The Primordialist View of Ethnicity Vs. That of a Constructivist View

Running head: POLITICS AND POLICY STUDIES: QUESTION 17
Politics and Policy Studies: Question 17
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1POLITICS AND POLICY STUDIES: QUESTION 17
17. Compare and contrast the primordialist view of Ethnicity vs. that of a constructivist
view. What does it mean that all ethnicities are constructed? What is race? Are races
also constructed? Aren’t some aspects of ethnicity and race objective? Provide at least
one example of the role of ethnic-based conflict in politics. How this conflict would be
viewed differently if ethnicity were primordial as opposed to being socially constructed?
Ethnicity has been analyzed through many perspectives. The primordialist view of
ethnicity argues that ethnicity is an identity that is assigned by birth and thus is unchangeable.
The view is built on the idea that human beings have some natural connection with people
belonging to the same ethnicity, i.e. people belonging to the same race, religion, language or
geographical location (Isajiw 1999). The primordialist view believes that ethnic identity is
passed through generations and thus, is timeless and fixed. This view define ethnic
differences and conflict as ancestral and irreconcilable which indicates that conflict between
ethnicities are inevitable and ineradicable.
The constructivist view on the other hand is exactly the opposite of this. The
constructivists believe that ethnic identity is socially constructed and migration, colonization
and conquests change ethnic identities. The constructivist takes in to account the impacts of
politics, history, society and economy in the constriction of ethnicity which the primordialist
so not (Nigusie 2018). Moreover, constructivist view ethnicity as fluid and flexible which
means that the ethnic conflicts too, are born out of reasons that are not ancestral hatred.
Constructivists give importance to the role of language, history, symbols and culture as the
source of ethnic rivalry while also giving equal importance to politics, economy and societal
changes. The similarity between the two views is that neither of them gives much information
about the timing of the conflict outbreak.