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Ethnicity without Groups

Rethinking Ethnicity, Identity, and Nationalism

Rogers Brubaker author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Harvard University Press

Published:1st Oct '06

Should be back in stock very soon

Ethnicity without Groups cover

In Ethnicity Without Groups, Rogers Brubaker critiques the conventional framing of ethnic identities, emphasizing the processes of group-making rather than fixed categories.

In Ethnicity Without Groups, Rogers Brubaker offers a compelling critique of the conventional understanding of ethnic groups as fixed entities. He argues that journalists, policymakers, and researchers often portray ethnic, racial, and national conflicts as struggles involving internally homogeneous groups. This framing, he suggests, inadvertently reinforces the notion of ethnic groups as concrete actors, ignoring the complex dynamics that shape identities and conflicts. By adopting the language of the participants in these struggles, they contribute to the reification of ethnic identities, which can obscure the fluidity and multiplicity of social realities.

Brubaker challenges the complacency that has settled around constructivist theories of ethnicity, pushing for a deeper examination of how ethnicity is constructed. He shifts the analytical lens from viewing groups as stable entities to understanding them as projects of group-making. This perspective emphasizes the processes of categorization and the ways in which identities are formed, rather than taking shared culture or fixed identities for granted. According to Brubaker, ethnicity, race, and nation should be seen as perspectives that shape our understanding of the social world, rather than as inherent characteristics of groups.

Ethnicity Without Groups is not only a timely intervention in the discourse surrounding ethnicity and nationalism, but it also serves as a crucial reference for scholars across various disciplines. With its unconventional arguments and energetic prose, this volume is poised to reshape how we think about ethnic identities and their implications in contemporary society.

The book contains much that is interesting and novel: an illuminating exploration of how research in cognitive psychology can inform our understanding of ethno-national identity; an essay on the return of a soft version of assimilation as a desideratum for immigrants in the West; a trenchant critique of the use of the ethnic/civic distinction in nationalist studies; a rich analysis of how the 1848 revolutions were commemorated in 1998 in Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia; and a sensible review of the literature on nationalist and ethnic violence. The analysis is lucid and well written throughout and makes for a worthwhile collection… Brubaker is to be commended for producing a stimulating mix of history, politics, and sociology. -- Bill Kissane * Ethics and International Affairs *
The chapters of Rogers Brubaker’s excellent new book are a stimulating collection of essays and articles, several of them co-authored, which were published between 1999 and 2004. The book takes its title from Chapter One, ‘Ethnicity without Groups,’ an elegant critique of the reification of ethnic groups… A fine book by a distinguished author. -- Steve Fenton * Ethnic and Racial Studies *
[I]ts main messages concern how to think and talk about ethnicity: shake off the conceptual and analytical confusions that have made the subject a trap for unwary enthusiasts. Wisely, scrupulously, and concretely, Rogers Brubaker provides guidance for avoiding the trap. -- Charles Tilly * Sociological Forum *
Ethnicity without Groups is decidedly the most incisive and compelling treatment known to me of a complex of issues that engage sociologists, historians, political scientists, literary theorists, and cross-disciplinary specialists in ethnic studies. Where are we right now, in our understanding of ‘ethnicity,’ ‘identity,’ ‘nationalism,’ and ‘assimilation’? The answers to these basic questions contained in the chapters now before us speak vividly to contemporary discourse, and will command immediate attention. -- David Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley, author of Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism
Ethnicity without Groups is a formidable manuscript that is certain to become a key reference for the ethnicity, nationalism, and it is to be hoped race literatures. It is marvelously unconventional and originally argued as well as energetically written. -- Christian Joppke, International University Bremen, author of Selecting by Origin: Ethnic Migration in the Liberal State

  • Nominated for Best Book Award in Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 2005
  • Nominated for Gregory Luebbert Best Book Award 2005
  • Nominated for Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards 2005
  • Nominated for Ralph J. Bunche Award 2005

ISBN: 9780674022317

Dimensions: 235mm x 156mm x 17mm

Weight: unknown

296 pages