I Papers/Articles/Beitriige ETHNICISM AND CULTUROLOGY THE CULTURAL IDENTITY OF REGIONAL AND IMMIGRANT GROUPS 4 CARLA BIANCO Cattedra di Antropologia Culturale, Firenze, Italy Ethnic consciousness and cultural identity are becoming interwoven and mobilizing concepts everywhere. The phenomena appear both in anthropological research and in the field of social and political action. Terms such as “ethnic culture” and “ethnicity” are used with reference to a vast set of needs and attitudes most of which, however, depend upon processes hardly explicable merely in terms of ethnic or cultural factors. In countries with large immigrant populations — c.g. the United States or Canada — the issue of ethnicity is increasingly important among minority groups, in spite of the vagueness that characterizes the concept. Here, in fact, cultural identity and ethnic or immigrant group are frequently used as synonymous terms; the culture of the so-called ethnic minorities, which now occupies much of the larger cultural debate, is generally intended as “culture-of-origin”, without distinction among such diverse entities as Neapolitans, Africans, Sicilians, or Jews. In addition, the now popular concept of “origin” seems to be more associated with nature than with society. In Europe, too, ethnicity is receiving increasing attention. It would appear that, as the traditional object of antropological study — the “primitive” — is receiving less attention due to its changing economic and political role, the study of our domestic ethnicity is increasing. This is revealed, for example, by an increasing number of publications, as well as economic and social policies aimed at dealing with ethnic problems, especially problems which have given rise to political militancy by ethnic groups. Even though the once prohibiting distances are no longer a problem, ethnographic field trips stay less far from home. Here, in spite of the ever-moribund state of folklore, it is still possible to study minorities — ethnic, linguistic, religious — and to inquire into their identities.152 This Paper will try to examine both the factors which explain this renewed interest in ethnicity and the forms it takes as well as its potential either for social growth or involution. In particular, I shall concentrate on the cases in which the concept of cultural identity seems mainly to be associated with territorial origins and to be synonymous with ethnic or immigrant group’. Also, the question will be posed as to whether it is possible to define this type of cultural identity without being too generic and without adopting culturological viewpoints and concepts. The cases I shall deal with cannot be exhaustive of the complexity of existing situations; rather they are a means for examining certain conceptual and methodological preoccupations concerning the study of the difficult acculturation problems. Hence, the somewhat polemical tone of my discussion, which is certainly not due to an intention to disregard the problems of minorities?. A central question, in fact, cannot be here: the history of the so-called ethnic revivals runs parallel to those of class struggle and liberation from the bondage of colonialism, “ethnocide” and slavery. The analogy of these must be continually borne in mind as it may explain why the problem of ethnic-cultural identity is so crucial (and even explosive) today. However, as this article will try to show, the ideologization of ethnicity and the emotional tension which inevitably surrounds it result in reabsorbing and exorcising those tragic historical realities. In this way they can become gratifying substitutes for a real commitment to their solution. Too often, that is, explanations in terms of ethnicity do not go much beyond a loose relativistic orientation. THE CULTUROLOGY OF ETHNIC DIFFERENCES Undoubtedly, the concept of ethnicity does present a difficult cognitive and political challenge, which would call for a variety of approaches considering the different contexts in which it exists today. For example, the implications posed by the ethnicity of the peoples emerging from colonialism are quite specific when compared whith the ethnic pro- blems of Western Europe or of the United States’. However, since the t world trend is characterized by deep and far-reaching contacts, it is wrong to ignore such changes or to hypothesize the opportunity or the possibility of preventing change. I therefore agree with Boissevain (1975, p. 16), when he complains of the continuing trend of anthro- pologists to disregard the complex realities of modem societies, to cling to a search for the eternal primitive and folk humanity, and to ignore5 eae 5 stn wa eae ne na re 153 the vast of acculturation which meanwhile are changing the world, w! we like ic or not. On the other hand, while these overwhelming waves of change do stimulate the so-called “peripheries” in acquiring a consciousness of the degree of exploitation they are subjected to, it is generally the case that these peripheries curiously limit their claim for cultural autonomy to a condemnation of the historical processes of transformation and pro- gress, which appear to them as levelling and