Similarities And Differences Between The Primordialist And...

Orianne Sagrada IS 680 Prof. Woldemikael 14 October 2014 Midterm 1 1. Compare and contrast the primordialist with the instrumentalist/circumstantialist approaches that provide an understanding of the concept of Ethnicity? What is the constructionist perspective? According to constructionism, how do the elites view ethnicity? (Use Introduction from Hutchinson and Smith book Ethnicity and the excerpt of chapters from Cornell and Hartmann that will be posted on blackboard. NB: I used Cornell and Hartmann’s book Ethnicity and Race for my class lecture on approaches to ethnicity.) In Ethnicity by John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith identify two existing camps of ethnicity: primordialist and instrumentalist/circumstantialist. The term ‘priomordialist’ in terms of ethnicity was fathered by Edward Shils, a notable sociologist. Shils sought to differentiate various social bonds-personal, primordial, sacred and civil ties and to demonstrate how even in contemporary, civic societies other types of social bonding existed (Hutchinson and Smith ). After Shils coined the concept of primordialist, late anthropologist, Clifford Greetz advanced the subject and spoke of the ‘overpowering’ and ineffable quality attaching to certain kinds of tie, which the participants tended to see as exterior, coercive, and given. Greetz further emphasized that the catalyst to an effective and successful modern state is the drive for personal identity-a fundamental basis of primordial ties. By definition,