary) are most likely to characterize their inhabitants in ethnic terms. As Bean and Tienda (1987: 34–35) wrote of the United States, ‘an ethnic group is created by the entry of an immigrant group into…society.’Table 2.2 Share of countries studied using ethnic enumeration, by regionFull size table

4.2 Census Ethnicity Questions4.2.1 Terminology and Geographic DistributionNot only do nations and regions vary in their censuses’ inclusion of ethnicity items, but they also employ widely differing terminology for such questions. In 49 of the 87 cases of ethnic enumeration (56 %), the terms ethnicity or ethnic (or their foreign-language cognates like ‘ethnicité’ and ‘étnico’) were used. This terminology was found on censuses from every world region. Often the term was combined with others for clarification, as in: ‘Caste/Ethnicity’ (Nepal); ‘cultural and ethnic background’ (Channel Islands/Jersey); ‘grupo étnico (pueblo)’ (Guatemala); ‘Ethnic/Dialect Group’ (Singapore); ‘Ethnic nationality’ (Latvia); and ‘race or ethnic group’ (Jamaica). Overall, nine different terms or concepts appeared in census ethnicity questions; Table 2.3 lists them in descending order of frequency. The table also distinguishes between ‘primary’ terms (i.e., first to appear if more than one term is used in one or more questions) and ‘secondary,’ or following, terms. For example, in the Nepal example above, caste was recorded as the primary term and ethnicity as a secondary term.Table 2.3 Terminology of census ethnicity questionsFull size table

As Table 2.3 shows, the second most frequent term after ethnicity was nationality, used by 20 nations (or 23 %). Here nationality denoted origins rather than current legal citizenship status. This distinction was made clear in most cases either by the presence on the census questionnaire of a separate question for citizenship (e.g., Romania, Tajikistan) or by the use of the adjective ‘ethnic’ to create the term ‘ethnic nationality’ (Estonia). However, I also include in this category census items that combined ethnicity and nationality by using a single question to identify either citizens’ ethnicity or non-citizens’ nationality. For example, the Senegalese question ran, ‘Ethnie ou nationalité: Inscrivez l’ethnie pour les Sénégalais et la nationalité pour les étrangers’ [Ethnicity or nationality: Write down ethnicity for Senegalese and nationality for foreigners].References to nationality as ethnic origin came largely from Eastern European nations (e.g., Poland, Romania) and Asian countries of the former Soviet Union such as Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (see Table 2.4). This regional concentration reflects a number of historical factors. First, twentieth century (and earlier) movements of both political borders and people in Eastern Europe left groups with allegiances to past or neighbouring governments situated in new or different states (Eberhardt 2003). Second, this reinforced existing Romantic notions of nations as corresponding to ethnic communities of descent (Kertzer and Arel 2002b). Finally, the Soviet Union’s practice of identifying distinct nationalities within its borders extended the equation of nationality with ethnic membership (Blum and Gousseff 1996).Table 2.4 Census ethnicity terminology by regionFull size table

