A Critical Understanding of Ethnicity

It takes at least two something to create a difference ... Clearly each alone is-for the mind and perception-a non-entity, a non-being. Not different from being, and not different from non-being. An unknowable, a Ding an sich, a sound from one hand clapping (Bateson, 1979-78). The concept of ethnicity has been largely discussed by different scholars and the social scientists including anthropologists and sociologists are making more in depth understanding of the topic. 1be study of ethnicity has been dominated by debates between 'primordialism' and 'instrumentalism', and 'Constructivism' and 'essentialism'. Scholars have attempted to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations in the context of debates over multiculturalism. These debates show that the concept of ethnicity has a critical understanding in the world anthropology as it has been used to determine a distinction between the marginalized and the larger group of people in society. Therefore, in this article an attempt has been made to clarify the critical understanding of ethnicity which would focus light on what actually means by ethnicity and how can this be interpreted.