Lecture 15: Diversity, Change, Ethnicity and Nationalism Flashcards
Old concept of culture
Bounded, small-scale entity
Underlying system of shared meanings
Identical, homogeneous individuals
New concept of culture
Culture is an active process of meaning making, characterized by multivocality, plurality and difference
- interconnected, not bounded, never coherent, historically specific
Invention of Tradition
Tradition negative in the past
Tradition also positive in era of globalisation
change is complex
Traditions have acquired more meanings: negative and positive
Traditions cannot only be lost, but they can also change
Change is inherently complex,
multidimensional and multilineal
Ethnicity
identification with, and feeling
part of, an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation
Ethnic group
may define itself as different as its members are sharing certain beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms because of their common background
Race
cultural category rather than a biological reality
- human invention
- embedded in institutions and everyday life
Nation
society sharing a common language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship
State
a stratified society with formal, central government
nation-state
autonomous political entity; a country
Colonialism
long-term foreign domination of a territory and its people also generated nationalism
Assimilation
when a minority adopts the
patterns and norms of the host culture
Plural society
society with economically interdependent ethnic groups
Multiculturalism
view of cultural diversity as valuable and worth maintaining
Stereotypes
fixed ideas about what the members of a group are like
