ABSTRACT
This chapter predominantly focuses on the level of social interaction and the ways that ethnic minority group members discursively locate themselves in relation to others. The central argument of this chapter is that ethnic minority identity is dependent on a range of constructive processes. Two points in particular will be addressed. The first one is referent selection or the different forms of comparison. I will argue that ethnic minority identity is more complex than is typically conveyed by mainstream social psychologies. In these psychologies, ethnicity is typically analysed in terms of societal status and power differences in which minorities are defined in comparison to the majority group. This concern with status and power is valuable and has led to many important findings, but it also tends to lead to a dualist or dichotomous model in which it is presupposed that the relationship with the majority group is all that matters. This is a restricted and one-sided view of the process of identity definitions among people from ethnic minority groups. It tends to ignore the centrally important within-group issues and temporal comparisons, as well as the variety of groups in relation to whom people define and locate themselves.