Roughly 15 % of the national censuses asked about respondents’ indigenous status. These cases came from North America (e.g., Mexico: ‘¿[Name] pertenece a algún grupo indígena?’; [Does [name] belong to an indigenous group?], South America (e.g., Venezuela: ‘¿Pertenece usted a algún grupo indígena?’; [Do you belong to an indigenous group?], Oceania (e.g., Nauru: ‘family’s local tribe’), and Africa (Kenya: ‘Write tribe code for Kenyan Africans’). Indigeneity seems to serve as a marker largely in nations that experienced European colonialism, where it distinguishes populations that ostensibly do not have European ancestry (separating them from mestizos, for example, in Mexico) or who inhabited the territory prior to European settlement. The indigenous status formulation was not found on any European or Asian censuses.The same number of countries (13, or 15 % of all censuses using some form of ethnic enumeration) asked for respondents’ race, but this term was three times more likely to appear as a secondary term than as a primary one. For example, the Brazilian question placed race after colour (‘A sua cor o raça e:’), and Anguilla used race to modify ethnicity: ‘To what ethnic/racial group does [the person] belong?’. Race usage was largely confined to North America (including Central America and the Caribbean), as well as to United States territories in Oceania (American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands). More specifically, census usage of race is found almost entirely in the former slaveholding societies of the Western Hemisphere and their territories. Of the 13 countries studied that enumerate by race, 11 are either New World former slave societies (United States, Anguilla, Bermuda, Brazil, Jamaica and Saint Lucia) and/or their territories (United States Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, and Northern Mariana Islands).Table 2.4 summarizes the geographic patterns in usage of the four most frequent ethnic terms found on national census questionnaires. Reference to ethnicity is most prevalent in Oceania and least prevalent in South America, whereas nationality is found on more than half of the European censuses but on none in the Americas. Conversely, references to indigenous status or ‘tribe’ reach their peak in South America, but are absent on European and Asian censuses. Similarly, race is not found on European or Asian censuses, but appears on almost half of those used in North America (which includes Central America and the Caribbean). Still, in all regions ethnicity remains the most frequent term used, with the exception of South America, where references to indigenous status appear twice as often as those to ethnicity. Together, the four most frequent terms – ethnicity, nationality, indigenous group and race – appear on 90 % of the censuses that enumerate by ethnicity.4.2.2 The Language of Census Ethnicity Questions: The Subjectivity of IdentityCensus ethnicity questions vary considerably not just in their terminology but also in the language they use to elicit respondents’ identities. In particular, census questionnaires differ noticeably in their recognition of ethnicity as a matter of subjective belief, as opposed to objective fact. Twelve (or 14 %) of the 87 countries that practice ethnic enumeration treat it as a subjective facet of identity by asking respondents what they ‘think,’ ‘consider,’ or otherwise believe themselves to be. Examples come from every world region. Saint Lucia’s census asks, ‘To what ethnic group do you think [the person] belongs?’ (emphasis added) rather than simply, ‘To what ethnic, racial or national group does [the person] belong?’ The same explicitly subjective formulation is found on the census questionnaires of New Caledonia (‘A laquelle des communautés suivantes estimez-vous appartenir?’ [To which of the following communities do you think you belong?]), and Paraguay (‘¿Se considera perteneciente a una étnia indígena?’; [Do you consider yourself as belonging to an indigenous ethnic group?]), for example (emphases mine).In addition to the recognition of the subjectivity of identity through references to respondents’ beliefs, these censuses achieve the same end by emphasizing the personal, self-selected aspect of ethnicity; it is what the individual says it is, not the product of an objective external measurement. Accordingly, the individual respondent’s choice is paramount here, as in the Philippines’ question, ‘How does [the person] classify himself/herself?’ or Bermuda’s ‘In your opinion, which of the following best describes your ancestry?’ South Africa’s census asks, ‘How would (the person) describe him/herself in terms of population group?’ while Jamaica asks, ‘To which race or ethnic group would you say you/… belong(s)?’, both questions employing the conditional tense. Deference to the individual’s choice of self-recognition is found in non-English formulations as well, such as Argentina’s ‘¿Existe en este hogar alguna persona que se reconozca descendiente o perteneciente a un pueblo indígena?’ [Is there someone in this household who considers him/herself a descendant of or belonging to an indigenous people?], or Suriname’s ‘Tot welke etnische groep rekent deze persoon zichzelf?’ (With which ethnic group does this person identify him/herself?). Peru’s census question even lays out the basis on which individuals might construct their ethnic identity, asking ‘¿Por sus antepasados y de acuerdo a sus costumbres Ud. se considera:…’ [Given your ancestors and traditions, you consider yourself…].Many of these examples also illustrate another strategy of recognizing the subjectivity of identity, and that is the reference to ethnic groups as something with which one is affiliated, as opposed to the more total ethnicity as something that one is. The difference between an essential being ethnic and a constructed belonging to an ethnicity can be illustrated by juxtaposing the question ‘What is your ethnic group?’ (United Kingdom) against ‘To what ethnic group do you belong?’ (Guyana). The difference is subtle, yet it marks a distinction between a more essentialist concept of ethnicity as objectively given, and a more constructionist understanding of ethnicity as socially and thus subjectively developed. In addition to the 14 % of the national censuses studied that presented ethnicity as subjective in the ways previously described, another 21 % (18 countries) used the concept of belonging (appartenir in French, pertenecer in Spanish) in the formulation of their ethnicity question. Again, this approach was found on censuses from every world region.It is clear however that in the majority of cases, census ethnicity questions were brief and direct, simply treating ethnicity as an objective individual characteristic to be reported. Some did not in fact include a question, merely a title (e.g., ‘Ethnic Group,’ Bulgaria). However, it should be noted that three national censuses from Eastern Europe indicated that it was not obligatory to respond to the ethnicity question, ostensibly due to its sensitive nature. Croatia’s census notes ‘person is not obliged to commit himself/herself,’ Slovenia’s reads, ‘You don’t have to answer this question if you don’t wish to,’ and Hungary adds, ‘Answering the following questions is not compulsory!’4.3 Answering the Ethnicity Question4.3.1 Response FormatsTurning now to the structuring of response options for ethnicity questions, the national censuses studied employed three types of answer format:

