Ethnicity in Time and Space: A Conceptual Analysis

The study of ethnicity has largely developed in two different and for the most part incommensurable directions of research: the temporal and the spatial. The main aim of this paper is to critically engage with these two dominant paradigms of research in order to articulate a more coherent sociological concept of ethnicity. The author argues that the principal weaknesses of the temporal perspective are cultural reductionism and historical determinism whereas the spatial perspective suffers from analytical particularism and inflexible collectivism. To circumvent these epistemological problems it is necessary to articulate an alternative general understanding that conceptualizes ethnicity as a universal, interactive social situation.