139-537: The Peranakan Chinese ( / p ə ˈ r ɑː n ə ˌ k ɑː n , - k ən / ) are an ethnic group defined by their genealogical descent from the first waves of Southern Chinese settlers to maritime Southeast Asia , known as Nanyang ( Chinese : 南洋 ; pinyin : nán yáng ; lit. 'Southern Ocean'), namely the British , Portuguese and Dutch colonial ports in the Malay Peninsula and
278-702: A Burmese word for the Peranakan or Straits Chinese who have settled in Myanmar. They maintained their culture partially despite their native language gradually disappearing a few generations after settlement. Popular myths by the Malays of the Peranakan Chinese in Malacca, Singapore, and Penang sometimes state exclusive descent from the royal retinue of an allegedly princess named Hang Li Po—alleged by
417-504: A host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Classical Greek , the word took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as " nation , tribe, a unique people group"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or " barbarous " nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan"). In
556-465: A Hindi (originally Persian) loan-word borrowed by Malay speakers as a term of affection for one's grandparents, and became part of the common vernacular. In Penang Hokkien , it is pronounced bā-bā (in Pe̍h-ōe-jī ), and sometimes written with the phonetic loan characters 峇峇. Female Straits-Chinese descendants were either called or styled themselves Nyonyas . Nyonya (also spelled nyonyah or nonya )
695-512: A descriptor of multiracial Britons in the 20th century who had partial white ancestry. From the 1920s to 1960s, Aspinall argues it was "used in Britain as a derogatory racial category associated with the moral condemnation of ' miscegenation ' ". The National Union of Journalists has stated that the term half-caste is considered offensive today. The union's guidelines for race reporting instructs journalists to "avoid words that, although common in
834-718: A dominant position in that provinces most important seaport, adopted Islam in Java, strongly Muslim areas of Indonesia, and Malaysia. As in the case of the Peranakans in Cirebon , this conversion process occurred over several centuries and was even recorded before the Dutch seized Jakarta . Many of these Peranakans in Indonesia who converted to Islam would marry into aristocratic dynasties. One organisation of Indonesian Peranakan Muslims
973-582: A dry chicken curry and inchi kabin , a Nyonya version of fried chicken. Pindang bandeng is a common fish soup served in Indonesia during the Chinese New Year and so is a white round mooncake from Tangerang which is normally used during the Autumn Festival . Swikee purwodadi is a Peranakan dish from Purwodadi , a frog soup dish. Nyonya laksa is a very popular dish in Malacca, Malaysia while another variant called asam laksa
1112-421: A focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "... categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact, and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in
1251-492: A half-caste (or Kabya ) was anyone with mixed ethnicity from Burmese and British, or Burmese and Indian. During the period of colonial rule, half-caste people were ostracised and criticised in Burmese literary and political media. For example, a local publication in 1938 published the following: "You Burmese women who fail to safeguard your own race, after you have married an Indian, your daughter whom you have begotten by such
1390-503: A mercurial character. Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness". He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization." This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity
1529-614: A person who arrived in the Nusantara region during much later periods of Chinese migration. Conversely, the other Dutch, Malay and Siamese-speaking Peranakan Chinese in Dutch East Indies, Siam and Malaya would be unlikely to refer to themselves using the English term 'Straits Chinese'. The Peranakan Chinese commonly refer to themselves as Baba-Nyonya. The term Baba is an honorific for Straits Chinese men. It originated as
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#17327655602031668-519: A preoccupation with scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple creations of races (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up the idea of racial difference and found that white Europeans were superior. The ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of attributing
1807-412: A process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of endogamy resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a mythological narrative of a founding figure ); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers" – characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups. Ethnicity theory argues that race
1946-742: A shared cultural heritage , ancestry, origin myth , history , homeland , language , dialect , religion, mythology , folklore , ritual , cuisine , dressing style , art , or physical appearance . Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry. By way of assimilation , acculturation , amalgamation , language shift , intermarriage , adoption , and religious conversion , individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or tribes , which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from
2085-466: A single-word ethnonym may clash with the desire of other groups of non-Chinese descent to equally call themselves "Peranakan"). Later waves of immigrants to South East Asia are generally referred to using larger umbrella terms such as Malaysian Chinese , Chinese Singaporean , Chinese Indonesian or Tionghoa , or Thai Chinese . One of the sub-groups of Chinese-Peranakan, Straits Chinese or Straits-born Chinese were defined as those born or living in
2224-572: A small minority of Cantonese . Baba Nyonya are a subgroup within Chinese communities. Peranakan families occasionally arranged brides from China for their sons or arranged marriages for their daughters with newly arrived Chinese immigrants. There are parallels between the Peranakan Chinese and the Cambodian Hokkien , who are descendants of Hoklo Chinese. Likewise the Pashu of Myanmar ,
2363-557: A spiraling destruction of Burmese society." Such criticism was not limited to a few isolated instances, or just against Burmese girls ( thet khit thami ), Indians and British husbands. Starting in early 1930s through 1950s, there was an explosion of publications, newspaper articles and cartoons with such social censorship. Included in the criticism were Chinese-Burmese half-castes. Prior to the explosion in censorship of half-castes in early-20th-century Burma, Thant claims inter-cultural couples such as Burmese-Indian marriages were encouraged by
2502-519: A stand-in for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. Depending on context, the term nationality may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity
2641-426: A subsequent qualifying noun. For example Peranakan Tionghoa/Cina may simply mean "Chinese descendants"; likewise Jawi Peranakan can mean "Arab descendants", or Peranakan Belanda "Dutch descendants". However, in a semantic shift, the word peranakan has come to be used as a "metaphorical" adjective that has the meaning of "locally born but non-indigenous". In Indonesian, it can denote "hybrid" or "crossbred". Thus
2780-460: A tie takes an Indian as her husband. As for your son, he becomes a half-caste and tries to get a pure Burmese woman. Not only you but your future generation also is those who are responsible for the ruination of the race." Similarly, Pu Gale in 1939 wrote Kabya Pyatthana (literally: The Half-Caste Problem), censured Burmese women for enabling half-caste phenomenon, with the claim, "a Burmese woman’s degenerative intercourse with an Indian threatened
2919-533: Is Aboriginal peoples of Australia mostly in historical documents, as it is associated with assimilationist policies of the past. Such terms were widely used in the 19th- and early-20th-century Australian laws to refer to the offspring of European and Aboriginal parents. For example, the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 mentioned half-castes habitually associating with or living with an "Aborigine" (another term no longer favoured), while
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#17327655602033058-530: Is a Malay and Indonesian honorific used to refer to a foreign married lady. It is a loan word, borrowed from the old Portuguese word for lady donha (compare, for instance, Macanese creole nhonha spoken on Macau, which was a Portuguese colony for 464 years). Because Malays at that time had a tendency to address all foreign women (and perhaps those who appeared foreign) as nyonya , they used that term for Straits-Chinese women as well. It gradually became more exclusively associated with them. In Penang Hokkien , it
3197-653: Is a dying language, and its contemporary use is mainly limited to members of the older generation. It is common for the Peranakan of the older generation (particularly among women) to latah in Peranakan Malay when experiencing unanticipated shock. The Peranakan Malay spoken by the Malaccan Peranakans community is strongly based on the Malay language as most of them can only speak little to none of
3336-547: Is a geographical designator specific to the former British colonies in the region, whereas 'Peranakan Chinese' is a broader genealogical designator covering all parts of the Nusantara region where Chinese people settled (including areas colonized by the Dutch, who would not have used the word 'Straits'), the two terms cannot be said to fully overlap or be interchangeable. Someone who is said to be 'Straits Chinese' in British colonial documents might, for example, be non-Peranakan, i.e.
3475-617: Is a key part of the Peranakan diet. Moreover, Peranakans were traditionally English educated at missionary schools, notably in Penang. In Indonesia, Peranakan referred to all Indonesian Chinese who had converted to Islam up until the 19th century. This indicated the importance of Islamic identity as a "criterion of indigenization." Later, Peranakan referred to all Indonesian Chinese born in the country, including those of descendants of mixed race unions. Large numbers of Peranakans, many from Fujian having prior experience with foreign Muslims who had
3614-443: Is a social category and is only one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Other criteria include "religion, language, 'customs', nationality, and political identification". This theory was put forward by sociologist Robert E. Park in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of "culture". This theory was preceded by more than 100 years during which biological essentialism was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism
3753-490: Is another term for half-caste people from intermixing in South Africa and Namibia . People of mixed descent, the half-caste, were considered inferior and slaves by birth in the 19th-century hierarchically arranged, closed colonial social stratification system of South Africa. This was the case even if the father or mother of half-caste person was a European. Also, during the apartheid eras, Indians were treated as
3892-423: Is called ethnogenesis , a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something unique and unusually exotic (cf. "an ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established. Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership,
4031-420: Is called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention. Ethnic groups can form a cultural mosaic in a society. That could be in a city like New York City or Trieste , but also
4170-521: Is famous in Penang, Malaysia. Pongteh is also another popular and savoury dish of the Malaccan Peranakan community. The main ingredient is onion, black mushroom (optional), chicken (at times pork is used instead of chicken, hence it's called babi pongteh ) and fermented bean sauce. The Malaccan Nyonyas are well known for this dish. Ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on
4309-536: Is limited to informal occasions. The first Chinese immigrants to settle in the Malay Archipelago arrived from Guangdong and Fujian provinces in the 10th century C.E. They were joined by much larger numbers of the Chinese in the 15th through 17th centuries, following on the heels of the Ming emperor's reopening of Chinese-Malay trade relations in the 15th century. In the 15th century, some small city-states of
Peranakan Chinese - Misplaced Pages Continue
4448-508: Is no longer the case in modern times where anyone who marries Malay women is required to convert to Islam. Peranakan, Straits Chinese, Baba Nyonya are all names for the descendants of Han Chinese men and their Javanese, Sumatran and Malay wives. Han Chinese men did not allow their women to leave China, so they married local Muslim Javanese and other Southeast Asian women. Dayak women were married by Han Chinese men who settled in Borneo as noted in
4587-600: Is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no "ethnics"; there are only "ethnic relations". In the U.S., the OMB says the definition of race as used for the purposes of the US Census is not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference". Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by
4726-463: Is pronounced nō͘-niâ (in Pe̍h-ōe-jī), and sometimes written with the phonetic loan characters 娘惹. A 2021 genetic study Singapore's Peranakan Chinese have Malay ancestry, with an average of 5–10%. Many Peranakans identify as Holoh ( Hokkien ) despite being of numerous origins, such as the descendants of adopted local Malaysian aborigines. A sizeable number are of Teochew or Hakka descent, including
4865-442: Is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation. Kanchan Chandra rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory), choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by