damaging their traditional identity, and a refusal to accept them. It is often apparent that this levelling action affects the superficial and external aspects of life, rather than its stucrure. We could not otherwise explain why the same forces holding the monopoly of international consumerism are also in promoting and supporting the preservation and readoption of those traditional modalities which are supposed to “distinguish”, “identify”, and “typify” human varieties wherever rooted or diffused. The levelling is in te largely limited to the diffusion of behaviours and choices planned and decided elsewhere, “choices without power” as Signorelli (1975)* would say. What is of most concern now is that the spreading of this cloak of superficial uniformity (with its undeniable effects of acculturation) is too often viewed as the embodiment of progress itself, as the inevitable product of modernity, or as the horrible child of science. And, as this kind of identification takes place, an irrational rejection of modemity per se also ensues, with a loss of interest for both present and future processes which become automatically the carriers of anonimity, confusion, inhumanity. By contrast, while the cultural dimension of the past — in its multiple facets of ancestral wisdom, roots, and humanity — becomes suddenly rich in cognitive transparency and identity’, another aspect remains unnoticed: the present levelling violence largely results from conditions firmly established and shaped in that same past which is now being investigated for the re-discovery of its celebrated human dimension and its treasure of cultural varieties. Things begin to become obfuscated when: a) 2 so-called “real” identity is exclusively conceived in terms of ethnic parameters, b) the ancestral past is explored to find here the only cultural modalities valid for social interaction today, c) the ideology of ethnicity is encouraged and sponsored at the dominant-official levels of power. It is at this point that distinctive categories may be imagined and defended which may cause ~ as they did in the past — sod and scientific misconceptions. Differential parameters which distinguish between us and them, if exclusively based on ethnic factors, seem highly ambiguous and un- fealistic for the dynamics of modern social interaction. This view, in154 fact, conceives affinity in terms of a vertical and falsely coherent bloc, which overlooks the internal social fragmentation and power relations and somehow resembles the Romantic positions. There are cases in which we see ex-peasant and immigrant groups compelled toa pathetic search for a return to ethnicity that nears a process of self-exoticization. This is almost inevitable when a traditional image is re-enacted in spite of its defunctionalized character, inappropriate to the new vital con- texts. Apart from these extreme cases, ethnicity does designate a global formation, quite precarious in its contours, and with a claim of an internal solidarity inherited (or inheritable) from a “common” past. I realize that a thorough discussion of ethnicity would require a con- comitant analysis of such other concepts as national character, incultu- ration, ethnocentrism, underdevelopment and nativism®. For the time being, however, it will suffice to draw attention to the spreading of attitudes which, by activating a sort of sacralization of ethnic dif- ferences, may be the vehicle for patterns of false consciousness, distorted explanation of social inequalities, and even a legitimation of the status 7, I shall now try to present the above phenomena as they appear ym. my own research experience. ETHNIC “MIXTURE”: FROM UNDESIRABLE TO “BEAUTIFUL” In a “country of immigrants”, as the Unites States has been called, “ethnic invisibility” has long been the desired aim for worried social planners and scientists®. By contrast, ethnicity has today auchority at all levels of political, academic, and interpersonal relations. Let us briefly examine the connotations of the most important ethnic groupings and phe ope of affinity or solidarity on which each ethnic affiliation is The present configuration of ethnic groups emerges from the his- torical processes which gave the country its present demographic, economic, and political setting. Within this frame; a few distinctions can be made: i) When an ethnic group refers itself to one of those northern European groups which have variously contributed to the formation of the present power elites, then, its modern descendants usually enjoy the prestigious status of “old settlers” or “pioneers”. They are often called with umbrella names, such as “Anglo-Saxon” or “protestant”, and ordinarily do not need more specialized iden- tifications. ii) For probably opposite reasons, a more specific denomination than those of “Negro”, “Black”, or “Afro-American”, is not used for the modem descendants of the various African peoples155 whose long slavery in America has accumulated so many painful memories. iii) There are, of course, the many fragments of the Indian people, divided as they are “between a bourgeoisification of their ancestral culture and a nativistic revival for social and