ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the history of anthropological studies of ethnicity; indicates continuities and discontinuities, shifts in conceptualizations and approaches; and gives a critical evaluation of some recent trends in order to suggest some possible priorities for the field in the near future. Although anthropologists have always studied relationships between groups with distinctive cultural identities, analytical interest in the study of interethnic relations and ethnic identity grew considerably in the late twentieth century, and the trend has continued into the present. A simple explanation could be the intensification of contact between formerly relatively isolated groups seen in many parts of the world, caused by modernization and urbanization, and leading to group-based competition for scarce resources, new forms of mixing as well as a heightened awareness of the problems of boundary maintenance. The anthropology of ethnicity has dismissed too easily the question of the role of culture as a decisive factor in ethnicity.
