ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

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ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE:A CROSS-NATIONAL SURVEY OF THE 2000 CENSUS ROUNDAnn Morning, Ph.D.Assistant ProfessorDepartment of SociologyNew York UniversityAugust 10, 2005Author Contact Information:Department of SociologyNew York University269 Mercer St., Rm. 445New York, NY 10003-6687Tel: (212) 992-9569Fax: (212) 995-4140Email: ann.morning@nyu.eduThis article is currently under review for journal publication.The author warmly thanks the following people and institutions for their contributions: KevinDeardorff (U.S. Census Bureau); United Nations Statistical Division (Department of Economicand Social Affairs), Demographic and Social Statistics Branch (particularly Mary Chamie,Jeremiah Banda, Yacob Zewoldi, Margaret Mbogoni, Lisa Morrison-Puckett and intern JuliaAlemany); International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau; Caroline Persell and SylviaSimson (New York University); Leslie Stone (Inter-American Development Bank); GeraldHaberkorn (Secretariat of the Pacific Community); and Patrick Corr (Australian Bureau ofStatistics). I also wish to thank the attendees at the following presentations of this research: U.S.Census Bureau Migration Speaker Series; Population Association of America; InternationalUnion for the Scientific Study of Population; and the Demographic and Social Statistics Branch(United Nations) Speaker Series. The initial version of this research was funded by the U.S.Census Bureau Immigration Statistics Branch. However, the conclusions—and theshortcomings—are solely those of the author.

ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE:A CROSS-NATIONAL SURVEY OF THE 2000 CENSUS ROUNDAnn MorningDepartment of SociologyNew York UniversityABSTRACTAcademic interest in official systems of racial and ethnic classification has grown in recentyears, but most research on such census categories has been limited to small case studies orregional surveys. In contrast, this article analyzes a uniquely global data set compiled by theUnited Nations Statistical Division to survey the approaches to ethnic enumeration taken in 141countries. The motives for this analysis combine theoretical, applied and policy objectives. Ifind that 63 percent of the national censuses studied incorporate some form of ethnicenumeration, but their question and answer formats vary along several dimensions that betraydiverse conceptualizations of ethnicity (for example, as “race” or “nationality”). Moreover,these formats follow notably regional patterns. Nonetheless, the variety of approaches can begrouped into a basic taxonomy of ethnic classification approaches, suggesting greatercommonality in worldwide manifestations of the ethnicity concept than some have recognized.

ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE:A CROSS-NATIONAL SURVEY OF THE 2000 CENSUS ROUNDAnn MorningDepartment of Sociology, New York UniversityI. INTRODUCTIONMany if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race,ethnicity, and/or national origins when it comes time to conduct a census. In an unpublishedsurvey of the census questionnaires used in 147 countries, the United Nations found that 95, or65 percent, enumerated their populations by national or ethnic group (United Nations StatisticalDivision 2003). However, this statistic encompasses a wide diversity of approaches to ethnicclassification, as evinced by the spectrum of terms employed; “race,” “ethnic origin,”“nationality,” “ancestry” and “indigenous,” “tribal” or “aboriginal” group all serve to drawdistinctions within the national population. The picture is further complicated by the ambiguityof the meanings of these terms: what is called “race” in one country might be labeled “ethnicity”in another, while “nationality” means ancestry in some contexts and citizenship in others. Evenwithin the same country, one term can take on several connotations, or several terms may beused interchangeably.Though complex, the diversity of international ethnic enumeration offers demographers awealth of formats and approaches to consider when revisiting their own national censusschedules. This article’s principal objective is to survey the approaches to ethnic enumerationtaken in 141 countries, based on a unique data set compiled by the United Nations StatisticalPage 1 of 57