Closed-ended responses (e.g., category checkboxes; code lists)

Closed-ended with open-ended ‘Other’ option (i.e., permitting the respondent to write in a group name not included on the list presented)

Open-ended (i.e., write-in blanks)

The three approaches were used in nearly equal proportions among the 87 countries employing ethnic enumeration: 32 (37 %) used the entirely closed-ended approach, 28 (32 %) the mixed approach, and 27 (31 %) permitted respondents to write in whatever ethnic identity they chose.The closed-ended approach generally took two forms: either a limited number of checkbox category options, or the request to select a code from a list of ethnic groups assigned to codes. The former strategy can be found, for example, on the Brazilian census, which gave respondents five options to choose from to identify their ‘colour or race’: (1) Branca (white); (2) Preta (black or dark brown); (3) Parda (brown or light brown); (4) Amarela (yellow); (5) Indigena (indigenous). This listing of five categories is a relatively brief one; another such example is Romania’s series of ‘nationality’ answers: (1) Romanian; (2) Hungarian; (3) Gypsy/Roma; (4) German and (5) Other. At the other end of the spectrum, Guatemala offered a list of 22 indigenous groups plus Garifuna and Ladino, and Argentina and Paraguay each presented a list of 17 indigenous groups for selection by the respondent. However, the second type of closed-ended format – the linking of ethnic groups to code numbers – permitted respondents to select from an even longer list of choices; Laos offered 48 such code options. Other countries to use the code-list strategy were Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines and India.An even wider range of responses was possible on the censuses that featured the combination of closed-ended categories with a fill-in blank for the ‘Other’ option alone. After giving respondents six options to choose from – Estonian, Ukrainian, Finnish, Russian, Belorussian and Latvian – the Estonian census requested that individuals choosing the seventh ‘Other’ box write in their specific ‘ethnic nationality.’ In Mongolia, respondents either identified with the Khalkh option or wrote in their ethnicity. Singapore listed 13 possibilities for ‘ethnic/dialect group’ – Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka (Khek), Hainanese, Malay, Boyanese, Javanese, Tamil, Filipino, Thai, Japanese and Eurasian – before requesting specification from anyone selecting the last, ‘Others’ option.In the last, entirely open-ended strategy, respondents were simply asked to ‘write in’ (Senegal) or ‘provide the name of’ (China) their ethnic group. This approach may not always offer the respondent as much latitude as it appears, however. In nations where one’s ethnic affiliation is firmly fixed in other official records (e.g., mandatory identity documents), individuals may not choose freely from an unlimited range of identities so much as they reproduce the label that has already been assigned to them by state bureaucracies.Although the sample of censuses studied was fairly evenly divided across the three types of ethnic response format, each world region generally favoured one approach more than the others. Table 2.5 shows that in South America and Africa, the closed-ended approach was taken by about two thirds of the national censuses, whereas roughly the same share in Europe used the mixed approach, and about two thirds of Asian censuses relied on the open-ended strategy.Table 2.5 Census ethnicity response formats by regionFull size table

In addition to geographic distribution, census ethnicity response formats also vary depending on whether the terminology in use is ethnicity, nationality, indigenous status/tribe, or race (see Table 2.6). In particular, questions on nationality are most likely to permit some kind of write-in response, while those inquiring about indigenous status and race are the least likely to do so. The first finding may reflect the expectation that fairly few national origins are likely to be elicited and thus an open-ended approach is not likely to become unwieldy. The second finding may reflect governmental tendencies to develop official lists of indigenous and racial groups that are formally recognized by the state, coupled with a sense of necessity to assign all respondents to such predetermined indigenous or racial groups. In addition, popular conceptions of these identities may depict them as involving a limited number of categories (such as ‘black,’ ‘white,’ and ‘yellow’ colour groupings) or even simple dichotomies (e.g., indigenous versus non-indigenous).Table 2.6 Census ethnicity response formats by question typeFull size table

