Ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis is the formation and development of an ethnic group. This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification.
The term ethnogenesis was originally a mid-19th-century neologism that was later introduced into 20th-century academic anthropology. In that context, it refers to the observable phenomenon of the emergence of new social groups that are identified as having a cohesive identity, i.e., an "ethnic group" in anthropological terms. Relevant social sciences not only observe this phenomenon but also search for explanations for its causes. The term ethnogeny is also used as a variant of ethnogenesis.
Passive or active ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis can occur passively or actively.A passive ethnogenesis is an unintended outcome, which involves the spontaneous emergence of various markers of group identity through processes such as the group's interaction with unique elements of their physical environment, cultural divisions, migrations and other processes. A founding myth of some kind may emerge as part of this process.
Active ethnogenesis is the deliberate, direct planning and engineering of a separate identity. However, it is clear that active ethnogenesis may augment passive ethnogenesis. Active ethnogenesis is usually inspired by emergent political issues, such as a perceived, long-term, structural economic imbalance between regions or a perceived discrimination against elements of local culture. With regard to the latter, since the late-18th century, such attempts have often been related to the promotion of a particular dialect; nascent nationalists, as well as proponents and opponents of a process of nation-building,
have often attempted to establish a particular dialect as a separate language, encompassing a "national literature", out of which a founding myth may be extracted and promoted.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, societies challenged by the obsolescence of those narratives that previously afforded them coherence have fallen back on ethnic or racial narratives to maintain or reaffirm their collective identity or polis.
Language revival
Language has been a critical asset for authenticating ethnic identities. The process of reviving an antique ethnic identity often poses an immediate language challenge, as obsolescent languages lack expressions for contemporary experiences.In the 1990s, proponents of ethnic revivals in Europe included those from the Celtic fringes in Wales and nationalists in the Basque Country. Activists' attempts since the 1970s to revive the Occitan language in Southern France are a similar example.
Similarly, in the 19th century, the Fennoman movement in the Grand Duchy of Finland aimed to raise the Finnish language from peasant status to an official national language, which had been solely Swedish for some time. The Fennomans also founded the Finnish Party to pursue their nationalist aims. The publication in 1835 of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, was a founding stone of Finnish nationalism and ethnogenesis. Finnish was recognized as the official language of Finland only in 1892. Fennomans were opposed by the Svecomans, headed by Axel Olof Freudenthal. He supported continuing the use of Swedish as the official language; it had been a minority language used by the educated elite in government and administration. In line with contemporary scientific racism theories, Freudenthal believed that Finland had two races, one speaking Swedish and the other Finnish. The Svecomans claimed that the Swedish Germanic race was superior to the majority Finnish people.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Hebrew underwent a revival from a liturgical language to a vernacular language with native speakers. This process began first with Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the creation of the Ben-Yehuda Dictionary and later facilitated by Jewish immigration to Ottoman Palestine during the waves of migration known as the First- and Second Aliyot. Modern Hebrew was made one of three official languages in Mandatory Palestine, and later one of two official languages in Israel. In addition to the modernization of the language, many Jewish immigrants changed their names to ones that originate from Hebrew or align with Hebrew phonology, a process known as Hebraization This indicates that Hebrew revival was both an ethnogenic and linguistic phenomenon.
In Ireland, the revival of the Irish language and the creation of Irish national literature was part of the reclamation of an Irish identity beginning at the end of the 19th century.
Since its independence from the Netherlands in 1830, language has been an important but divisive political force in Belgium between the Dutch and Germanic Flemings and Franco-Celtic Walloons. Switzerland has four national languages—German, French, Italian, and Romansh—each concentrated in four regions of the country. The Alemannic German-speaking '' region is in the north and east, the French-speaking region in the west, the Italian/Lombard region in the south, and the small Romansh-speaking population in the south-eastern corner of the country in the Canton of Graubüen.
