ABSTRACT
Identities are conferred and claimed through social action. An identity is an act rather than an essence; it is a verb rather than a noun. Several themes about ethnic identity are tied together in this chapter, which also includes a discussion of the importance of kinship in ethnic identity, and ethnic identity as “nodes” in social space to which people attach themselves and others. Kinship often is at the center of ethnic identity, helping to produce the experience of a “node,” a center around which a social grouping coalesces. As I use the term, nodes of ethnic identity are particular to a geographic region (in this case the island of Curaçao), forming a localized pattern of social groupings. In addition, nodes of ethnic identity are illbounded and shifting.
