Think Tank has been coordinated by Cristina Bianchi on behalf of Sarajevo Charter. Editorial by Stephan Feuchtwang Ethnicity is always a boundary demarcation of identities. We define ourselves collectively by differentiating ourselves from other collectivities. The largest such identity, after 'me', and 'my family', and the various 'us' of friendships, teams, work units, and so on, is a nationality and, beyond national boundaries, an ethnicity. It is often not possible to distinguish ethnicity from nationality.
Nationality is a political community in the making - nations are never the unities they claim to be.
An ethnicity is a demarcation of differences of religion or of culture or of language or all three into one of identity. But when the identity claims for itself political autonomy, it becomes a nationality. That's as far as we can go with definitions. They give rise to questions which are more important and urgent. The assumption hinders understanding of the processes of identification involved in creating ethnic boundaries.