Ethnicity and Nationalism: A Critical Interpretation

Ethnicity and nationalism have generally been interpreted as translucent questions of belonging through which particularism and nominalism are fused. The relation between nationalism and ethnicity has also been regarded as a critical continuum of interpretation regarding the universality of identity and its foundational dispositions. While aiming at providing a foundation for the universal character of civic political belonging, classical studies define the relation between ethnicity and nationalism by referencing to an essentialist modality of belonging. This essay introduces a critical reading of the relation between ethnicity and nationalism, which has almost always been subjected to a Cartesian logic of Janus-faced dualisms. This study, first, interprets the context of belonging as regard to the relation between ethnicity and nationalism. Second, by going through contemporary debates in political theory, the essay focuses on the transforming context of the relation between ethnicity and nationalism.