Thianlalmuan Ngaihte
An overview of prominent scholarly works on ethnicity shows that perception and conceptualizations of ethnicity varies from scholar to scholar. The existence of diverse approaches or theories on ethnicity clearly shows that no single theory is sufficient to explain and analyse all aspects of ethnicity.
My work critically review the works of Barth, Yu V Bromley, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Ernest Gellner, Anthony D. Smith, T K Oommen, Paul R Brass, and other prominents scholars on ethnicity and nationalism.
It is only after empirical understanding and investigation of a social reality that one can say this theory or that theory best explain the social reality. Research on ethnicity and Identity politics in India’s north-east oscillates around the primordial and instrumentalists understanding of ethnicity. One has to go beyond the instrumentalist/primordial understanding of ethnicity in order to uncover the role or factors of other objectives and subjective aspects.
FOR DETAILS read the author's PhD thesis submitted to North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya Stata, India.
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