Conditions to become an ethnic group?

[21993]

What are the conditions for a group to become an ethnicity, in your opinion?

[Vojnik]

In the opinion of the Macedonian writer and revolutionary from the 1800's, Georgi Pulevski, on what he believed was a nation:

What do we call a nation? – People who are of the same origin and who speak the same words and who live and make friends of each other, who have the same customs and songs and entertainment are what we call a nation, and the place where that people lives is called the people's country. Thus the Macedonians also are a nation and the place which is theirs is called Macedonia.

[Matxe92]

It's pretty simple. Have a significant genetic distance to any other group.
Like you can't just claim your "Kashub" or whatever, cause that's just polish. There is basically zero genetic distance between them.

[Aldaris]

That's an interesting question. The dictionary definitions have some flaws I'm going to cover. The way I see it, is that all of these have to be satisfied:

1. Genetic proximity of its members. That's where I disagree with the dictionaries. Their definitions usually allow a group of people to be called ethnic group based purely on cultural identification with each other, which isn't the case in the colloquial meaning of the term. A good definition should reflect that.

2. Substantial population. It would be ridiculous for, say, half Norwegian, half Papuan to identify as something entirely new and distinct from everything else, just because his ancestral make-up is kind of unique. There has to be a sizable amount of people within that group first, among other things.

3. Sense of ethnic identity within the group. That's just obvious from the colloquial meaning of the word.

4. As Matxe pointed out, considerable genetic distance from any other group. If it wasn't for that, one group would simply be a subset of an other. This point isn't mentioned in the dictionary definitions, but it makes sense.

There are plenty of vague terms in there, what is considered a substantial population or sufficient genetic proximity? Well, the thing with these demographical terms, the moment you go formal with them, you hit a paradox. We have to settle for something like 'we know it when we see it'.

[TheMaestro]

I'm ethnic of none, dont ask.

[MinervaItalica]

Genetic means nothing to form an ethnic group. Culture, language, traditions are way more important.

[Aldaris]

Genetic means nothing to form an ethnic group. Culture, language, traditions are way more important.

If I was born and raised in China, would I be an ethnic Chinese?

[Vojnik]

Genetic means nothing to form an ethnic group. Culture, language, traditions are way more important.

True. 15 years of genetic ancestry testing and plotting isn't all of a sudden going to change the age old way of ethnic identification: Which has always been determined by language, culture and religion.

[itilvolga]

Genetic means nothing to form an ethnic group. Culture, language, traditions are way more important.

You are talking about the sense of nation. Ethnic is related with genetics.

[MinervaItalica]

If I was born and raised in China, would I be an ethnic Chinese?

Born an rised is not enough (perhaps for countries who use Ius Soli) you need to identify with the culture and have parents/ancestors from the same territory judging by the surname for example (Ius Sanguinis)

China is a bit complex though. There are tons of different ethnicities there.