culeural eman- Gpation” (Lanternari, 1977, p. 130). iv) Finally, an ethnic group may refer to the “New Immigration”!, whose members were the peasant masses from southern and eastern Europe (Italians; Poles, Greeks, Hungarians), central and castern European Jews, and groups coming from Asia and the Middle East. In all these cases, ethnicity is charac- terized on the basis of territorial, linguistic, and/or religious origin, but, in state of belonging to the dominant-hegemonic sphere of the society — as it was for the “Old Immigration” — its components have variously joined (with the Blacks) the less priviliged strata of socio-economic life. Each such group is usually identified with specific though inconsistent denominations such as Italian, Polish, Jewish, Sicilian, Hungarian. In the present wave of ethnicity — or of ethnicistic reaffiliation — it is possible to distinghuish a few recurrent trends. The new call for an ethnic identity is rather successful as it is accompanied by a weak political consciousness. In this situation, ethnicity proposes a frame of Policical interaction and perception which mostly avoids overall ana- and discussion of the social system and tends to explain social dynamics and politics in terms of ethnic allegiance, values, and identity. In a country where slavery has erected some durable barriers, the tissue of social life is still permeated by veins of racist attitudes. But while the present ethnic consciousness is for the Blacks the clear result of a long history of exploitation and oppression, white ethnicity is far more ambiguous. It is possible, among other things, that its present revival is indirectly influenced by the racist-oriented attitudes men- tioned above which lend to ethnicity an irrational view of the supposed qualities typifying human groups and their differences. Some curious ideas circulate, in fact, about the modes of transmission and continuity of an ethnic identity and culture: as indicated before, ethnic differences are attributed to different origins and roots, where the concepts of “origin” and “roots” are closely associated with one of nature: hence, it is spontancous and genuine, free and creative, in one word, synonymous with “human”. Thus acquiring an ethnic identity means recapturing a lost innocence from ancestral memories and using it as an alternative to an artificial modern society. Such a rescue is not only desirable; it is secured by the sound and healthy qualities of ethnic traditions. Often, the recurrent note in the ethnicity of white minorities consists in agnostic or even conservative attitudes towards the cognitive and156 operative problems of society. There is a shifting from a concept of society to that of ethnicity, where the latter is believed as capable of offering: a) an original defence from the anxieties of modem life, b) an officially approved means for soical advancement. Presenting oneself as belonging to a given ethnic group (ic. “I am Italian”, “I am Hungarian”, etc.) is now socially positive and approved as a means of group identification. In this respect the appeal to class is less successful. The recourse to ethnic issues is old in the history of societies, but it is useful to remember that (although with opposite intentions) the initiative has come both from the side of the oppressor (i.e., the “centre”) and from that of the victim (i.¢., the “periphery”. Sadly famous are the cases in which the ideologization of some kind of ethnicity has degenerated into the destructive fury of racism and eth- nocide. Then, come the cases, less dramatic but common, in which governments have nurtured regionalistic or ethnicistic prides and types, with the purpose of excluding certain groups from social initiative and political consciousness. Moreover, ethnic differences have often been used to “explain” social problems ~ due to factors certainly neither ethnic or cultural. For example, a sort of “ethnic alarm” was launched in the United States when, at the beginning of this cencury, social and economic unease rose to an explosive level. Huge masses of immigrants had flocked to America, attracted there by a productive system which needed cheap and large reserves of labour for its fast growth. The great mixture of peoples thus gathered in a short time was accepted as a sort of necessary disease by the power elite. But, as soon as the modes and the rhythms of the productive system demanded a less numerous and more specialized labour force, growing difficulties started: unemployment ca spreading reality and soon enough strong forms of organized protest and acute social conflicts were seen. The growing social tension offered the occasion for the explosion of the official debate on “ethnic pro- blems”. The cause of the contemporary social unrest was to be found in the ethnic “mixture”, namely, in the lack of “assimilable qualities” (to the Anglo-Saxon model) that characterized some of the ethnic “speci- men”! Finally, when the xenophobic hysteria reached its climax, it seemed necessary to stop the entrance of these diversified “hordes”. Here is what one of the scientists engaged in the discussion, the anthropologist Madison Grant, had to