About the Book

Most interpretations of ethnicity concentrate either on particular societies or on specific dimensions of ‘world society’. This work takes quite a different approach, arguing that variations within and across societies are vital for understanding contemporary dilemmas of ethnicity. The author aims to develop a new analysis of the relation between the nation on the one hand, and ethnicity and citizenship on the other. Oommen conceives of the nation as a product of a fusion of territory and language. He demonstrates that neither religion nor race determines national identities. As territory is seminal for a nation to emerge and exist, the dissociation between people and their ‘homeland’ makes them an ethnie. Citizenship is conceptualized both as a status to which nationals and ethnies ought to be entitled and as a set of obligations, a role they are expected to play. Analyses of three historical situations – colonialism and European expansion, Communist internationalism and the nation-state and its project of cultural unity – are examined to provide the empirical content of the argument. This book will be essential reading for second-year undergraduates and above in the areas of sociology, anthropology and cultural studies.

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Contents

Part I: The Conceptual Kit: The Search for Clarity

1. Introducing the Argument

2. Rethinking Citizenship, Nationality and Ethnicity

3. Avoiding Conflations and Subsumptions

4. Race and Religion: Untenable Factors in Nation Formation

 

Part II: The Empirical Process: The Trajectory of Ethnification

5. Colonialism and European Expansion

6. Proletarian Internationalism and the Socialist State

7. The Nation-State and Project Homogenization

8. Immigration and the Chauvinism of Prosperity

 

Part III: Towards a Rapprochement: Concepts and Reality

9. Reconceptualizing Nation and Nationality: The Importance of Territory and Language

10. Class, Nation, Ethnie and Race: Interlinkages

11. Reconciling Nationality and Ethnicity: The Role of Citizenship

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About the Author / Editor

T. K. Oommen is a Professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and former President of the International Sociological Association.

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