Problems of Ethnic (Ethno-Cultural) Identity in Scientific Literature in the Second Half of the 20th – 21st Century (To the Course “Fundamentals of Cultural Anthropology”)

Abstract

Purpose. The article presents an analysis of the most famous works on the problems of ethnic / ethnocultural identity, which include publications not only by cultural anthropologists, but also by psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, culturologists, etc. The author proceeds from the understanding that the term “identity” when due to its relationship with such concepts as “self-consciousness”, “self”, “I-concept”, “I-image” has not yet acquired an unambiguous interpretation, a single definition of this concept shared by all scientists.Results. In accordance with scientific positions, a number of approaches to the study of identity, its structure, the content of its components, including the ethnocultural one, have been identified. Various interpretations of this phenomenon are revealed from the perspective of primordialism, instrumentalism, constructivism in the works of Russians and foreign scientists. Particular attention is paid to works on the relationship between ethnic and regional identities, the relationship between social transformations and the processes of ethnic formation, confessional and a number of other identities.Conclusion. An analysis of trends in the development of the modern problem of ethnic / ethnocultural identity shows that many of the constructed concepts have not yet become the result of empirical research, but rather are the fruit of reflections that cannot always be applied to the proper degree.