say in his The Passing of the Great Race: The New Immigration contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken, and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the157 Medicerrancan basin and the Balkans, together with the hordes (sic!) of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish ghettoes . .. Were peoples from all those races — alien as they are in mind, in outlook, and in instinct — actually needed for any purpose? (Grant, 1922, p. v.) This is how, after the failure of the “assimilation” dream, which should have made invisible the disturbing cultural diversities, the Quota Law on Immigration (1924) drastically reduced almost to zero the number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. All the subsequent i itinerary of “applied” sociological thinking and research closely followed the morphology of the ever-present ethnic “mixtures”. And so, while the majority of the immigrants were still busy in trying to lose or to shed their “ethnic visibility”, the socio- logical brains shifted from the hypothesis of a melting pot (or fusion, which sounded good to many, but never took place, and anyway did not include the black varieties in the pot), to various attenuated concepts of assimilation, by which the original cultures had to be adapted, absorbed, integrated, accomodated, adjusted. Gradually, the pro- blematic persistence of wide differentiations was acknowledged and the issue became to concentrate on their study: either separately, as auto- fNomous micro-cultures, in a sort of functionalistic perspective, or in the interplay of their mutual contacts (hence, the development of “culeure contact” studies, the studies on “national character”, on “community and value system”, etc.). I do not intend to present here a sort of parody-picture of the evolution of applied social sciences in the United States: I only wish to indicate some remarkable antecedents to the present culturological positions as it refers to the question of ethnicity and cultural identity. Probably, the powerful explosion of the black movements has off- ered an important stimulus to white ethnicity. However, it often emerges that the latter is far from being 2 phenomenon which originates freely from the “peripheries” or marginal minorities, as a rescuing movement that clearly knows what its objective is and who its interlocutor (or antagonist) is. Everyone is an “ethnic” or a potential ‘one, since “ethnic is beautiful” now'? and “ethnicity must be the word” today (Smithsonian, 1973, p. 3); this rather than the advent of cultural poverty for American society, the loss of roots, and the spreading of a grey uniformity. The danger, now, lies in the suffocation of the natural genes which came from far away ~ from the origin — to enrich American culture. Ethnic ears are at last caressed: they are told to keep their distinctive character forever, to learn of others’ ethnicity (ethnic understanding will fix social unrest now?), and to meditate on the158 fabulous creativity of ethnic tradition. A warm (ethnic) solidarity will embrace the lonely American and compensate him for the frustration, alienation, and loss of identity that fatally stems from modern society. Only away from the social struggle and in the middle of “ethno- equals”, man can re-discover group values and community spirit. “Join your ethnic equals and stay as you are, possibly, the way your ancestors were, here or elsewhere”, seems to be the suggestion. It is hardly necessary to notice how this notion of equality may prevent onc from seeing as equals members of other ethnic groups, in spite of existing social, economic, or political similarities. Concepts of social structure and social dynamics thus become substituted by an ethnic interpre- tation of the social map and social classes. The increasing social anxieties and the crisis investing the economic and political and the confidence in the capitalistic ethic are thus shaded, and the attention is concentrated on the revival of lost identities and original roles. The debate on these issues is articulated on a variety of themes — folklore, linguistic, educational, religious. Such thematic richness, however, could be synthesized here with the theses of the so-called “primordialists” on the one side, and those of the “contextualists”, on the other. The former theorize on the fact that ethnic differences are primordial, that man is created within an ethnic group, and that serious troubles follew a policy which disregards the ethnic nature of human formations. The latter claim, more judiciously, posits the fundamental importance of historical contexts in which cultural processes take place, independently from the primordial datum", On the other hand, Glazer and Moynihan, who have often worked together on the theme of ethnic identity, maintain that ethnicity marks the appearance of something so new as to escape definition: they theorize that, as an organizing Principle, “ethnicity” is to be preferred to that of “social class”, since sufficient conflicts of norms and values do not exist — according to them — between most social classes, whereas they would exist berween ethnic sroups (Glazer