The words race, ethnicity and culture and their various derivatives are all very familiar:
indeed the terms race and culture, if not ethnicity, are regularly used in everyday speech. Yet
just what do they actually mean? Are they merely synonyms for one another, are do they
point to very different dimensions of the social order? Although there can be little doubt that
the social phenomena with respect to which these terms are deployed issues are amongst
those of the most pressing socio-political importance in the contemporary world, a little
reflection soon reveals that their precise meaning is still surrounded by clouds of conceptual
confusion. Nor is this confusion limited to popular discourse: sociologists hardly do much
better. This is most alarming. If n social scientists lack an analytical vocabulary whose
meanings are broadly agreed upon, there is littleprospect of them being able to construct
viable descriptions – let alone insightful explanations – of the phenomena they are seeking to
understand, no matter how much the streets may beriven by ‘race riots’, no matter how many
holocausts may be precipitatedby processes of ‘ethnic cleansing’, and no matter how many
aircraft may be flown straight into skyscrapers.In the absence of an appropriate analytical
vocabulary not only will the prospect of our being able to comprehend the processes give rise
to such confrontations be severely inhibited, but the prospects our being able to identify the
best means of resolving the underlying problems will remain remote.
With such challenges in mind, this Chapter has a straightforward agenda. Firstly to identify
how the terms race, ethnicity and culture are curren