MorningEthnic Classification in International PerspectiveDivision, and to identify several dimensions along which classification practices vary. Thepurposes of this analysis are both academic and policy-oriented. On one hand, this large-scaleoverview of enumeration conventions from the 1995-2004 census round begins by establishing acomprehensive definition of ethnicity and goes on to build a basic typology of formats that canaid in distinguishing between different classification regimes. It also suggests several factors—historical, demographic and political—that merit scholarly attention when accounting for theevolution of ethnic categorization practices. On the other hand, by providing demographers witha wide range of information concerning other nations’ enumeration practices, this comparativeanalysis offers a source of potential innovations that might inform national preparations forfuture censuses. In this more pragmatic vein, I include a case study of the United States in orderto illustrate the ways in which international comparison highlights unusual national practices andprovides models for alternative approaches. Finally, I draw on the findings’ implications forcurrent policy debates concerning the utility, desirability, and feasibility of internationalguidelines on ethnic enumeration.This report begins with a brief review of both theoretical and empirical literature onethnic classification before going on to describe the data on census ethnicity questions analyzedhere. I next present findings on the frequency of ethnic enumeration, both globally and byregion, and then examine the terminology and formats used both in questions about ethnicity andtheir response options. In the last set of findings, I focus on the United States’ 2000 census itemson ancestry, ethnicity and race in order to illustrate the points of divergence that emerge whenone nation’s practices are compared both to the global array and to smaller subsets, such asnations with similar demographic histories or those that are the primary senders of immigrants tothe country in question. After reviewing these results, the concluding section revisits thePage 2 of 57

MorningEthnic Classification in International Perspectivequestion of the uses of international comparison in an area of demographic measurement that isso profoundly shaped by cultural and historical variation.II. CLASSIFICATION BY ETHNICITYA. Conceptual Links between Ethnicity, Race, and NationalityAny review of approaches to ethnic identification must tackle the question of what—ifanything—distinguishes the concepts of ethnicity, race, and nationality. The elision between thethree is a well-known and widely apparent phenomenon (Fenton 2003). In The New OxfordAmerican Dictionary (Jewell and Abate 2001), for example, ethnicity is defined as “the fact orstate of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition” (p. 583),and the definition for “race” also equates it with ethnicity (p. 1402):race: each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physicalcharacteristics a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc; anethnic group a group or set of people or things with a common feature or featuresThis brief example suffices to illustrate the interconnections often drawn between ethnicity, race,nationality and other concepts. Here the definition of ethnicity makes reference to “nationaltradition,” and the definition of race mirrors that of ethnicity.Academic research has however suggested various distinctions between the threeconcepts. One of the most common is the association of ethnicity with cultural commonality—i.e. shared beliefs, values, and practices—while race is seen as revolving around physical orPage 3 of 57

MorningEthnic Classification in International Perspectivebiological commonality.1 As Weber (1978) described, ethnic groups are “those human groupsthat entertain a subjective belief in their common descent it does not matter whether or not anobjective blood relationship exists” (p. 389), whereas “race identity” stems from “commoninherited and inheritable traits that actually derive from common descent” (p. 385). Thisessentialist notion of race has met with considerable challenge in recent years from those whodefine it as a social construct—“a social invention that changes as political, economic, andhistorical contexts change” (American Sociological Association 2002: 7). Yet theconceptualization of race as rooted in biological (especially genetic) difference endures, at leastin the United States today (Omi 2001). Regardless of the general state of belief todayconcerning the nature of race, however, the origins of racial groupings lie in historical notions ofintrinsic human differences (Fredrickson 2002).Another important line of distinction that has been drawn between racial and ethnicidentity turns on the degree to which they reflect voluntary choice and entail significantconsequences (Banton 1983; Jenkins 1997). In the United States in particular, ethnicity hasincreasingly come to be understood as “symbolic” (Gans 1979) or “optional” (Waters 1990).According to these views, individuals can choose the ethnic group(s) with which they mostidentify, and signal their affiliation with the group(s) by means of superficial behavior (e.g.choice of clothing or food) with the knowledge that such identification will have little if anyrepercussion for major life outcomes such as employment or educational opportunities. In sharpcontrast, racial identity is usually portrayed as involuntary—it is imposed by others—andimmutable, regardless of individual behavioral choices. Most important of all, this externallyenforced affiliation has profound and far-reaching effects on life outcomes (Smelser, Wilson andMitchell 2001).Page 4 of 57