and Moynihan, 1963, p. 2, and 1975, p. 15). In my effort to analyze the officially promoted and exclusively origin-oriented type of ethnicity, I shall now attempt a rough synthesis of the best-known positions held on what has been called the “dilemma of Black culture” in America. I am fully aware of the incompleteness I am forced to here, but I hope that even a brief consideration of the debate abou Black culture can help to clarify the problems discussed in this paper.159 THE “BLACK DILEMMA”: AFRICAN OR EUROPEAN? It may be that the sharp contrast on the contentious issue of Black culture actually reflects more general hesitancies — political and scientific ones - on the way of conceiving the relationship between culture and society. A glance at recent publications will show that the old question of the African or the European lominance in Afro- American culture is still a ceneral issue. Therefore, due to the general acceptance of the notion of “culture of origin” as the main factor in ethnic group identity and persistence, it is only logical that a fun- damentally cultural causality (based on origin) should be the recurrent culturological explanation for the behaviour of today’s Afro- Americans". It is quite interesting to see how American Blacks have been, and still are, the object of a discussion which too often shifts from the level of myth to that of erudition, between history and fantasy. The quarrel over the amount of African versus European traits tends to reabsorb much of the real substance of the question. Here in random order is a brief list of the most recurrent positions. 1, Many debaters establish the presence or absence of African traits by means of diffusionistic criteria, that is by comparing individual “traits” or “complexes” along spatial-temporal lines of diffusion. This kind of analysis rests on a concept of culture which hypothesizes the possibility of disaggregating and reaggregating the minimal components of the entire cultural body, or of such parts as dance, music, kinship, narrative, etc. The purpose is that of tracing back the itineraries covered by each trait, in order to discover the moment and place of first invention (the origin, or archetype). Curiously, contrasting conclusions have often distinguished this method, so that “proofs” have assigned European and African origins to the same element. A question could be asked here: to what extent can similarities, or even identities, traced in Europe or in America help to understand the present reality of Black American culture? 2A predominancly African culture is claimed on the basis of issues indicated in this paper, that is: a) “Africanness” is viewed in con- traposition to a European model, b) it is Romantically correlated to a supposedly “natural” culture, c) its “naturalness” secures genuine qualities, d) this “natural” authenticity gave the culture the strength to survive amid the troubles of slavery, ¢) its “natural” strength makes it a valid alternative to present American reality’.160 3. A common view attributes to certain cultural forms — especially kinship and expressive forms — a wider persistence when compared with other forms. However, in spite of a generic agreement over such continuity, sharply distinctive positions emerge, on the one hand, with the extreme thesis of Fogel and Engerman (1974), who come to the amazing conclusion that family and sexual patterns were intentionally respected and protected by the slave system, and, on the other hand, with the more realistic positions of those who maintain that, if certain kinship patterns have shown a great readaptation and refunctionalization trend in the new life context, this happened only in spite of the destructive blows of slavery'®. 4. Finally, of the large group of scholars holding the opposite thesis, that ofa total loss of the African image, only a few can be mentioned here: first the black leader George Ruffin, who urged in the past for a quick abandonment of everything African: “The Negro must go; his fate is sealed; he must be swallowed up and merged in the mass of Southern people . . . the merging . . . is inevitable.” (Levine, 1977, p. 151). Then, come various of bio-deterministic positions, in which A. Montagu (1975) takes a very controversial stand support- ing the thesis of the “socio-psychological deprivation and con- sequent brain damage” resulting from the destructive action of slavery. Finally, among the supporters of the lost African identity, the black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier (1939) proposes an image of a “naked Negro”, as a being without any culture, while Glazer and Moynihan say that “the Negro is only an American and nothing else. He has no values and culture to guard and protect.” (Glazer & Moynihan, 1963, p. 53). Finally, Stanford Lyman finds chat “the Black has been deprived of history and with this deprivation not only the past, but also the future is wiped out.” (Stanford, 1972, p. 183). This picture of the complex debate on American Black ethnicity is far from exhaustive. However, as Valentine also states in an important critique of Montagu’s hypothesis, the overall impression is that, in spite of