Specific cases
Ancient Greeks
notes that, in general, there is a lack of evidence that hampers the assessment of the existence of nations or nationalisms in antiquity. The two cases where more evidence exists are those of ancient Greece and Israel. In Ancient Greece, cultural rather than political unity is observed. Yet, there were ethnic divisions within the wider Hellenic ethnic community, mainly between Ionians, Aeolians, Boeotians, and Dorians. These groups were further divided into city-states. Smith postulates that there is no more than a semblance of nationalism in ancient Greece. Jonathan M. Hall's work Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity was acclaimed as the first full-length modern study on Ancient Greek ethnicity. According to Hall, Ancient Greek ethnic identity was much based on kinship, descent and genealogy, which was reflected in elaborate genealogy myths. In his view, genealogy is the most fundamental way any population defines itself as an ethnic group. There was a change in the way Greeks constructed their ethnic identity in the Persian Wars period. Before that, Greeks tended to connect themselves through genealogical assimilation. After the Persian invasion, they began defining themselves against the enemy they perceived as the barbarian “other”. An indication of this disposition is the Athenians' speech to their allies in 480 BC, mentioning that all Hellenes are bound with the ', ', and common religious practices. Hall believes that Hellenic identity was envisaged in the 6th century BC as being ethnic in character. Cultural forms of identification emerged in the 5th century, and there is evidence that by the 4th century, this identity was conceived more in cultural terms.American
Americans in the United States
In the 2015 Community Survey of the United States Census, 7.2% of the population identified as having American ancestry, mainly people whose ancestors migrated from Europe after the 1400s to the southeastern United States. Larger percentages from similarly long-established families identified as German Americans, English Americans, or Irish Americans, leaving the distinction between "American" and specific European ethnicity largely as a matter of personal preference.African Americans in the United States
The ethnogenesis of African Americans begins with slavery, specifically in the US. Between 1492 and 1880, 2 to 5.5 million Native Americans were enslaved in the Americas in addition to 12.5 million African slaves. The concept of race began to emerge during the mid-17th century as a justification for the enslavement of Africans in colonial America. Later, scientists developed theories to uphold the system of forced labor.Native Americans of darker skin tones were included in this construct with the arrival of African slaves. Some Native Americans of lighter complexions, however, owned slaves, participating in race-based slavery alongside Europeans. American society evolved into a two-caste system, with two broad classes: white and non-white, citizen and non-citizen. Non-white, non/semi-citizens were regarded as "Black" or "Negro" as a general term, regardless of their known ethnic/cultural background.
The lives and identities of African Americans have been shaped by systems of race and slavery, resulting in a unique culture and experience. Cultural aspects like music, food, literature, inventions, dances, and other concepts prominently stem from the combined experience of enslaved African American people and free African Americans who were still subject to racist laws in the United States.
Ethnicity is not solely based on race. However, due to the race-based history, system, and lifestyle of American society, African Americans tend to prefer to identify racially, rather than ethnically. This racialized identity has created the common misconception that African Americans are virtually a mono-racial African-descendant ethnic group in the United States. Still, the genetic architecture of African Americans is distinct from that of non-American Africans. This is consistent with the history of Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans intermixing during the transatlantic slave trade and race being a social construct created in the United States. Black American ethnicity stems from the unique ethnogenesis of their ancestors. This distinct cultural heritage, forged through generations of shared experience in the United States, differs from that of Black immigrants and their descendants, who, despite being racialized as Black in America, retain their own distinct cultural and ethnic identities. Though both might be racially categorized as "Black," an African immigrant and a Black American have distinct ethnic identities. The immigrant's roots are in their specific African nation, while Black Americans' ethnicity stems from the unique US experiences of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, shaping a distinct culture with its own music, food, and traditions. This blurring of identities has led to misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Black Americans by those who, while also Black, do not share their specific ethnic background
Despite typically carrying segments of DNA shaped by contributions from peoples of Indigenous America, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, the genetics of African Americans can span across more than several continents. Within the African American population, there are no mono-ethnic backgrounds from outside of the U.S., and mono-racial backgrounds are in the minority. Through forced enslavement and admixing, the African American ethnicity, race, lineage, culture, and identity are indigenous to the United States of America. African American ethnicity, race, lineage, culture and identity are not indigenous to America. The transatlantic and Intra-American slave trade both invalidate that statement.