ABSTRACT
In the context of Nigerian scholarship it is relatively easy to assess the salience of the two central concepts, namely “race” and “ethnicity”. The former, intensely problematic as it is (Montagu 1969, Miles 1982, 1989, Rex & Mason 1986) tends to dominate analyses in societies polarized in terms of perceived phenotypical differences, usually skin colour. Hence, in the USA much debate surrounds the issue of the “colour line” (Allen, in this volume, and Farley & Allen 1987). Similarly, in Britain (Ratcliffe, in this volume) sociologists have tended to focus on the differential positions of indigenous “whites” on the one hand and “South Asian” and “African Caribbean” people on the other. Apartheid in South Africa makes it almost inevitable that “race”, as loosely defined here, is seen as the key concept.
