2023/10/16 by Tiesler, Nina Clara
paper · doi:10.58002/mebw-4j48
Abstract: This paper seeks to contribute to the theoretical understandings of ethnicity, ethnic membership formations and (de-)ethnization processes. It presents an overview of the use of an early, constructivist process category that has nearly been forgotten: ethnogenesis. It was employed in international scholarship across disciplines already before the “ethnic revival” in American discourse in the 1970s and/or the emergence of the discourse on “urban ethnicities”. Accordingly to the manifold of perspectives on – and definitions of – ethnicity, tracing the conceptual history of the term ethnogenesis from the late 19th century up to the present day leads to insights into diverse scholarly traditions. It also illuminates the ways the concept was used, which is dependent on the very specific historic (and political) context of research. The study’s empirical findings were found using the search engine JSTOR as it provided going deeper into the academic exchange between US and Soviet scholars.