Effects of Globalization, Increased Mobility and Migration on Ethnicity
Ethnicity refers to the state of belonging to people with the same identity based on a common language, culture, social experience, or classification. Persons from the same ethnic group are usually defined by common ancestry, myth, heritage, dialect, religion, rituals, cuisine, dressing, art, and appearance (Peoples and Bailey, 2009). Globalization, on the other hand, is a process of integration and interaction among individuals, companies, and national governments dues to interchanging world views, trade, technology, and culture (Globalization101.org, 2016). As social and rational beings, people have become more aware of their interdependence in a constantly evolving world and as a result, factors such as globalization, increased mobility, and migration have become central to the cultural change and redefinition of the ethnic bracket as we know it. The increasing awareness of the human population has led to the deliberate dissolution of obstacles to human interaction and promotion of cross-cultural ties and dialogue (Eriksen, 2010).
Globalization and Ethnicity
According to Giddens (1993), the consequences of modernity have become more radicalized and universalized than ever before, although there are times when radicalization and universalization seem to collide. Using the convergence theory, modern theorists have argued that local and ethnic identities are weakening in favor of regional or universal identities. Globalization destroys the culture and creates ‘cultureless consumerism’ which seeks to embrace homogenization of societies through global organizations, for example, the embrace of McDonalds or KFC on an international scale. Song (2013), through Fukuyama (1989) asserts that the rest of the world governments would sooner conform to the Western liberal democracy. On a global scale, globalization has led to culture tourism into areas with high ethnic diversity thus exposing the people to factors that inevitably force them to change their ethnicity and cultural values.
Increased Mobility and Ethnicity
Mobility varies by age and ethnicity and may be influenced by various factors including the search for better opportunities or war and crisis. In an ethnically diverse society, ethnic divisions are represented by social class separations and because of increased mobility, the children of most minority ethnic groups are finding themselves in higher class castes (Platt, 2005). These classes have little or no ethnic disparities, mostly due to the modernization of children attributed to factors such as education and technology. Increased mobility may also lead to the creation of religious factions, some of which tend to be more successful economically than others, for example, Jews and Hindu are more likely to end up in higher social classes than their Christian and Muslim counterparts.
Migration and Ethnicity
One of the major factors that unify the movement of people from one place to another is the inevitable experience of cultural transformation that will take place once these immigrants reach their destined place and start to rebuild their lives (Giddens and Sutton, 2012). Various elements are called into question once immigrants migrate to new areas, for example, cultural assimilation, segregation and discrimination, and human rights issues. The increase in human populations and rapid developments in technology have enhanced inter-cultural communication and articulation of individual issues that the domestic majority and the immigrants have struggled with over time. Some of the natives are also ethnocentric and despise mixing with immigrants, hence maintaining clear ethnic boundaries. However, when immigrants have settled in, they create new opportunities, cheap labor, more taxes and improved economic performance. Immigrants mix with the natives, for example, in America, and culturally assimilate them into their ways (or the other way round), leading to the formation of new communities and dispersal of ethnic proportions.
References
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PEOPLES, J. AND BAILEY, G. (2009). Humanity. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
PLATT, L. (2005). Migration and social mobility: the life chances of Britain’s minority ethnic communities. [Online] Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Available at: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/migration-and-social-mobility-life-chances-britain%E2%80%99s-minority-ethnic-communities [Accessed 9 Apr. 2016].
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