Editing Ethnicity (section)

==Ethnicity and nationality==
{{Further|Nation state|minority group}}
{{Political anthropology|expanded=Basic concepts}}

In some cases, especially those involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner<ref>Gellner 2006 ''Nations and Nationalism'' Blackwell Publishing</ref> and Benedict Anderson<ref>Anderson 2006 ''Imagined Communities'' Version</ref> see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries.
Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and [[nation]], developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when [[mercantilism]] and [[capitalism]] were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that [[Sovereign state|state]] boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined.

In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". [[Nation-state]]s, however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation in their nation-state.<ref>Walter Pohl, [http://www.kroraina.com/bulgar/pohl_etnicity.html "Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies"], ''Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings'', ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, (Blackwell), 1998, pp 13–24, notes that historians have projected the 19th-century conceptions of the nation-state backward in time, employing biological metaphors of birth and growth: "that the peoples in the [[Migration Period]] had little to do with those heroic (or sometimes brutish) clichés is now generally accepted among historians", he remarked. Early medieval peoples were far less homogeneous than often thought, and Pohl follows Reinhard Wenskus, ''Stammesbildung und Verfassung''. (Cologne and Graz) 1961, whose research into the "ethnogenesis" of the [[Germanic people|German]] peoples convinced him that the idea of common origin, as expressed by [[Isidore of Seville]] ''Gens est multitudo ab uno principio orta'' ("a people is a multitude stemming from one origin") which continues in the original ''Etymologiae'' IX.2.i) ''"sive ab Alia national Secundum program collection distinct'' ("or distinguished from another people by its properties") was a myth. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150423094927/http://kroraina.com/bulgar/pohl_etnicity.html |date=2015-04-23 }}.</ref> Under these conditions{{spaces}}when people moved from one state to another,<ref>Aihway Ong 1996 "Cultural Citizenship in the Making" in ''Current Anthropology'' 37(5)</ref> or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries{{snd}}ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state.

[[Multi-ethnic state]]s can be the result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of [[Ethnic minority|ethnic minorities]] into a former nation-state.
Examples for the first case are found throughout [[Africa]], where countries created during [[decolonization]] inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as [[Belgium]] or [[United Kingdom]]. Examples for the second case are countries such as [[Netherlands]], which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the [[United Kingdom]], [[France]] and [[Switzerland]] comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed "[[multicultural]]" societies, especially in large cities.

The states of the [[New World]] were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations.

In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis)<ref>Nira Yuval-Davis, ''Gender & Nation'' (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997)</ref> have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to the public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent.<ref>Nira Yuval-Davis, ''Gender & Nation'' (London: [[SAGE Publications]] Ltd, 1997) pp. 12–13</ref> It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific collectivity.<ref>Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis "Woman–Nation-State" (London: Macmillan, 1989), p.{{spaces}}9</ref> Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute the kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as [[Britannia]] or [[Marianne]].