5004-539: Is simply an indicator of heritage or descent, may also be used to refer to other ethnic groups in the same region. Owing to the broad meaning of the term 'peranakan', the term is also encountered when referring to other communities in the region with similar histories of immigration and assimilation. For example, the Chitty may accurately refer to themselves as 'Indian Hindu Peranakans', meaning "of Indian Hindu descent" or "locally born but non-indigenous Indian Hindu". Likewise
5143-700: Is the Persatuan Islam Tionghoa Indonesia (Association of Indonesian Chinese Muslims), which was formed in 1936 in Medan . Some prominent Peranakan Muslims include the Indonesians Junus Jahja, Abdul Karim Oei Tjeng Hien and Tjio Wie Tay and from Pattani , the Peranakan convert to Islam, Datu Seri Nara, who according to Wybrand of Warwijck was the most important commercial and military figure in Pattani in 1602. Due to
5282-431: Is the belief that some races, specifically white Europeans in western versions of the paradigm, are biologically superior and other races, specifically non-white races in western debates, are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify enslavement of African Americans and genocide of Native Americans in a society that was officially founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be
5421-574: The Australian government 's pursuit of a policy of assimilation . In Latin America , the equivalent term for half-castes was Cholo and Zambo . Some people now consider the term offensive. In Australia, the term "half-caste", along with any other proportional representation of Aboriginality (such as "part-aborigine", "full-blood", "quarter-caste", " octoroon ", " mulatto ", or "hybrid" ) are defunct descriptors that are highly offensive it use
5560-463: The Caribbean and South Asia . Max Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct ) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status. This
5699-648: The Deakin government 's Invalid and Old-Age Pensions Act 1908 and the Fisher government 's Maternity Allowance Act 1912 , which made half-castes eligible to receive old-age pensions and maternity allowances but excluded individuals "who are Asiatic, or are aboriginal natives of Australia, Papua or the Pacific Islands". The term was not merely a term of legal convenience; it became a term of common cultural discourse. Christian missionary John Harper, investigating
Peranakan Chinese - Misplaced Pages Continue
5838-540: The Indonesian Archipelago , as well as Singapore . Peranakan culture, especially in the dominant Peranakan centres of Malacca , Singapore , Penang , Phuket and Tangerang , is characterized by its unique hybridization of ancient Chinese culture with the local cultures of the Nusantara region, the result of a centuries-long history of transculturation and interracial marriage . Immigrants from
5977-589: The Kristang may accurately refer to themselves as 'Eurasian Peranakans'. The name of the Jawi Pekan people is derived from 'Peranakan', Jawi being the Javanised Arabic script , and Pekan being a colloquial contraction of Peranakan . The prominence of Peranakan Chinese culture, however, has led to the common elision whereby 'Peranakan' may simply be taken to refer to the Peranakan Chinese, i.e.
6116-580: The Malay Annals as having made a marriage of alliance with the Sultan of Malacca in the fifteenth centuryhowever modern historians disproved the princess marriage as a false myth by the Malay Annals. The language of the Peranakans, Baba Malay ( Bahasa Melayu Baba ) or Peranakan Malay, is a creole language related to the Malay language ( Bahasa Melayu ), which contains many Hokkien words. It
6255-455: The New World were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations. In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis) have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to
6394-534: The Straits Settlements : a British colony consisting of Malacca , Penang , and Singapore which was established in 1826. Straits Chinese were not considered Baba Nyonya unless they displayed certain Sino-Malay syncretic attributes, in terms of attire worn, food, spoken language, choice of education, preferred career choices, choice of religion and loyalties. However, given that 'Straits Chinese'
6533-466: The upper middle class that was virtually superior to half-caste Coloureds . In the United Kingdom, the term when used primarily applies to those of mixed Black and White parentage, although can extend to those of differing heritages as well. Sociologist Peter J. Aspinall argues that the term was coined by 19th-century British colonial administrations, and eventually started to be used as
6672-493: The 18th century (where their descendants in Sabah are also referred to as Sino-Natives ). Intermarriage between these Chinese settlers and their Malay , Thai , Javanese or other predecessors in the region contributed to the emergence of a distinctive hybrid culture and ostensible phenotypic differences. Through colonisation of the region, the impact and presence of the Peranakan Chinese spread beyond Nusantara. In Sri Lanka ,
6811-634: The 18th century. One Dayak man named Budi mentioned a Chinese man married Budi's sister and that he liked Chinese but he hated Madurese as he was talking about the massacres of Madurese settlers. Malay and Dayak ethnically cleansed Madurese settlers from their and in West Kalimantan starting in Sambas from December 1996 to February 2001 after the Sampit fights in December 2000. The Chinese are perhaps
6950-876: The 1930s, modern shapes became popular and heels were gradually added. In Indonesia, the Peranakans develop their own kebaya , most notably kebaya encim , derived from the name encim or enci to refer to a married Chinese woman. Kebaya encim was commonly worn by Chinese ladies in Javan coastal cities with significant Chinese settlements, such as Semarang , Lasem, Tuban, Surabaya , Pekalongan and Cirebon . It marked differently from Javanese kebaya with its smaller and finer embroidery, lighter fabrics and more vibrant colours. They also developed their own batik patterns, which incorporate symbols from China. The kebaya encim fit well with vibrant-coloured kain batik pesisiran (Javan coastal batik), which incorporated symbols and motives from China; such as dragon, phoenix, peony and lotus. For
7089-419: The 19th century completely absorbed the converted Chinese Muslims who originally had their own separate kapitan and community in the late 18th century. The remaining commoner non-Muslim Chinese Peranakans descended from Chinese men and Javanese Muslim women generally stopped marrying Javanese and the elite Peranakans stopped marrying Javanese completely and instead started only marrying fellow Chinese Peranakans in
