Conflicting Ethnicities : Locating the Local in the Global

Ethnicity, whether old or new has always defined and defied bordersand boundaries. It is both global and local in character. Itchallenges the received notions of state and nation and is in turnchallenged by globalization, internationalism, multiculturalism andthe overriding notions of modernity.

The present collection is anedited version of some of the papers that were presented at aninternational conference on Ethnicity organized at OUCIP,Hyderabad. These papers focus on the changing notions of ethnicityand the challenges they pose to nation states in a world ofeconomic and political uncertainties. Ranging from the issues ofinvention and reinvention of ethnicity, the studies herein coverthe assertions of ethnicity in the indigenous context within anation state, to the analysis of the ethnicity and religion in theinternational context.

The papers bring to the fore the nature androle of state as an institution in the creation, constructionaccommodation and suppression of ethnicity, the imposition ofnationalist discourses and the resistance from the margins, and thediverse impact of globalization on ethnic assertions in differentcountries. The papers cover the role of different kinds of states-- militarized, totalitarian, and democratic -- in the treatment ofethnic minorities as well as the shifting goals and shufflingpriorities of the ethnic groups aspiring for a stake in theirrespective societies indicating the fluidity of demands and theresponses of the state.