Ethnic Identity in Contemporary Research Perspectives: Various Ways to Read a Society

Nationality, ethnicity, ethnic minorities, ethnic identity, borderland, etc. — all these concepts have been essential in a long tradition of research concerning sociology of nation or sociology of borderland. However, none of them is understood in one definite way — it is, partly, the result of different kinds of experience on particular continents or in different periods in history, but it also results from the fact that sociology itself has not worked out one paradigm. The aim of this paper is to present certain problems that the researcher might be coping with as well as show new certain theoretical possibilities.