MorningEthnic Classification in International PerspectiveInterestingly, the concept of nationality has been linked to both ethnicity and race, as wellas to citizenship. Eighteenth-century German Romantic ideas of the Volk laid the groundworkfor the view that political boundaries mirrored cultural, ethnic ones, and even that they containedpeople of the same “blood” or physical stock (Hannaford 1996). Such ideas found expression inthe 19th and 20th centuries as well, leading to mass migrations and conflicts over state borders(Brubaker 1996). In Eastern Europe in particular, nationality has come to designate somethingother than political citizenship, something more like ancestry or national origins (Eberhardt2003; Kertzer and Arel 2002b).Despite the fluidity between the conceptual borders of ethnicity, race, and nationality, attheir cores they share a common connotation of ancestry or “community of descent” (Hollinger1998). Each concept relies on a different type of proof or manifestation of those shared roots—ethnicity discerns it in cultural practices or beliefs (e.g. dress, language, religion), race inperceived physical traits, and nationality through geographic location—yet they all aim toconvey an accounting of origins or ancestry. As a result, in the research to be described I haveincluded all three of these terms—and others—as indicators of one underlying concept oforigins. For this umbrella concept I use the label “ethnicity” rather than “ancestry,” however, toemphasize the immediacy that such categories can have when individuals identify themselves.As Alba (1990: 38) points out, ancestry involves beliefs about one’s forebears, while ethnicity isa matter of “beliefs directly about oneself.” He illustrates the difference as being one betweenthe statements, “My great-grandparents came from Poland" (ancestry) versus "I am Polish"(ethnicity). Accordingly, this study uses a broad definition of “ethnic enumeration” that includescensus references to a heterogeneous collection of terms (e.g. “ethnic group,” “race,” “people,”“tribe”) that indicate a contemporary yet somewhat inchoate sense of origin-based “groupness.”Page 5 of 57

MorningEthnic Classification in International PerspectiveB. International Comparisons of Ethnic Enumeration PracticesIdentifying a basic core meaning in varied ethnicity-related terms makes possible a broadcomparative study of ethnic categorization. Previous academic comparisons of census ethnicenumeration have usually included only a few cases, as part of an intensive examination of thesocial, historical, and political factors behind diverse classificatory regimes (e.g. Kertzer andArel 2002a; Nobles 2000). And the broader surveys available are generally either regional (e.g.Almey, Pryor and White 1992), not based on systematic samples (e.g. Rallu, Piché and Simon2001; Statistics Canada and U.S. Census Bureau 1993), or focused on informal conventionsrather than official categorization schemes (e.g. Wagley 1965; Washington 2005). As a result,no comprehensive international analysis of formal ethnic enumeration approaches precedes thisstudy. One of the fundamental contributions made here is thus an empirical one, in the form of aprofile of ethnic enumeration worldwide and typology of such practices.Providing information about a large sample of contemporary national censuses is also amajor step forward for theory-building about the origins of different classificatory systems.Collecting data on the dependent variable of classification type suggests important features tomeasure and eventually to explain. Rallu, Piché and Simon (2001) exemplify the possibilities ofsuch an analysis by proposing four types of governmental approach to ethnic enumeration:1)Enumeration for political control (compter pour dominer)2)Non-enumeration in the name of national integration (ne pas compter au nom del’intégration nationale)3)Discourse of national hybridity (compter ou ne pas compter au nom de la mixité)Page 6 of 57