the seemingly different or even opposite positions, there is acommon rationalization of differences which relies on a culeurological interpre- tation of human behaviour: this type of interpretation ends up with a form of complicity in perpetuating inequality (and “periphery”?). Returning to the central question of this paper, I think that the last consideration could be extended to some of the problems previously discussed. The ideologization of ethnic/cultural differences as per-161 manent attributes, as a sort of automatic cultural pilot, actually works in a double direction: It may offer a pole of reassuring solidarity by means of a distinctive group image, that enables its members to “be- long” and to maintain their self-esteem — what Epstein (1978, p. 5) calls the “cognitive and affective dimension of ethnicity”. At the same time, however, in circumstances of deep social crisis and/or political upheavals, those same cultural indicators that now seem to reveal and protect the rich varieties of the cultural panorama, might suddenly — and once again — be used to “explain” social problems and again they could be marked by disdain and condemnation. CONCLUSION My conclusion is highly tentative. The problem is no longer that of acknowledging the obvious existence and the equal cultural dignity of the various cultural patternings of mankind. What now seems urgent is probably more difficult: a systematic effort towards a scientific inter- pretation of the many factors of peripheral, regional, or ethnic culture, abandoning the Romantic flirtation with the ideas of roots, origin, and natural culture. Among other things, a responsible effort in this sense would help the “peripheries” to avoid yet further exclusion and lead hate to reject the adoption of paradoxical slogans such as “periphery is utiful”. NOTES 1 For che Italian debate on ethnicity, see: Angioni (1975) and Corriga (1977). 2. Many years of my research activity have in fact been spent in studying Italian immigrant groups in the United States and in Canada; see Bianco (1974a). 3 However, I do not agree in attributing to the culcural features of non-western societies a thoroughly different nature, to the point of refraining from identifying useful analogies which can help in exploring more general human conditions. Ic is precisely this ideology of clear-cut differences that I find conducive of culturological risks and of extreme relativism, to say the least. 4 CE. the title of her study of the cultural “choices” of returning migrants in Italy: “Choices without power” (Signorelli, 1977). 5 Somehow, the myth of the Lost Paradise is present here, with the idea of a time in which man was gifted with subsequently lost treasures and knowledge which now must be reopened revived, etc 6 For material on this cheme in Italy see: Lantemnari (1977 and 1978) and Cirese (1976 and 1977). 7 A partial discussion of chese themes can be found in Bianco (1974b). 8 The hope had been that each group would in time have lost its own original conno- tations, assimilating the already established model — socially acceptable — that is, the162 Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, White, North-European onc. On the question of “in- visibility”, see Borrie (1959, p. 91). 9 For an overall presentation of American immigration, sce Jones (1960). 10 The period 1880-1924, see Jones (1960), op. cit. 11 For the discussion on the “assimilable qualities” see Borrie (1959) op. cit. 12. Clearly parodied from the language of the Black movements. Asalways, the past becomes beautiful once it is. 13 See: H. R. Isaacs, D. “L. Horowitz and O. Patterson in Glazer and Moynihan (1975). 14 However, a few important stands have been taken against this culturalistic rationalization of social inequalities and behaviour. See Valentine & Valentine (1975, pp. 129-130). 15 On the concepts of “spontaneous and natural culture”, see Ciresc (1976), and also Fanon (1961, chapr. 4). 16 See Gutman (1976) and also Levine (1977). REFERENCES ANGIONI, G. (1975), Rapporti di produzione e cultura subalterna (Cagliari: E.D.ES.) BIANCO, C. (1974a), The Two Rosetos (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). BIANCO, C. (1974b), Immigrazione ed etnicismo, Studi Emigraztone, 37, 96-108. BOISSEVAIN, J. (1975), Beyond the Community (The Hague: Dept. of Educational Science of the Netherlands). BORRIE, W. D. (1959), “Concepts and Practices” in The Cultural Integration of Immigrants (Paris; UNESCO). GRESE, A. M. (1976), Intelleteuali, folklore, istinto di classe (Torino: Einaudi). ‘CURESE, A. M, (1977), Oggetti, segni, musei (Torino: Einaudi). CorRiGa, C. (1977), Etnia, lingua, culeura (Cagliari: E.D.ES.). EPSTEIN, A. L. (1978), Ethos and Identity (London: Tavistock). FANON, F. (1961), Les damnés de la terre (Paris: Maspéro), FOGEL, W. & S. L. ENGERMAN (1974), Time on the Cross (Boston: Little, Brown and Co.). FRAZIER, F. (1939), The Negro Family in the United States (Revised Edition: New York: Dryden Press, 1948). GLAZER, N. & P, MOYNIHAN (1963), Beyond the Melting Pot (Boston: M.I.T.). GLAZER, N. & P. MOYNIHAN, editors(1975), Ethnicity: Theory and Experience ( idge: Harvard University