Ethnicity and Identity Flashcards
Ethnicity
A category of people who identify with each other based on similarities such as common ancestry, language, history, society, culture or nation.
Ethnic Identity
Made up of our religion, language, where we live, our ethnic origin, skin colour, and so on. These cultural characteristics all affect who we are and how we see ourselves.
Key Characteristics of Ethnicity
- ) Common Descent (skin colour)
- ) Geographical Origins (‘Home’ Country they have links)
- ) History (Oppressive pasts like the Holocaust)
- ) Language (Home Language)
- ) Religion
- ) Traditions and Rituals
- ) Racism (Prejudice and Discrimination)
Ghumann (1999)
Ghumann did a study of first-generation Asian parents arriving in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s. He found that they were concerned to transmit the following key values to their children during primary socialisation.
Children should be obedient and respectful to their elders.
Parents were considered to know best the interests of their child-regardless of age.
The choice of a marriage partner was thought to be best left to the parents.
Religious training was considered very important therefore reinforcing respect for family and humility.
The mother tongue maintained links between generations so children tended to be bilingual. For example, children used Urdu and Punjabi interchangeably.
Gilroy (1993)
looked at the identity of young black people, arguing for the use of the term ‘Black Atlantic’ to describe an identity that was not specifically rooted in the UK or in their country of origin (often
a part of the Caribbean that they may have had
little association with), and was shared with young black people in the US. He argued that the shared experience of racism and powerlessness can transcend differences in background and history to create a ‘black’ identity.
Eastern Europeans
In contemporary UK society, due to the expansion of the European Union, growing numbers of ethnic minorities are white, with an ethnic origin from Central or Eastern Europe. There is evidence that they may face similar issues relating to resentment, racism and discrimination that immigrants from parts of
Asia and the Caribbean faced in previous decades, as was illustrated in the Activity at the beginning of this section. For example, Spencer et al. (2007) suggest that Eastern European migrants spent relatively
little time socialising with British people. In their research, one Ukrainian waitress commented that ‘[T]hey [British people] do not let you into their circles’. Dawney (2008) also found evidence of racism against European migrants in the rural community she studied, which largely came from a perceived threat and fear
of numbers that did not necessarily have a basis
in reality.
Mixed Race
Intermarriage between whites and African-Caribbeans has risen considerably. This has led to more mixed-race children.
Tizard and Phoenix found that 60% of children in their sample were proud of their mixed-race parentage. However, they also stated that they received racism from the white and black population.
The number of people in England and Wales living with or married to someone from another group jumped 35 per cent to 2.3 million in the 10-years up to the last census.
During that period the number of people described on census forms as “mixed” or “multiple” ethnicity almost doubled from just 660,000 in 2001 to 1.2 million in 2011, making it by far the fastest growing category.
Resistence
James (1993) suggests that the experience of racism unified the culture and identity of African- Caribbeans in the UK. Black people from the Caribbean had cultural differences based on their island of origin, and may also have been divided based on the darkness of skin, a hierarchy of colour imposed by colonialism. However, in the UK, the common experience of racism had the effect of drawing African-Caribbeans together. A shared oppositional culture grew, organised around the label ‘black’, as a resistance to racism.
Jacobson (1997) argues that many young Pakistanis are adopting a strong Islamic identity as a response
to social exclusion from white British society. She found that young British Muslims face difficulties and problems, and a strong Muslim identity gives them a sense of stability and security. This positive embracing of Islamic identity in terms of diet, dress and other religious practices is a form of defence and resistance to marginalisation and racism and is not just absorbed through the family, but consciously constructed.
Hybridity
Modood (1997) found a number of generational differences over the issue of identity, suggesting
that second-generation ethnic minorities from both African-Caribbean and Asian backgrounds felt much more British than their parents, while still seeing their ethnic origin as a key part of their ethnic identity.
Postmodernists argue that in a globalised and media-saturated society such as the contemporary UK today, identity is all about choice everyone can create their own identity, and the hybridity we have discussed in this section means that ethnicity is becoming less clear-cut and less significant. However, some would disagree, arguing that ethnicity and race are still sources of discrimination and hugely affect identity.
Johal
Johal studied second and third generation British- Asians. He found that they have a dual identity in that they inherit an Asian identity and adopt a British one.
This results in Asian youths adopting a ‘white mask’ in order to interact with white peers at school or college. Therefore they adopt hybrid identities.
Johal found that hybrid identities were adopted by British Asians. They tended to select aspects of British, Asian and global culture relating to fashion, music and food in order to construct their identity. For example, many young British-Asians like Bhangra music.
Brah
Argues that young British Asians are very skilled cultural code-switchers, and that this is a more appropriate way to see their identities than as a hybrid or a cross between two cultures. She suggests that the idea of two cultures is misleading since neither white British culture nor Asian culture are clear-cut and homogeneous anyway. The idea that young British Asians experience conflict or culture- clash is not backed up by evidence, and most will find ways to successfully negotiate their own identity, as will any young person living in a globalised and hybrid culture such as the contemporary UK.