Morning4)Ethnic Classification in International PerspectiveEnumeration for antidiscrimination (compter pour justifier l’action positive)Rallu et al. identify colonial census administration with the first category, as well as relatedexamples such as apartheid-era South Africa, the Soviet Union, and Rwanda. In these cases,ethnic categories form the basis for exclusionary policies. In the second category, where ethniccategories are rejected in order to promote national unity, western European nations such asFrance, Germany, and Spain are prominent. The third category is largely associated with LatinAmerican countries, where governments take different decisions about whether to enumerate byethnicity, but a broader discourse praising interethnic mixture or hybridity is not uncommon.The final category is illustrated with examples from Latin America (e.g. Brazil, Colombia) andAsia (China), but the principal cases discussed here are those of England, Canada, and the UnitedStates, where ethnic census data serve as tools in combating discrimination. Despite the numberof regions that Rallu et al. take into account, however, their conclusions are drawn from a limitedset of countries rather than the complete international pool. As a result, the four-part schemathey identify might be altered if a wider sample of national censuses were considered.Another element that is missing from the existing literature on ethnic enumeration iscomparative content analysis of the language of census ethnicity items. The studies previouslydescribed generally focus on the question of which political motives result in the presence orabsence of an ethnic question on a national census. They do not delve into the details of theprecise format of the question. But such nuances offer particular applied interest fordemographers and other census officials. Maintaining that such technical information is of usefor the architects of population censuses, this study investigates what terminology is used indifferent countries (e.g., “race” or “nationality”?), how the request for information is framed, andPage 7 of 57

MorningEthnic Classification in International Perspectivewhat options are given to respondents in formulating their answer. In this way, the project maysuggest alternative approaches to implement when census forms are being redesigned, and offera basis for weighing the relative strengths and weaknesses of diverse formats.Finally, in addition to the empirical, theoretical, and applied contributions to be made toexisting research on ethnic classification, the findings here are relevant to debates about thefeasibility and desirability of international guidelines on census ethnic enumeration. In its 1998Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses (Revision 1), the UnitedNations Statistical Division noted the difficulty of proposing a common, cross-national approachto ethnic enumeration given the wide range of conceptualizations of ethnicity:The national and/or ethnic groups of the population about which information is needed indifferent countries are dependent upon national circumstances. Some of the bases uponwhich ethnic groups are identified are ethnic nationality (in other words country or areaof origin as distinct from citizenship or country of legal nationality), race, colour,language, religion, customs of dress or eating, tribe or various combinations of thesecharacteristics. In addition, some of the terms used, such as “race”, “origin” and “tribe”,have a number of different connotations. The definitions and criteria applied by eachcountry investigating ethnic characteristics of the population must therefore bedetermined by the groups that it desires to identify. By the very nature of the subject,these groups will vary widely from country to country; thus, no internationally relevantcriteria can be recommended. (p. 72)The United Nations’ Principles and Recommendations emphasizes the variety inoperationalization of ethnicity—that is, the concrete measures such as language or dress that arePage 8 of 57

MorningEthnic Classification in International Perspectiveused to indicate the underlying concept of ethnicity. However, this article argues that thediversity in indicators of ethnicity—which as the U.N. rightly notes, are context-driven—doesnot preclude recognizing and analyzing them as reflections of a shared fundamental concept.Despite the different formulations used, such as “race” or “nationality,” their shared reference tocommunities of descent justifies both academic and policy interpretation of them as comparablecategorization schemes. Furthermore, as this research suggests, it is precisely the variation in theoperationalization of the ethnicity concept that merits further analysis. Comparisons can befruitful, illuminating the bases upon which social groups are thought to be distinct in differentparts of the world, as well as the strategies that national governments employ with respect tothese groups. By the same token, ethnic enumeration can also be understood as a widespreadphenomenon that could potentially be the subject of a global policy approach, despite theparticularities of national formulations. Just as different countries might define “family”membership differently, we can recognize that their varied enumeration approaches target anunderlying, shared concept of kinship—and suggest census guidelines accordingly.III. DATA AND METHODOLOGYAs publisher of the annual Demographic Yearbook, the United Nations StatisticalDivision (UNSD) regularly collects international census information, including bothquestionnaire forms and data results. For the 2000 round (i.e. censuses conducted from 1995through 2004), UNSD drew up a list of 231 nations and territories from which to solicit censusmaterials. As of June 2005, this researcher located 141 national questionnaires

ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: A CROSS-NATIONAL SURVEY OF THE 2000 CENSUS ROUND Ann Morning Department of Sociology, New York University I. INTRODUCTION Many if not most countries around the world categorize their inhabitants by race, ethnicity, and/or national origins

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