Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Abbreviations used in the text and bibliography
- 1 Phrasing the problem
- 2 The nature and expression of ethnicity: an anthropological view
- 3 The discursive dimension of ethnic identity
- 4 Ethnography and genealogy: an Argolic case-study
- 5 Ethnicity and archaeology
- 6 Ethnicity and linguistics
- 7 Conclusion
- Chronological table
- Chronological table of authors cited in the text
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Phrasing the problem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Abbreviations used in the text and bibliography
- 1 Phrasing the problem
- 2 The nature and expression of ethnicity: an anthropological view
- 3 The discursive dimension of ethnic identity
- 4 Ethnography and genealogy: an Argolic case-study
- 5 Ethnicity and archaeology
- 6 Ethnicity and linguistics
- 7 Conclusion
- Chronological table
- Chronological table of authors cited in the text
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
We live in a world surrounded by ethnic conflict. Since the 1960s, ethnic resurgences have occurred between Walloons and Flemings in Belgium; Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia; Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi and Rwanda; Greeks and Turks in Cyprus; Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in India; Catholics and Protestants in Ireland; Chinese and Malay in Malaysia; Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba in Nigeria; English and French in Québec; Christian Armenians and Muslim Azerbaijanis in the south of the former Soviet Union; and Sinhs and Tamils in Sri Lanka, to name just a few. At first sight, the appearance of a book on ancient ethnicity might seem like a gratuitous and anachronistic exercise, attempting to impose upon antiquity a subject whose true relevance is more topical. Nothing could be further from the truth. Quite apart from the fact that the separation of past and present tends to be dissolved in the proclamation of ethnic claims and counterclaims (consider the dispute that arose between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the so-called ‘Star of Vergina’),the study of ethnic identity in antiquity is nothing new as the remainder of this chapter will demonstrate.
Indeed, from as early as the eighteenth century, classical scholars were interested in examining the fields of art, architecture, music, dress, philosophy, customs and political forms in order to identify the specific ‘character’ of the various ethnic groups which inhabited Greece in antiquity.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity , pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997