4.3.2 Response OptionsCensus response formats for ethnicity vary in other ways worth noting:(a.) Mixed or Combined Categories. Several census questionnaires permit the respondent to identify with more than one ethnicity. This flexibility takes three forms. First, some censuses allow the respondent to check off more than one category (e.g., Channel Islands – Jersey; Canada; New Zealand; United States; U.S. Virgin Islands). Other census questionnaires offer a generic mixed-ethnicity response option (e.g., ‘Mixed’: Channel Islands – Jersey, Saint Lucia, Anguilla, Guyana, Zimbabwe, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Mozambique, Solomon Islands, Suriname; ‘Mestizo’: Belize, Peru; ‘Coloured’ in South Africa). Finally, some censuses specify exact combinations of interest, for example: ‘White and Black Caribbean,’ ‘White and Black African,’ etc. in the United Kingdom; ‘Black and White,’ ‘Black and Other,’ etc. in Bermuda; ‘Part Cook Island Maori,’ Cook Islands; ‘Eurasian,’ Singapore; ‘Part Ni-Vanuatu,’ Vanuatu; ‘Part Tokelauan/Samoan,’ ‘Part Tokelauan/Tuvaluan,’ etc., Tokelau; ‘Part Tongan,’ Tonga; and ‘Part Tuvaluan’ in Tuvalu.(b.) Overlap between ethnic, national, language and other response categories. The conceptual proximity between such concepts as ethnicity and nationality is illustrated once again by some censuses’ use of the same set of response categories to serve as answers to distinct questions on ethnicity, nationality, or language. For example, the Bermudan census response category ‘Asian’ can be selected when responding either to the race or the ‘ancestry’ question. An even more striking example comes from Hungary, where the same detailed list of categories serves as the response options to three separate questions (one each for nationality, culture and language). The options are: Bulgarian; Gipsy (Roma); Beas; Romani; Greek; Croatian; Polish; German; Armenian; Roumanian; Ruthenian; Serbian; Slovakian; Slovenian; Ukrainian; Hungarian, and ‘Do not wish to answer.’ Moldova also uses the same responses for three questions (one each on citizenship, nationality and language), while Estonia and Poland use the same categories for their citizenship and ethnic nationality questions, and Latvia, Romania, and Turkmenistan use the same response options for nationality and language questions.It is also worth recalling that even when only one ethnicity question appears on a census with one set of response options, the answer categories themselves may reference multiple concepts such as race and nationality. The United States’ race question, which includes answers like ‘white’ and ‘black’ alongside national or ethnic designations like ‘Korean’ and ‘Japanese,’ provides a good example. Similarly, Saint Lucia and Guyana’s ethnicity options include races like ‘black’ and ‘white’ alongside national designations like ‘Chinese’ and ‘Portuguese.’Nationality and ethnicity are also intertwined on censuses that use a single question to ask respondents for ethnicity if they are citizens, but for something else if they are foreigners. For example, Indonesia requests, ‘If the respondent is a foreigner, please specify his/her citizenship and if the respondent is an Indonesian, please specify his/her ethnicity.’ Kenya’s ethnicity question reads, ‘Write tribe code for Kenyan Africans and country of origin for other Kenyans and non-Kenyans.’ Zambia’s ethnicity question instructs, ‘If Zambian enter ethnic grouping, if not mark major racial group.’ And Iraq’s census asks only Iraqis to answer the ethnicity question.Perhaps the simplest cases of conceptual overlap occur, however, on censuses that combine multiple terms in the same item, such as the conflation of ethnicity and race in the Solomon Islands’ question: ‘Ethnicity. What race do you belong to? Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian, Chinese, European, other or mixed?’(c.) Use of examples. National censuses vary considerably in the extent to which they employ examples to facilitate response to their ethnicity questions. Given typical space constraints, this strategy is not widespread; instead, the list of checkbox response options may serve as the principal illustration of the objective of the question. For example, the Philippine presentation of examples before its closed-ended code-list question is unusual: ‘How does [the person] classify himself/herself? Is he/she an Ibaloi, Kankanaey, Mangyan, Manobo, Chinese, Ilocano or what?’ Instead, examples are more likely to be employed when the answer format calls for an open-ended write-in response; it is in this context, for example, that Fiji offers respondents the examples ‘Chinese, European, Fijian, Indian, part European, Rotuman, Tongan, etc.’ The U.S. Pacific territories do the same for their ‘ethnic origin or race’ write-in item.In summary, both the amount of latitude that census respondents enjoy when answering an ethnicity question and the amount of guidance or clarification they are given vary widely across the international spectrum.5 Conclusions5.1 Summary of FindingsAlthough widespread, ethnic enumeration is not a universal feature of national censuses; 63 % of the censuses studied here included some type of ethnicity question. In nearly half of these cases, ‘ethnicity’ was the term used, but significant numbers of censuses inquired about ‘nationality,’ ‘indigenous status,’ and ‘race.’ Each of these terms tended to be associated with a particular type of response format: questions about indigenous status were most likely to entail a closed-ended response format (checkboxes or code lists), whereas nationality questions were the most likely to permit open-ended responses (i.e., fill-in blanks). National census practices also varied in terms of their allowance of multiple-group reporting and use of examples.The large number of questionnaires studied here (138 in total, with 87 employing ethnic enumeration) permits the exploration of geographic patterns in census practices. Based on this sample, it appears that nations in the Americas and in Oceania are most likely to enumerate by ethnicity, while those in Europe and Africa are the least likely. Among the countries that do practice census ethnic classification, the term ‘nationality’ is most likely to be used in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, while ‘indigenous status’ is most likely to be a concern in the Americas, as is ‘race.’5.2 Evaluating Ethnic EnumerationIn addition to the empirical, theoretical and applied contributions to be made to existing research on ethnic classification (see Morning 2008), the findings reported here are relevant to debates about the formulation, feasibility and desirability of both census ethnic enumeration and international guidelines concerning it. Any proposal for new enumeration strategies, however, must reckon with the fact that census construction is not merely an exercise in survey design; it is fundamentally a political process, where state and group interests and ideology thoroughly inform the final census product (Anderson 1988; Kertzer and Arel 2002a; Nobles 2000; Skerry 2000). The United States in particular offers a long record of instances in which official racial classification has been shaped by forces other than methodological concerns (Lee 1993; Morning 2003; Wolfe 2001). The current format that distinguishes Hispanics as an ethnic group but not a race; the inclusion of multiple sub-categories of the ‘Asian’ race option; and the retention of a ‘Some other race’ response are just a few examples of census features championed by political actors.Consequently, it is not enough to appeal to methodological principles of logic, consistency, parsimony or clarity – nor to international precedent – when calling for change in census questionnaires. Political interpretation and agendas around the census must also be taken into account. More specifically, potential revisions that are suggested by cross-national comparison must address the policy concerns and motivations that shaped the current questionnaire. Are these political exigencies still salient or have they diminished in importance? Does the proposed revision solve or exacerbate the social problem in question, or do neither? Will the suggested change have other benefits or costs? How do they compare to the benefits and costs of the existing arrangement? Although survey design problems such as inconsistency or lack of clarity may not seem pressing enough to overhaul longstanding census items, we should not overlook the fact that they entail real costs: confusion, non-response, offense and lack of representation are just a few. In other words, the kinds of census design flaws that cross-national comparison reveals are most likely to be addressed if their implications for data quality are translated into the political language of social costs and benefits that has always shaped national census-taking.International guidelines for the conduct of population censuses must also take both design imperatives and policy motivations into account. The most widely-applicable guidance is the United Nations Statistics Division’s (1998) Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses (Revision 1). In its discussion of ethnic enumeration, this document stresses the practical difficulty of proposing a common, cross-national approach to ethnic enumeration:

The national and/or ethnic groups of the population about which information is needed in different countries are dependent upon national circumstances. Some of the bases upon which ethnic groups are identified are ethnic nationality (in other words country or area of origin as distinct from citizenship or country of legal nationality), race, colour, language, religion, customs of dress or eating, tribe or various combinations of these characteristics. In addition, some of the terms used, such as ‘race’, ‘origin’ and ‘tribe’, have a number of different connotations. The definitions and criteria applied by each country investigating ethnic characteristics of the population must therefore be determined by the groups that it desires to identify. By the very nature of the subject, these groups will vary widely from country to country; thus, no internationally relevant criteria can be recommended. (p. 72)

Despite the United Nations’ conclusion that ‘no internationally relevant criteria can be recommended,’ given the many ways that ethnicity is operationalized around the world (i.e., with measures such as language or dress), this analysis has revealed a great deal of commonality in official approaches to ethnic enumeration. And despite national variety in the groups recognized or the ethnicity terminology used, a broad class of ethnicity questions targeting communities of descent can be identified. Diversity in indicators of ethnicity – which as the U.N. rightly notes, are context-driven – does not preclude recognizing and analyzing them as reflections of a shared fundamental concept. Despite the different formulations used, such as ‘race’ or ‘nationality,’ their shared reference to communities of descent justifies both academic and policy interpretation of them as comparable categorization schemes. Just as different countries might define ‘family’ membership differently, we can recognize that their varied enumeration approaches target an underlying, shared concept of kinship – and suggest census guidelines accordingly. In short, these findings challenge the United Nations conclusion that international guidance on ethnic enumeration is not possible.The feasibility of proposing international guidelines on ethnic enumeration is an entirely separate matter, however, from the question of what recommendations should be made, including first and foremost any guidance about whether ethnicity should be a census item at all. The debate about the desirability of formal ethnic classification is a political one – and it is important and timely. In the United States, some public figures have called for the removal of racial categories from official state-level records, believing that government policies should not be informed by data on race (Morning and Sabbagh 2005). In some European countries, France in particular, the potential introduction of official ethnic classification has been hotly debated (Blum 2002; Simon and Stavo-Debauge 2004). While supporters believe such categories are necessary to identify and combat discrimination, opponents fear that government adoption of such a classification scheme would divide the nation, stigmatize some groups, and generally bolster concepts of difference that have been closely associated with prejudice. Given such concerns, Zuberi’s (2005) admonition that ethnic categories not be used on censuses without a clear objective, and one that will not harm those groups traditionally stigmatized by such classifications, is essential. But as the French case illustrates, it can be difficult to ascertain the pros and cons of ethnic enumeration, as its likely impact may be highly contested. While the presentation of results on global classification practices cannot answer the normative questions posed here, empirical findings on the reach and uses of such categorization schemes should nonetheless be a meaningful resource that informs the important debate over whether populations should be enumerated by ethnicity at all.

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Download references AcknowledgementsThe author warmly thanks the following people and institutions for their contributions: Kevin Deardorff (U.S. Census Bureau); United Nations Statistical Division (Department of Economic and Social Affairs), Demographic and Social Statistics Branch (particularly Mary Chamie, Jeremiah Banda, Yacob Zewoldi, Margaret Mbogoni, Lisa Morrison-Puckett and intern Julia Alemany); International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau; Adrian Hayes (Australian National University); Caroline Persell and Sylvia Simson (New York University); Leslie Stone (Inter-American Development Bank); Gerald Haberkorn (Secretariat of the Pacific Community); Patrick Corr (Australian Bureau of Statistics); and anonymous reviewers. I also wish to thank the attendees at the following presentations of this research: U.S. Census Bureau Migration Speaker Series; Population Association of America; International Union for the Scientific Study of Population; American Sociological Association; and the Demographic and Social Statistics Branch (United Nations) Speaker Series. The initial version of this research was funded by the U.S. Census Bureau Immigration Statistics Branch. However, the conclusions – and the shortcomings – are solely those of the author. Author informationAuthors and AffiliationsDepartment of Sociology, New York University, New York, NY, USAAnn MorningAuthorsAnn MorningView author publicationsYou can also search for this author in

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Ann Morning . Editor informationEditors and AffiliationsInternational Migration and Minorities Unit, Institut National d'Etudes Démograhiques, Melrose, Montreal, CanadaPatrick Simon Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, McGill University and Honorary University of Montreal, Melrose, Montreal, CanadaVictor Piché Institute for Statistics, UNESCO, Montreal, CanadaAmélie A. Gagnon Appendix: Countries Included in Regional GroupingsAppendix: Countries Included in Regional Groupings

Organizing scheme borrowed from United Nations Statistical DivisionNorth AmericaSouth AmericaAfricaEuropeAsiaOceania