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#17327655602037228-580: The 19th century, as they realized they might get absorbed by the Muslims. DNA tests done on Chinese Peranakan in Singapore showed that those Peranakan who are mixed with Malays are mostly of paternal Han Chinese descent and of maternal Malay descent. Peranakans in Malaysia and Singapore formed when non-Muslim Chinese men were able to marry Malay Muslim women a long time ago without converting to Islam. This
7367-569: The 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a tribe, race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "tribal, racial, cultural or national minority group " arises in the 1930s to 1940s, serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism . The abstract ethnicity had been used as
7506-645: The Aborigines Amendments between 1934 and 1937 refer to it in various terms, including as a person with less than quadroon blood. Following the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, Attorney-General Alfred Deakin ruled that references to "aboriginal natives" in the Australian Constitution did not include half-caste individuals. This definition was carried forward into the first federal welfare legislation, such as
7645-451: The Baba they will wear baju lokchuan (which is the Chinese men's full costume) but the younger generation they will wear just the top of it which is the long-sleeved silk jacket with Chinese collar or the batik shirt. Most Peranakans generally subscribed to Chinese beliefs systems such as Taoism , Confucianism and Han Buddhism , and even Roman Christianity nowadays. Just like the Chinese,
7784-529: The Chinese Muslim community which was descended from converts. Adoption of Islam back then was a marker of peranakan status which it no longer means. The Semaran Adipati and the Jayaningrat families were of Chinese origin. Peranakans were held in high regard by Malays. Some Malays in the past may have taken the word "Baba", referring to Chinese males, and put it into their name, when this used to be
7923-486: The Chinese men did not convert to Islam since their Javanese wives did not ask them to, but a minority of Javanese women asked them to convert so a Chinese Muslim community made out of converts appeared among the Javanese. In the late half of the 19th century, Javanese Muslims became more adherent to Islamic rules due to going on hajj and more Arabs arriving in Java, ordering circumcision for converts. The Batavian Muslims in
8062-408: The Chinese was widespread. It cannot be denied, however, that the existence of slavery in this quarter, in former years, was of immense advantage in procuring a female population for Pinang . From Assaban alone, there used to be sometimes 300 slaves, principally females, exported to Malacca and Pinang in a year. The women get comfortably settled as the wives of opulent Chinese merchants, and live in
8201-712: The Dutch Government, who had great difficulty in subduing them. In 1912, Chinese engaged in mass violent riots against Dutch colonial rule in Surayaba and Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. Among the Straits Chinese (Peranakan) descendants in Sulu , the Philippines is Abdusakur Tan II, the governor. Many Straits Chinese (Peranakans) migrated from Singapore to Jolo, Sulu and Mindanao to live and trade among
8340-610: The Greeks. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen ,
8479-421: The Malay Archipelago such that their ethnic heritage needed to be specified whenever referring to them, either to avoid confusion or to emphasise difference. The designator peranakan —in its original sense simply connoting "descendant of X ethnicity", or "the wombs of X"—emerged as the name for entire ethnic groups that were "locally born but non-indigenous" or perceived to be "hybrid" and "crossbred", and, in time,
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#17327655602038618-527: The Malay Peninsula often paid tribute to various kingdoms such as those of China and Siam . Close relations with China were established in the early 15th century during the reign of Parameswara when Admiral Zheng He ( Cheng Ho ), a Muslim Chinese, visited Malacca and Java during his expedition (1405–1433). According to a legend in 1459 CE, the Emperor of China sent a princess, Hang Li Po , to
8757-848: The Moro Muslims like the Tausug people and Maguindanaons and sell weapons, rifles, cannon and opium to them in exchange for gutta-percha. Tausug and Chinese married each other and Chinese also converted to Islam. Moros carried out suicide juramentado attacks against the Japanese. Moro juramentados used opium in their attacks against US soldiers. American military officers Charles Wilkes saw Sulu Moro Sultan Mohammed Damaliel Kisand (spelling error of Jamalul Kiram) and his sons smoke opium and he had bloodshot eyes because of it. Datu Uto received Spencer and Enfield rifles from Straits Chinese (Peranakan) merchants. Lantaka swivel bronze cannon were sold by Chinese to
8896-593: The Moros who were fighting the Americans. A novel was written about this. Balinese women, Bugis women and other native women in Indonesia who married Han Chinese men were buried according to Chinese custom with Chinese characters on their gravestones instead of being cremated. Straits Chinese, Baba Nyonya or Peranakan are descended from Malay women and Chinese men. The Peranakan retained most of their ethnic and religious origins (such as ancestor worship), but assimilated
9035-523: The Peranakan Chinese went on to contribute to the development of the Sri Lankan Malay identity that emerged in the nation during Dutch rule . The Peranakans are considered a multiracial community, with the caveat that individual family histories vary widely and likewise self-identification with multiracialism as opposed to Chineseness varies widely. The Malay/Indonesian phrase "orang Cina bukan Cina" ("a not-Chinese Chinese person") encapsulates
9174-485: The Peranakan language is mainly based on Indonesian and Javanese , which is mixed with elements of different Chinese varieties , mostly Hokkien. Speakers of the Peranakan language can be found scattered along the northern coastline area throughout West Java , Central Java and East Java , and also in Special Region of Yogyakarta , Indonesia. Young Peranakans can still speak this creole language, although its use
9313-428: The Peranakans also celebrate Lunar New Year , Lantern Festival and other Chinese festivals , while adopting the customs of the land they settled in, as well as those of their colonial rulers. There are traces of Portuguese , Dutch , British , Malay and Indonesian influences in Peranakan culture. Just like in any other cultures, the Peranakans still believe in pantang larang (meaning taboos ) especially among
