Ethnicity and the sense of belonging

In 1925 Max Weber (in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft) stated that ethnic groups are articial constructs, created and maintained by a shared belief in common origins. Fredrik Barth (Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, 1969) pointed out that these beliefs and the way in which they create and maintain ethnic groups are continually renegotiated and reformulated to accommodate the changing environment or, rather, a changing population because a group’s “ethnicity” (or any form of group identication) is only relevant in the confrontation or interaction with other groups.