Anguilla*

Argentina*

AlgeriaAlbania*Afghanistan

American Samoa*

Antigua and Barbuda

Bolivia*

AngolaAndorra

Armenia*

Australia*

Aruba

Brazil*

BeninAustria*

Azerbaijan*

Cook Islands*

Bahamas*

Chile*

Botswana*Belarus*Bahrain*

Fiji*

BarbadosColombiaBurkina FasoBelgium*BangladeshFrench Polynesia*

Belize*

EcuadorBurundiBosnia and HerzegovinaBhutan

Guam*

Bermuda*

Falkland Islands (Malvinas)Cameroon

Bulgaria*

Brunei Darussalam

Kiribati*

British Virgin IslandsFrench Guiana*Cape Verde*Channel Islands (Guernsey)*Cambodia*Marshall Islands

Canada*

Guyana*

Central African Republic

Channel Islands (Jersey)*

China*

Micronesia (Federated States of)*

Cayman Islands

Paraguay*

Chad

Croatia*

Cyprus*

Nauru*

Costa Rica*

Peru*

ComorosCzech Republic*Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

New Caledonia*

Cuba

Suriname*

CongoDenmarkEast Timor*

New Zealand*

DominicaUruguay*Cote d’Ivoire

Estonia*

Georgia*

NiueDominican Republic

Venezuela*

Democratic Republic of the CongoFaeroe Islands

Hong Kong*

Norfolk IslandEl Salvador DjiboutiFinland*

India*

Northern Mariana Islands*

GreenlandEgypt*France*

Indonesia*

PalauGrenadaEquatorial GuineaGermanyIranPapua New Guinea*GuadeloupeEritreaGibraltar

Iraq*

Pitcairn

Guatemala*

EthiopiaGreece*Israel*SamoaHaiti* GabonHoly SeeJapan*

Solomon Islands*

Honduras*

Gambia

Hungary*

Jordan

Tokelau*

Jamaica*

Ghana*

Iceland

Kazakhstan*

Tonga*

MartiniqueGuinea*Ireland*Kuwait*

Tuvalu*

Mexico*

Guinea-BissauIsle of Man*

Kyrgyzstan*

Vanuatu*

Montserrat

Kenya*

Italy*

Lao People’s Dem. Republic*

Wallis and Futuna Islands*Netherlands AntillesLesotho*

Latvia*

Lebanon Nicaragua*LiberiaLiechtenstein*

Macao*

Panama*

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Lithuania*

Malaysia*

Puerto Rico*

MadagascarLuxembourg*Maldives*Saint Kitts and NevisMalawi*Malta*

Mongolia*

Saint Lucia*

MaliMonaco*MyanmarSaint Pierre and MiquelonMauritaniaNetherlands

Nepal*

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Mauritius*

Norway*Occupied Palestinian Territory*

Trinidad and Tobago*

Morocco*

Poland*

OmanTurks and Caicos Islands

Mozambique*

Portugal*Pakistan*

United States*

Namibia*

Republic of Moldova*

Philippines*

U.S. Virgin Islands*

Niger

Romania*

Qatar Nigeria

Russian Federation*

Republic of Korea*RéunionSan MarinoSaudi ArabiaRwandaSlovakia

Singapore*

Saint Helena

Slovenia*

Sri Lanka*

Sao Tome and PrincipeSpain*Syrian Arab Republic

Senegal*

Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands

Tajikistan*

Seychelles*SwedenThailand*Sierra LeoneSwitzerland*Turkey* Somalia

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*

Turkmenistan*

South Africa*

Ukraine*

United Arab EmiratesSudan

United Kingdom*

Uzbekistan*

Swaziland*

Yugoslavia*

Vietnam*

Togo Yemen*Tunisia UgandaUnited Rep. of Tanzania*Western Sahara

Zambia*

Zimbabwe*

Countries marked with an asterisk * are those whose censuses from the 1995–2004 period were used for this study; countries in bold include an ethnicity question on the census

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Reprints and permissions Copyright information© 2015 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) About this chapterCite this chapterMorning, A. (2015). Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round.

In: Simon, P., Piché, V., Gagnon, A. (eds) Social Statistics and Ethnic Diversity. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20095-8_2Download citation.RIS.ENW.BIBDOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20095-8_2

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