9452-866: The Portuguese used the term mestiço . French colonies in the Caribbean referred to half-caste people as Chabine (female) and Chabin (male). Before the American Civil War , the term mestee was commonly applied in the United States to certain people of mixed descent. Other terms in use in colonial era for half-castes included creole, casco, cafuso, caburet, cattalo, citrange, griffe, half blood, half-bred, half-breed , high yellow, hinny, hybrid, ladino, liger, mamaluco, mixblood, mixed-blood, mongrel, mule, mustee, octoroon, plumcot, quadroon, quintroon, sambo, tangelo, xibaro. The difference between these terms of various European colonies usually
9591-522: The Sultan of Malacca as a token of appreciation for his tribute. The nobles (500 sons of ministers) and servants who accompanied the princess initially settled in Bukit Cina and eventually grew into a class of Straits-born Chinese known as the Peranakans. Chinese men in Melaka fathered children with Javanese , Batak and Balinese slave women. Their descendants moved to Penang and Singapore during
9730-462: The United States that the ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of the white population and did take into account the unique experiences of non-whites in the United States. While Park's theory identified different stages in the immigration process – contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation – it did so only for white communities. The ethnicity paradigm neglected
9869-994: The added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states. According to Paul James , formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing: Categorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive. Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have
10008-491: The basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a people of a common language , culture , common sets of ancestry , traditions , society, religion , history, or social treatment. The term ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation , particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism . Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by
10147-449: The belief of common descent. Jóhanna Birnir similarly defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location." Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As Jonathan M. Hall observes, World War II
10286-549: The boundaries of the nation-state. Half-caste Half-caste is a term used for individuals of multiracial descent . The word caste is borrowed from the Portuguese or Spanish word casta , meaning race. Terms such as half-caste , caste , quarter-caste and mix-breed were used by colonial officials in the British Empire during their classification of indigenous populations , and in Australia used during
10425-628: The capital, Kuching. In North Borneo an irruption of some thousands occurred on the opening up of the country, and great numbers are employed on the tobacco plantations lately established. In Labuan, and in Pengaron in South Borneo, the coal mines were worked by Chinese, and they still act as sago-washers in the former island. Bound together by societies with stringent laws, their system of co-operation enables them to prosper where others would fail. In West Borneo they thus became so powerful as to defy
10564-482: The case. This is not followed by the younger generation, and the current Chinese Malaysians do not have the same status or respect as Peranakans used to have. In Penang, Thai women replaced Nias slave women and Batak slave women as wives of Chinese men after the 1830s when slavery was abolished. Many Peranakan in Java , Indonesia are descendants of non-Muslim Chinese men who married abangan Javanese Muslim women. Most of
10703-412: The complex relationship between Peranakan identity and Chinese identity. The particularities of genealogy and the unique syncretic culture are the main features that distinguish the Peranakan from descendants of later waves of Chinese immigrants to the region. The word Peranakan is a grammatical inflection of the Malay and Indonesian word anak , meaning child or offspring . With the addition of
10842-573: The context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". Nation-states , however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to
10981-602: The country. The Philippines, Singapore, and Borneo receive, perhaps, a larger number of these immigrants than any other countries. In Borneo they are scattered over the whole seaboard, carrying on a good deal of the river trade, and supplanting in many ways the less energetic Malay. But they are chiefly to be found in West Borneo, especially in the mining districts, as in Sambas and Montrado (Menteradu) in Dutch territory. Numbers are settled around Bau and Bidi, in Sarawak, and in
11120-422: The course of individual life histories." In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities: ... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed. In this way, he pointed to
11259-526: The cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term "race" altogether and speak of "ethnic groups". In 1982, anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways people from different parts of
11398-409: The culturally unique descendants of the earliest Chinese settlers in the Malay Archipelago, as opposed to the other smaller groups that also justifiably call themselves 'peranakan'. For some Peranakans of Chinese descent, calling oneself "Peranakan" without the qualifier "Chinese" can be a way of asserting an ethnic identity distinct from and independent of Chineseness (though such a use of "Peranakan" as
11537-535: The culture of Nyonya and Babas is merged between Malay and Chinese and influence by Indonesia. Malacca was once the world's merchant gathering point enabling the birth of Baba and Nyonya ethnic group. Therefore, the Nyonya food can be summarized as "Malay Archipelago Delicacies of Nanyang Cuisine". From the Malay influence, a unique "Nyonya" cuisine has developed using typical Malay spices. Examples are chicken kapitan ,
11676-451: The distant past. Perspectives that developed after the 1960s increasingly viewed ethnic groups as social constructs , with identity assigned by societal rules. The term ethnic is ultimately derived from the Greek ethnos , through its adjectival form ethnikos , loaned into Latin as ethnicus . The inherited English language term for this concept is folk , used alongside
11815-452: The distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values. According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion , and ethnic groupings during the period of capitalist expansion . Writing in 1977 about
11954-751: The early 1870s. Most, if not all descendants, identify as Teochew Peranakans today. In Singapore, the Kampong Kapor Methodist Church , founded in 1894 by an Australian missionary, Sophia Blackmore , is considered one of the first Peranakan churches. During its establishment, Sunday service were conducted in Baba Malay language, and it is still one of the languages being used in their services. Despite living in Muslim majority countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, converting to Christianity allows Peranakans to continue eating pork which
