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    Liberal ethnicity: beyond liberal nationalism and minority rights

    Kaufmann, Eric P. (2000) Liberal ethnicity: beyond liberal nationalism and minority rights. Ethnic and Racial Studies 23 (6), pp. 1086-1119. ISSN 0141-9870.

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    Abstract

    This article tries to make the case for a variant of the good life based on a synthesis of liberalism and ethnicity. Liberal communitarianism's treatment of ethnicity tends to fall under the categories of either liberal culturalism or liberal nationalism. Both, it is argued, fail to come to terms with the reality of ethnic community, preferring instead to define ethnicity in an unrealistic, cosmopolitan manner. By contrast, this essay squarely confronts four practices that are central to ethnic communities: symbolic boundary-maintenance; exclusive and inflexible mythomoteurs ; the use of ancestry and race as boundary markers; and the desire among national groups to maintain their ethnic character. This article argues that none of these practices need contravene the tenets of liberalism as long as they are reconstructed so as to minimize entry criteria and decouple national ethnicity from the state. The notion of liberal ethnicity thereby constitutes an important synthesis of liberal and communitarian ends.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This is a preprint of an article whose final form has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies © 2000 copyright Taylor & Francis. This article was written while the author was based at the University of Southampton.
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): liberalism, ethnicity, liberal ethnicity, liberal nationalism, minority rights, ethnic boundaries
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Sandra Plummer
    Date Deposited: 07 Feb 2007
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:47
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/456

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