Theories of Ethnicity and Nationalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Theories of Ethnicity and Nationalism - Essay Example She writes: â€Å"The two postwar periods of intense affirmation of ethnic categories in personal, social, cultural and political life were both unexpected. Indeed, in some quarters, re-attachment to the culture and community of birth was seen as a mistake of history. This is because of four distinct but, in this respect, converging processes which marked the world order immediately after the end of World War II: first, the process of de-colonisation and development in Asia and Africa; second, the process of integration in Europe; third, the process of expansion and entrenchment of Soviet communism; and fourth, the creation, in 1945, of the United Nations out of the ashes of the League of Nations. These great transformations were expected to create social conditions in which ethnicity and its related phenomenon, nationalism, would be superseded by more 'modern', universalistic, rational, civic or class-based forms of human identification, striving and association and by internationa l or transnational forms of human governance.† (Epstein, 2009) Following this, the important factors to note in post-war concepts of ethnicity are that nationalism and ethnicity had joined with fascism in the regimes of Germany, Italy, and Japan and this is largely credited with the aggression that fueled WWII. There is a perceived inherent danger of fanaticism in the fusion of identity politics and nationalism with ethnicity that led many to conclude that such belief was a â€Å"mistake of history†. (Epstein, 2009) However, in each instance where Leoussie cites popular expectation academically and popularly for a rejection of ethnicity in favor of international institutions or class-based structures of identity, historical evolution has proved that it did not in fact occur as expected. From this, Leoussie suggests that there are a number of â€Å"backlashes,† that occur in post-war academia that transform the way theories of ethnicity are posited in sociology pa rticularly, but also in related fields of anthropology, history, linguistics, psychology, etc. The four converging processes cited by Leoussie in the post-war era contain innumerable examples where theories of ethnicity and nationalism were proved false by subsequent historical development. In the first instance of de-colonisation in Asia and Africa, it is inevitable that liberation process and creation of new national identity would give birth to a stronger patriotic spirit in the indigenous population. However, many of the colonial areas were Western border constructions and the ethnic mix of the indigenous population contained innumerable different tribal groups, for example as in India, leading to further fragmentation of national identity on ethnic and religious lines, as in the partition of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Socialist and Communist elements of national liberation struggles clearly expected the new identity to be based on class-consciousness and not ethnicity, and th is is replicated in the Soviet example in which innumerable ethnic minorities were repressed. Leoussie cites European integration post-war as a process despite the fact that the continent was divided during the Cold War because the division was on the ideological grounds of communism vs. capitalism rather than based on traditional