Press). GRANT, M. (1922), The Passing of the Great Race (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons). Gutman, H. G. (1976), The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom (New York: Vintage). Horowi!7z, D. L. (1975), “Ethnic Identity” in Glazer & Moynihan (1975), 111-140. ISAACS, H. R. (1975), “Basic Group Identity”, in Glazer & Moynihan (1975), 25-52. JONES, M. (1960), American Immigration (Chicago: Chicago University Press). LANTERNARI, V. (1976), Crisi ¢ ricerca di identied (Napoli: Liguri). LANTERNARI, V. (1978), Etnocentrismi: dall’actitudine all’ideologia, Comunita, 180 (Oct.): 1-66. LEVINE, L. W. (1977), Black Culture and Black Consciousness (New York: Oxford Univ. Press). LYMAN, S. (1973), The Black American in Sociological Thought (New York: Putnam). MONTAG, A. (1972), “Sociogennic Brain Damage”, American Anthropologist, 74: 1045-61. PATTERSON, O. (1975), “Context and Choices in Ethnic Allegiance”, in Glazer & Moynihan (1975), 305-349.163 SIGNORELL, A. (1977), Scelee senza potere. Il ritomo degli emigranti nelle zone dell'esodo (Roma: Oficina). SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION (1973), Festival of American Life (Washington, D.C.). VALENTINE, C. A. & B. VALENTINE (1975), Brain Damage and the Intellectual Defence of Inequality, Current Anthropology, 129-130. SUMMARY This article draws attention to certain problems associated with the recent enthusiastic revival of ethnicistic positions. Such positions in- clude the search for “cultural identity” in the ancestral past, a neo- Romantic view of a genuine and spontaneous “natural culture”, and a belief that an “original culture” has eternal qualities which make human groups “distinct” and “typical” regardless of the changing social context. Moreover, such viewpoints are sometimes scen as a valid reaction to the supposedly negative and dangerously levelling forces of modern society. Taking the example of the radical transformation in the use of the concept of “ethnicity” in the United States in the last 50-60 years, the article attempts to show how ethnic revivals today are encouraged, if not directed, from the so-called dominant “centres”. The irony is, therefore, that the very power sources which produce, through their economic and political strategies, levelling effects also encourage movements against such effects. RESUME Cet article tente d’attirer l’artention des scientifiques sur les risques «culeurologiques» qu’impliquent les courants actuels de retour en- chousiante ¢ des positions ethnicistes telles que la quéte de sa «propre identité culturelley dans un passé ancestral; a conception néo-roman- tique de la culture naturelle, authentique et spontanée; la croyance qu’une «culture originelle» peut se perpétuer éternellement et donc continuer 4 «distinguer», «caractériser», «identifier», ou «représenter» vraiment et toujours les groupes humains, quel que soit le contexte social nouveau; !’idée qu’ils peuvent aussi étre une saine réaction contre Ja force de nivellement de la société moderne; une sorte de complaisance dans les images-concepts de primitif, périphérique, régional, rural par opposition a central, dominant, officiel, urbain; tout ceci étant fondé sur un critére d’origine cthnique plutét que sur un critére socio-éco- nomique.164 Larticle fait appel aux changements radicaux apparus dans le concept @aethnicité» Oe Etats-Unis dans les derniéres 50 ou 60 années: ct exemple sert 4 montrer que les reviviscences ethniques d’aujourd’hui — et pas seulement aux Etats-Unis — sont actuellement planifiées, ou du moins encouragées, a partir des soi-disants «centres» dominants. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Dieser Beitrag versucht die Aufmerksamkeit der Wissenschaft auf dic Kulturwissenschaftlichen Gefahren zu lenken, die in den gegenwir- tigen Wellen eines enthusiastischen Wiederauflebens ethnizistischer Positionen liegen, wie da sind: Das allgemeine Suchen nach der cigenen wkulturellen Identicét” in der angestammeen Vergangenheit; cin neoromantisches Konzept der ,,natiirlichen Kultuc”, urspriinglich und zwangsfrei; der Glaube, daB eine ,,urspriingliche Kultur” Qualitéten habe, die ewig tiberliefert werden kénnten und derart bestindig scien, daB Menschen; unter Vernachlissigung der neuen sozialen Kontexte nur dadurch wirklich und immer zu ,,unterscheiden”, ,,cha- rakterisieren”, ,,identifizieren”, ,,typisieren” scien und daB eine solche Kultur eine wirksame Reaktion sei auf die schidlichen, gleichmacher- ischen Krifte der modernen Gesellschaft; cine Art ,,Liebdugelei” mit den Begriffsbildern einfach, peripher, regional, lindlich im Gegensatz zu zentral, herrschend, offiziell, stidtisch etc., deren Unter- scheidungsgrundlagen cher auf einem ,,ethnischen Ursprung” beruhen als auf einem sozio-6konomischen. Der Artikel fiihrt die radikale Verinderung, dem das Konzept des »Volkstums” in den Vereinigten Staaten in den vergangenen 50-60 Jahren unterlag, als Beispeil an, um aufzuzeigen, wie sehr das Wieder- aufleben von ethnizistischen Positionen (und nicht nur in Amerika) aktuell geplant oder zumindest unterstiitzt wird von den sogenannten herrschenden ».Zentren”.Copyright © 2003 EBSCO Publishing