ethnicity and race

• ethnicity - culture you grew up in/ your parents' cultures
• race - refers more to physical features
• ethnic group - an identity with sets this group apart from mainstream culture e.g. libyan community in malta - live here but have ethnic traditions from others
• ethnic identity - the part of your identity which is related to a particular culture that you can take with you through socialisation e.g. being touchy, physical etc
• religion, friends, family, school etc teach us more about ethnicity
• Sewell (1998): found that in order to find racism in school, young black people generally stuck together. they would reinforce their ethnicity (AAVE - african american vernacular english)
• Sewell (1996): he found that young african caribbeans drew most of their conceptions of black identity from the media - macho black stereotypes
• religion: religious values, traditions, dress and norms have a big part in ethnicity but religion is not an ethnic group
• multiple identities e.g. chinese but grew up in malta
• white identities: idea of white people are supreme.
• white is a racial group not an ethnic group
• in malta, a lot of groups of the far right emerged and people like Norman Lowell find tourism scary and bad
• islamic fundamentalist groups - the central belief of them is to establish an islamic nation e.g. ISIS
• nationality gives you certain rights and obligations - usually given by being born in a particular country
• Hall(1992): every nation has a collection of symbols, images upon which its national identity is formed and expressed. (flags, food, literature etc)
• national identity: distinguishes one identity from another. sharing and belonging.
• how to learn things from cultures and others identities is group socialisation - school
• globalization comes into it as cultures become united
• people may want to re-assert their national identities because they feel threatened e.g. malta joining EU and feeling like they will have to lose their language to english
• Orr (2011): negative identity construction: have a nationality but you are still a global citizen
• idea of what you are not vs what you are
• identity formed from a lack of belief / something else you dont have like children etc.
• Fanon (1952): white masks - people abandon elements of their cultures and ethnicity to adopt a white mask to fit in to try and gain social acceptance
• Diaspora - refers to when one ethnic population disperses across the globe - hybrid identities