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An Adaptive Approach to the Study of Ethnicity: Serbian-Americans in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Studies of southern and eastern European ethnic groups in the United States often become submerged in the ongoing argument of assimilation vs. cultural pluralism. As a result, underlying factors affecting the persistence or dissolution of a particular group are obscured or ignored. Social, historical, cultural, religious, political, and economic aspects of ethnic differences are useful targets of analysis. However, much of the research on ethnicity is devoted to documenting the loss or retention of specific cultural traits such as language, religion, or custom. Thus, two distinct though related problems emerge: 1) a tendency to “rate” ethnic groups in terms of degree of assimilation or cultural distinctiveness; and 2) a reliance on cultural indicators as the sole measure of ethnic persistence.
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- Copyright © 1981 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities (USSR and East Europe) Inc.
References
Notes
1. This approach is derived primarily from the works of Fredrik Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1969) and John Bennett, Northern Plainsmen: Adaptive Strategy and Agrarian Life (Chicago: Aldine Publ., 1969).Google Scholar
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