6.1 Is being a migrant the same as being from an ethnic minority?

No.

Being a ** migrant ** has to do with the duration of the stay in the country or place of destination. Also, it can occur more than once in a person’s lifetime. As a distinctive characteristic, it implies the crossing - national or international - of a specific geographical-political border or limit.

Being part of a group identified as an ** ethnic minority ** depends on a socio-historical construction, which is rooted in a social conception. In other words, “belonging” to a minority group is built by society, through the culture and ideologies that it develops. This means that it depends on the context and implies processes of social classification that are socially reinforced.

Although they are two different lines of research, there is a close relationship between the studies of migrants and those of ethnicity / race.

Question

What is race and ethnicity?

“Race” is generally associated with biology and is linked to physical characteristics such as skin color or hair texture. Ethnicity is linked to cultural expression and identification. However, both are social constructs that are used to categorize and characterize seemingly distinct populations.

RACE

  • Phenotypic or observable characterizations, such as skin color or facial characteristics.

  • However, race as a biological category or scientifically reliable measure of human genetic variation does not exist per se (Freier et al., 2021). Race is not a significant biological marker. (National Research Council, 2004)

  • “Race is a social marker, built through a social process (Omi and Winant, 1986; NRC, 2004). The”social constructivist” view holds that, although race has no meaningful biological definition, it remains an important social and political marker because it reflects, albeit imperfectly, categories that play important roles in the distribution of power and wealth. . discrimination, cultural and personal identity and group solidarity (American Sociological Association, 2003; Harris, 2002) ”. (National Research Council, 2004).

ETHNICITY

  • Objective dimension: a common national or regional origin, with the consequent assumed similarity (to some extent) of culture and language.

  • Subjective: “Ethnicity is often considered to represent a self-proclaimed or subjective identity linked to a perception of shared ancestry as a result of some combination of nationality, history, cultural origins, and possibly religion (Bulmer, 1996; Platt, 2011, 2007).”(Connelly et.al. 2016).

  • “There is an overlap in the markers used to indicate race and those used to indicate ethnicity, but race is different from ethnicity in that it has an ascribed physical or biological component.” (National Research Council

  1. Eliminating Health Disparities: Measurement and Data Needs.)

An example

Now we will see an example: the construction of the category of “indigenous” in Argentina.