ABSTRACT
The 1991 census included a question about ethnic groups, and respondents were requested to describe themselves in terms of eight listed groups or to identify another to which they felt they belonged. The data is now beginning to be analysed and the collection of such statistics is justified on the grounds that this is a way of revealing the levels of socio-economic disadvantage from which ethnic groups suffer as well as presenting an overview of the health
status of minority ethnic populations. The definitions of ethnicity were pragmatic, based on a mixture of skin colour, religion, national origin and self-definition, all of which are, at a commonsense level, deemed salient aspects of the classification of difference in contemporary Britain. Yet to many this is unsatisfactory, although often for opposing reasons. On the one hand, merely to draw attention, at an official level, to ethnic difference problematises ethnicity rather than focusing upon the racism which, it is argued, is the common experience of non-whites in Britain today. Another and contrary objection highlights the oversimplification of such categories as ‘Indian’, although it might be argued that these are an improvement on the use of ‘Asian’. Such an objection seeks to increase difference in order to make categories representative of variety. It is obvious that any categorisation, however subtle, is, at best, an imperfect way of representing the reality of humankind. It is also clear that ethnicity is a shifting category which can change over time, whether defined by individuals themselves or by others. Therefore we must expect definitions to change and the relevance of some categories to increase or disappear, although current experience suggests that a proliferation of ‘ethnicities’ may well be the norm for the coming years. Whilst it is accepted that racism in social relations, which has a distinct class character, cannot be written off as ‘failure to understand another’s culture’, this should not inhibit attempts to analyse cultural matters.
