The Earth's Inhabitants Scattered: The Relationship between Ethnicity and Diaspora

Abstract

In the flowery days of the 1960s, many scholars supported the modernization paradigm, by which developments in the industrialized world would override ethnic and other divisive categories. Sociologists foresaw the spread of modernization and its prevalence over tribal identities; Marxists (semi or neo) pointed to the overlap of ethnicity and class in societies in which particular stigmatized ethnic groups, such as gypsies in Hungary, or Falashas³ (Beta Israel) in Ethiopia, were congregated in the lower social and economic echelons of society, according to occupational specialization and low income. According to the socialist paradigm, class ties would emerge as authentic ties binding like-minded people, and ethnicity would come to be seen as a mere facade for class.

Citation

Weil, S. (2006), "The Earth's Inhabitants Scattered: The Relationship between Ethnicity and Diaspora", Hutchison, R. and Krase, J. (Ed.) Ethnic Landscapes in an Urban World (Research in Urban Sociology, Vol. 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1047-0042(06)08001-9