Talk:Ethnic origin

Thisa is not a bad start, but "ethnicity" and "race" aren't quite the same thing; these discourses developed at different times and were used in different ways (so I cut the suggestion that ethnicity has replaced race) slrubenstein

Thought: "ethnicity" seems to be used as a euphemism for "race".Ortolan88

The discourse of race developed in the fifteen hundreds (or thereabouts) and was used to identify people who generally spoke different languages but who were plugged into the world economy in distinct ways -- for example, Whites were developing a world economy based on mercanitilism, in which they took land from Reds, enslaved Blacks, and traded with Yellows. The discourse of ethnicity developed in the eighteen hundreds, when capitalism was well established and the world economy was based largely on the mobility of free-labor. "white" people coming from Europe to the United States weree not classified merely as white, but as belonging to ethnic groups identified with the country of origin and natal language (thus, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans). Perhaps one could say that after the great northern migration of Blacks, they were re-integrated into the US economy as an ethnic-group (African-American) rather than just a "race." Certainly, African-Americans and Nigerian-Americans belong to the same "race," but are different ethnic groups. So I would not say "ethnic group" is just a new way of talking about "race." This doesn't mean that there aren't any similarities: Walter Benn Michaels has argued that cultural identity and ethnic identity in the US are today used as essentializing categories just as race was in the eighteen hundreds. slrubenstein

Redundant page?

Is this page not redundant, given Ethnicity? All it adds is the paragraph about statisticians collecting "ethnic origin" rather than "race", which deserves no more (and no less) than a paragraph, and would be better as a section in the Ethnicity page. Ethnic origin could redirect to Ethnicity. BrendanH 10:17, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Given nearly two years and no improvement, I propose to redirect this page to Ethnic group. This page has really no value added, and serves as a barrier in getting people to the other, clearly better, article. Links to this page will mainly be well served by Ethnic group.

Unless there are objections in the next 24 hours, I will go ahead with the redirect. BrendanH 15:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Nevertheless, statistical agencies are fond of the term (or has it been going out of fashion in recent years?) so it's worth providing a definition, if it actually has one. Here's an example: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/980217/d980217.htm.

You reminded me of my claimed intention. I still think the article hasn't enough justification for an encyclopedia, so I'm going ahead with the redirect. BrendanH 22:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

This strikes me as a very, very, bad idea. "Ethnic origin" is clearly not the same thing as "ethnic group". A person can be ethnically French but of Italian ethnic origin. This confusion results in absurds like we see in the article Canada, where it is stated that the largest "ethnic group" in Canada is "English", giving as source the Canadian Census - which asks for "ethnic ancestry", not for "ethnic group". Ninguém (talk) 14:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)