Ethnicity Matters: An Apology for the Cognitive Potentials of Constructivism

Introduction. The field of ethnicity research in modern anthropology, ethnography, ethnology and ethnosociology is considered through the confrontation of the main cognitive positions, primordialism and constructivism. The purpose of the article is to generalize and to refute the criticism directed at constructivism, as well as to build a perspective for the synthesis of constructivist and primordialist research positions.

Methodology and sources. This is a summary of the critique of constructivism to date. Four theses of this criticism are formulated: the faintness of its ontology, the reduction of ethnicity to the individuality, the confusion of definitions of ethnicity with other social categories, and the emphasis on the controllability of ethnic processes. An apologia for constructivism is the result of a consistent analysis of these theses.

Results and discussion. It is shown that constructivism has an original ontology based on the interpretation of ethnicity as a type of social relations. The key research objects of constructivism – ethnicity, boundary and classification (categorization) system – are considered, allowing to address the collective dimension of the theoretical model of ethnicity, without closing in on individual processes. An example of a research model in constructivism is presented, showing that the role of ethnicity in social processes remains a meaningful and independent category of cognition. Finally, a distinction between the ontological and epistemological status of ethnicity in constructivism is made, which allows us to conclude that the epistemological position of constructivism is not related to the characterization of the essence of ethnicity, and therefore cannot be used as a basis for concluding that ethnic processes are malleable to external control.

Conclusion. This apologia of constructivism allows us to conclude that the flexibility of the constructivist paradigm makes it possible to adapt the sciences of ethnicity to the state of modern society. The prospect of integrating primordialism and constructivism by considering them as phenomena linked by reflexive symmetry is outlined in the conclusion.

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