12093-568: The early 19th century. Terms such as Anglo-New Zealander suggested by John Polack in 1838, Utu Pihikete and Huipaiana were alternatively but less used. Sociological literature on South Africa, including the pre-colonial, colonial and apartheid eras, refers to half-caste as anyone born from admixing of White and people of color. An alternate, less common term, for half-caste was Mestizzo (conceptually similar to Mestizo in Latin American colonies). Griqua (Afrikaans: Griekwa )
12232-421: The early Roman Catholic Church starting from 1834. This early church was set up by French missionaries (Mission Enstrangeres de Paris Order) in 1832 on Bras Basah Road, on the grounds of the present day Singapore Art Museum. Approximately 26 intermarriages between mainly China-born Teochew men and Melaka Serani, Malay, Peranakan Chinese and Indian women, took place under the auspices of this church, between 1834 and
12371-500: The ethnic and racial discourse in Fiji. Kailomas or vasus were children born to a Fijian native and European or indentured laborers brought in by the colonial government to work on sugarcane plantations over a century ago. Over the generations, these half-caste people experienced social shunning and poor treatment from the colonial government, which became determined in herding citizens into separate, tidy, racial boxes, which led to
12510-530: The extent of complete political separation in their nation-state. Under these conditions when people moved from one state to another, or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state. In the 1920s, Estonia introduced a flexible system of ethnicity/nationality self-choice for its citizens, which included Estonians Russians, Baltic Germans and Jews. Multi-ethnic states can be
12649-414: The fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had
12788-528: The fallen monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the United States. Current topics are in particular social and cultural differentiation, multilingualism, competing identity offers, multiple cultural identities and the formation of Salad bowl and melting pot . Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as subcultures , interest groups or social classes , because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in
12927-596: The following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified: In many cases, more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, Armenian ethnicity can be defined by Armenian citizenship, having Armenian heritage, native use of the Armenian language , or membership of the Armenian Apostolic Church . Ethnography begins in classical antiquity ; after early authors like Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus , Herodotus laid
13066-672: The foundation of both historiography and ethnography of the ancient world c. 480 BC . The Greeks had developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes . Although there were exceptions, such as Macedonia, which was ruled by nobility in a way that was not typically Greek, and Sparta, which had an unusual ruling class, the ancient Greeks generally enslaved only non-Greeks due to their strong belief in ethnonationalism. The Greeks sometimes believed that even their lowest citizens were superior to any barbarian. In his Politics 1.2–7; 3.14, Aristotle even described barbarians as natural slaves in contrast to
13205-558: The genes. Examples of various approaches are primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism, and instrumentalism. Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. The process that results in emergence of such identification
13344-439: The greatest comfort. Their families attach these men to the soil; and many never think of returning to their native country. The female population of Pinang is still far from being upon a par with the male; and the abolition therefore of slavery, has been a vast sacrifice to philanthropy and humanity. As the condition of the slaves who were brought to the British settlements, was materially improved, and as they contributed so much to
13483-762: The half-caste characters in literary works of the 18th through 20th century were predominantly structured with prejudice, as degenerate, low, inferior, deviant or barbaric. Ashcroft in his review considers the literary work structure as consistent with morals and values of colonial era where the European colonial powers considered people from different ethnic groups as unequal by birth in their abilities, character and potential, where laws were enacted that made sexual relations and marriage between ethnic groups as illegal. The term half-caste to classify people based on their birth and ancestry became popular in New Zealand from
13622-420: The half-caste progeny of such unions were considered harmful to the white minority rule founded upon carefully maintained racial hierarchies. While the term half-caste tends to evoke the understanding of it referring to the offspring of two persons of two different pure bloods or near pure bloods , in other languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, the words half-caste and mixed ethnicity or multi-ethnic are
13761-430: The happiness of the male population, and the general prosperity of the settlement, I am disposed to think (although I detest the principles of slavery as much as any man), that the continuance of the system here could not, under the benevolent regulations which were in force to prevent abuse, have been productive of much evil. The sort of slavery indeed which existed in the British settlements in this quarter, had nothing but
13900-433: The kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as Britannia or Marianne . Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language, and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a taxonomic grouping, based on physical similarities among groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of
14039-678: The language and culture of the Malays. The Nyonya's clothing, Baju Panjang (Long Dress) was adapted from the native Malay's Baju Kurung. It is worn with a batik sarong (batik wrap-around skirt) and three kerosang (brooches). Peranakan beaded slippers called Kasot Manek were hand-made with much skill and patience: strung, beaded and sewn onto canvas with tiny faceted glass cut beads (known as Manek Potong ) similar to ones from Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic ). Traditional kasot manek design often have European floral subjects, with colours influenced by Peranakan porcelain and batik sarongs. They were made into flats or bedroom slippers. But from
14178-542: The language of their Chinese forebears. Whereas in the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia , the Peranakans are known to not only speak a Hokkien version of their own but also Thai and Kelantanese Malay in Kelantan and Terengganu Malay in Terengganu . Unlike the rest of the Peranakans in Malaysia, Penang Peranakans are much heavily influenced by a dialect of Hokkien known locally as Penang Hokkien . In Indonesia ,
