Case study 4: Ethnicity and Nationalism

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The extract is from a comparative study of ethnicity in five countries - Australia, Canada and New Zealand, set against the USA and UK experience - and uses the concept of postcolonialism to locate its discussion of the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism. The extract is taken from the book's introduction. This material is of particular interest to chapter 7 (on race and ethnicity) and chapter 8 (on power, politics and the state).

Questions

1. Summarise the material in the case study, using the dualisms contained in it (inclusion and exclusion; culturalisms and colonialisms; citizenship and sovereignty) to structure your summary. Try to use no more than 150 words.
2. The comparative method is the classical sociological technique. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this method, using material from the case study to support the points you make.
3. What do you think is meant by the sentence, 'Resultant borders may be seen as sites of struggle over ideological collectivisation, language formation and the mobilisation of identity and action.' Give examples from you own society of each of these aspects of ethnic categorisation.
4. Evaluate the claim that 'nationality, "race" and ethnicity are not natural categories or predetermined identities, they are political constructs with shifting memberships and meanings.'
5. In what ways does ethnic difference manifest itself in terms of inequality in societies and how do societies seek to overcome such inequality?
6. The passage suggests that migration and egalitarian ideologies are 'major components of the modernisation of both metropolis and satellites'. How important are these factors in relation to other modernising forces?
7. How powerful a force in education is the ideology of multiculturalism? What alternatives are there to a multicultural curriculum? Evaluate their relative effects.
8. To what extent would you agree that we live in a 'postcolonial' world? Use information from the extract in your response.

   Source: Pearson, D. (2001) The Politics of Ethnicity in Settler Societies: states of unease, Basingstoke, Palgrave, pages 16-24.