[lbo-talk] Fwd: Notes from the Siege 9&10

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Jul 27 10:49:17 PDT 2006


Chris:

Sure you can. If Ukrainians were to move to Moscow, adopt completely Russian customs, and speak the Russian language exclusively, in a generation or two they would be Russians. They would have assimilated.

[WS:] Ukrainians share the same ethnicity as Russians, or for that matter, Poles, Czechs, Germans or Swedes. You seem to be confusing nationality, which is collective identity based on "socially constructed" traits (e.g. common language, or residence in a particular territory), and ethnicity, which is identity based on traits that are transmitted genetically (e.g. skin color, facial features, etc.)

The fact that these sets of genetically transmitted traits are so fluid that they are essentially incapable of producing clearly defined, unambiguous classes does not mean that there are no clear distinctions in how people construct their collective identities. Whether an identity is built on characteristic to which an individual is born and which he/she cannot change, or on those which individuals acquire through learning and thus can be changed (at least in principle) is not only a pretty clear distinction, but also makes the whole difference in the world.

Wojtek



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