14317-654: The latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian ecumene ), as the Septuagint used ta ethne 'the nations' to translate the Hebrew goyim "the foreign nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews". The Greek term in early antiquity ( Homeric Greek ) could refer to any large group,
14456-438: The latter meaning has come to predominate. It should also be noted that the broadness of the semantic range of peranakan means that it can have significantly different connotations in different parts of the Nusantara region and across different dialects or variants of the Malay and Indonesian languages. The word Peranakan, which can have very broad and labile meanings in Malay and Indonesian and, when used in common parlance,
14595-715: The local population. The situation began to change as colonial developments, allocation of land, rice mills and socio-economic privileges were given to European colonial officials and to Indians who migrated to Burma thanks to economic incentives passed by the Raj . In the late 19th century, the colonial administration viewed intermarriage as a socio-cultural problem. The colonial administration issued circulars prohibiting European officials from conjugal liaisons with Burmese women. In Burma, as in other colonies in Southeast Asia, intimate relations between native women and European men, and
14734-441: The local tongue, constitute a fair share of members Chinese community, particularly among those who have family ties with the Peranakans of Penang and Malacca. Chinese who married local Javanese women and converted to Islam created a distinct Chinese Muslim Peranakan community in Java. Chinese rarely had to convert to Islam to marry Javanese abangan women but a significant number of their offspring did, and Batavian Muslims absorbed
14873-485: The marginalized status of people of color in the United States to their inherent biological inferiority, he attributed it to their failure to assimilate into American culture. They could become equal if they abandoned their inferior cultures. Michael Omi and Howard Winant 's theory of racial formation directly confronts both the premises and the practices of ethnicity theory. They argue in Racial Formation in
15012-483: The modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation , developed in
15151-506: The most important people in Borneo. They have been traders and settlers on the coast from beyond historic times, and, as has just been stated, have for an equally long period mixed with the natives; so that some Dyaks—the Dusuns especially might almost be classed with them. They are not only traders who amass wealth merely to return with it to their own empire, but miners, agriculturists, and producers, without whom it would be difficult to develop
15290-465: The name against it; for the condition of the slaves who were brought from the adjoining countries, was always ameliorated by the change; they were well fed and clothed; the women became wives of respectable Chinese; and the men who were in the least industrious, easily emancipated themselves, and many became wealthy. Severity by masters was punished; and, in short, I do not know any race of people who were, and had every reason to be, so happy and contented as
15429-437: The older generations. In some cases, quite a number the Peranakan's pantang larang are deemed too strict and complex. But today, most Peranakans no longer practice complex pantang larang to keep up with the modern times. A significant number of the modern Peranakan community have embraced Christianity , most notably in Indonesia. In 2019, a new branch of Singapore-specific Peranakan intermarriages were found to exist within
15568-551: The parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a panethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity . Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis . Although both organic and performative criteria characterise ethnic groups, debate in the past has dichotomised between primordialism and constructivism. Earlier 20th-century "Primordialists" viewed ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since
15707-538: The past, are now considered offensive". NHS Editorial guidance states documents should "Avoid offensive and stereotyping words such as coloured, half-caste and so forth". The term half-caste was common in British colonies, however it was not exclusive to the British Empire . Other colonial empires such as Spain devised terms for mixed-race children. The Spanish colonies devised a complex system of castas , consisting of mulattos , mestizos , and many other descriptors. French colonies used terms such as Métis , while
15846-505: The period of British rule. Chinese men in colonial southeast Asia also obtained slave wives from Nias . Chinese men in Singapore and Penang were supplied with slave wives of Bugis , Batak , and Balinese origin. The British colonial government tolerated the importation of slave wives since they improved the standard of living for the slaves and provided contentment to the male population. The usage of slave women or house maids as wives by
15985-455: The possibility of establishing of a Christian mission at Batemans Bay, New South Wales , wrote that half-castes and anyone with any Aboriginal connections were considered "degraded as to divine things, almost on a level with a brute, in a state of moral unfitness for heaven". The term " Half-Caste Act " was given to Acts of Parliament passed in Victoria and Western Australia allowing
16124-431: The prefix per- and the suffix -an to the root anak , the modified word peranakan has a variety of meanings. Among other things, it can mean womb , or it can be used as a designator of genealogical descent, connoting ancestry or lineage, including great-grandparents or more-distant ancestors. On its own, when used in common parlance, the word "peranakan" does not denote a specific ethnicity of descent unless followed by
16263-450: The problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities. It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not "making it" by the standards that had been set by whites, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs, or were stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking to cultural defect as
16402-433: The public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent. It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific collectivity. Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute
16541-571: The result of inherited traits and tendencies. With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other. In 1950, the UNESCO statement " The Race Question ", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Gunnar Myrdal , Julian Huxley , etc.), said: National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and
