ABSTRACT
The concept of ethnicity is highly controversial in both popular and academic circles, yet is relatively underdeveloped in academic literature. This is unfortunate in a time when increased mobility and globalisation are forcing questions of ethnic identity into international and community arenas. In the last century, wars of global scale and national disputes that have attracted international involvement have resulted in mass migrations and reworkings of national and cultural boundaries. In this context, traditional ways of viewing ethnicity are either troublesome or inadequate. What are new ways of conceptualising ethnicity that are relevant to our practice, in the context of the international changes we witness daily? Because I examine vexed questions, and because I am trying to chart new ways of understanding, I have chosen to take a non-traditional path in discussing the idea of ethnicity. I have developed this chapter on reflective lines. The reflective approach is particularly useful in making connections between personal lives and structural conditions, between concrete experience and more generalised theorising. It is beneficial because it deliberately eschews traditional academic splits between the individual person and social structure, between practice and theory, and allows a more holistic appreciation of situations. In this way a reflective approach provides a way of understanding and developing practice that is more contextually relevant (Fook, 1996, 1999).
