Ethnicity, Cultural Globalization, and the Four Outcomes of Contact

Ethnicity and identity

Ethnicity is identification with a group on the basis of shared ancestry, language, religion, or homeland. It is partly self-ascribed and partly assigned by others, and it can change across generations, which is why census categories shift over time. In cities, ethnicity often appears as an ethnic enclave — a neighbourhood where a group is concentrated, sustained by shops, worship, schooling, and information networks that lower the cost of arrival for newcomers. Identity is broader: it also includes gender, class, and place attachment, and geographers study how these are expressed in the use of space.

Cultural globalization

Improvements in transport and communication produce time-space convergence: places become effectively closer, and cultural traits move faster and further. Two opposite readings follow. One stresses convergence and the risk of placelessness, where landscapes look interchangeable. The other stresses divergence and local response, including glocalization, where a global product is modified to local practice, and revivals of local language, dress, or festivals.

Four outcomes when cultures meet

Acculturation: a group adopts some traits of the host culture while retaining its own identity. Assimilation: original traits fade until the group is largely absorbed. Syncretism: elements of two traditions blend into a new third form. Multiculturalism is different in kind — it is a policy under which the state supports the maintenance of several cultures, so it belongs on a separate axis from the three outcomes above.