16680-432: The result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of ethnic minorities into a former nation-state. Examples for the first case are found throughout Africa , where countries created during decolonization inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as Belgium or United Kingdom . Examples for
16819-430: The same word, hun-xue (混血). Fijian people of mixed descent were called half-caste, kailoma or vasu . European and Indian immigrants started migrating to Fiji and intermarrying during the period of colonial rule. The colonial government viewed this as a "race problem", as it created a privileged underclass of semi-Europeans who lived on the social fringes in the colonial ordering of Fiji. This legacy continues to affect
16958-588: The second case are countries such as Netherlands , which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the United Kingdom , France and Switzerland comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed " multicultural " societies, especially in large cities. The states of
17097-1070: The seizure of half-caste children and forcible removal from their parents. This was theoretically to provide them with better homes than those afforded by typical Aboriginal people, where they could grow up to work as domestic servants and for social engineering . The removed children are now known as the Stolen Generations . Other Australian Parliament acts on half-castes and Aboriginal people enacted between 1909 and 1943 were often called "Welfare Acts", but they deprived these people of basic civil , political , and economic rights, and made it illegal to enter public places such as pubs and government institutions, marry, or meet relatives. In British Central Africa , now part of modern-day Malawi and Zimbabwe , people of multiracial descent were referred to as half-castes. These unions were considered socially improper, with mixed couples being segregated and shunned by society at large, and colonial courts passing legislation against mixed marriages. In Burma,
17236-852: The separation of Fijian mixed-bloods from their natural families. Half-caste in Malaysia referred to Eurasians and other people of mixed descents. They were also commonly referred to as hybrids, and in certain sociological literature the term hybridity is common. With Malaysia experiencing a wave of immigrations from China, the Middle East, India, and southeast Asia, and a wave of different colonial powers (Portuguese, Dutch, English), many other terms have been used for half-castes. Some of these include cap-ceng , half-breed , mesticos . These terms are considered pejorative. Half-castes of Malaya and other European colonies in Asia have been part of non-fiction and fictional works. Brigitte Glaser notes that
17375-531: The slaves formerly, and debtors as they are now called, who came from the east coast of Sumatra and other places. John Anderson – Agent to the Government of Prince of Wales Island People of Chinese ancestry in Phuket , Thailand make up a significant population, many of whom having descended from tin miners who migrated to the island during the 19th century. The Peranakans there are known as " Phuket Babas " in
17514-420: The source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S." It prevents critical examination of the structural components of racism and encourages a "benign neglect" of social inequality. In some cases, especially those involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following
17653-720: The southern provinces of China arrived in significant numbers in the region between the 14th and 17th centuries, taking abode in the Malay Peninsula (where their descendants in Malacca, Singapore and Penang are referred to as Baba–Nyonya ); the Indonesian Archipelago (where their descendants are referred to as Kiau–Seng ); the Southern Thailand (where their descendants are referred to as Baba-Yaya ), primarily in Phuket , Trang , Phang Nga , Takua Pa and Ranong ; Terengganu (where their descendants are referred to as Cheng Mua Lang ) and North Borneo from
17792-407: The state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view,
17931-441: The state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka , argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within
18070-512: The study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently. According to Eriksen , these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology , by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in
18209-451: The term "Peranakan Cina" or "Peranakan Tionghoa" can have the literal or archaic meaning of "Chinese womb" or "Chinese descendants" or "Chinese ancestry" or "descended from the Chinese"—but more latterly has come to mean "locally born but non-indigenous Chinese" or even " half-caste Chinese". The semantic shift is presumed to have arisen from the thorough hybridization or assimilation of the earliest Chinese or other non-indigenous settlers in
18348-524: The term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates or logical a priori to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with
18487-446: The term. Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that "racial/ethnic identity" is one concept and concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories. Before Weber (1864–1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being
18626-468: The usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States , Wallman noted The term "ethnic" popularly connotes "[race]" in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, "[race]" most commonly means color, and "ethnics" are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. "[Ethnic]"
18765-448: The ways in which race can complicate a community's interactions with social and political structures, especially upon contact. Assimilation – shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture – did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination, though it did for others. Once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled,
18904-442: The world have been incorporated into a global economy: The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all
19043-483: Was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship , a common place of origin, language, religion, customs, and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in
19182-407: Was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race". Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth , whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of
19321-434: Was the race , ethnicity or caste of the father and the mother. Ann Laura Stoler has published a series of reviews of half-caste people and ethnic intermixing during the colonial era of human history. She states that colonial control was predicated on identifying who was white and who was native, which children could become citizens of the empire while who remained the subjects of the empire, who had hereditary rights of
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