Talk:Meta-ethnicity

This is kind of experimental, but I think worth having an article on. I've seen this term well before now. Check "What links here" (for the article not the Talk) and you'll notice its use in one article on central Asian music (I enlivened a link to the term already in the text).--A12n 21:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added a couple of items. This is still a stub article and needs more attention. As it expands it gets into some tricky territory: how to describe the political uses of the term. This also gets beyond my expertise and interest. I first encountered the term in a compilation of articles about ethnicity in Africa published in the former Soviet Union in the 1984, which I have added to the references, and found it an interesting additional frame in which to discuss identity and ethnicity in West Africa.

What's needed:
 * More info on earliest uses of the term
 * Discussion on different popular and academic uses (and misuses?) today
 * Comparisons to other related terms like ethnicity and nation(ality) --A12n 17:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Removal of external link -> question re guidelines
Just noticed this link was removed with mention of "guidelines": ...What might those guidelines be? This link was actually intended as a reference concerning the mention of racialist groups using the term (the content on this page referred to said usage). --A12n 23:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Quetzalcoatl: anthropology forum > The thin line between love and hate > Neologism "meta-ethnicity"

Removal of line re racialist use of this term
User:SenseOnes deleted this line: There is also some use of the term online by groups professing racialist ideas. ... with this summary: "Removed uncited (and weird/irrelevant) line." The line was uncited, that is true, but it is not "weird," and its relevance should be a matter of discussion. When researching this article I came across a couple of webpages of apparent "white power" groups on which the term was used. I did not want to cite these pages, but it raised a question that I left hanging with the line just deleted. Is the term "metaethnicity" now part of the vocabulary of such groups? If so it is of interest to know that. I won't get into a revert thing on this issue, but at some point the topic should be looked into for possible return to the article with appropriate references. --A12n (talk) 23:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Are we going to write in the article about eating that white supremacists eat too? Or write down every word and action white supremacists commit to? Meta-ethnicity as a term is increasingly being used a number of places, and this fact is the reason anyone would come to know it - be they white supremacists or not. SenseOnes (talk) 20:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * No, but IMO popular or political usage (or misusage) of a neologism that otherwise seems to appear mainly in more academic literature would be of interest. That would not be limited to a particular kind of fringe group or whatever, so other examples count too. Obviously if a term is part of everyday parlance, then it's silly to note such a thing, but I don't think "meta-ethnicity" is there yet. --A12n (talk) 20:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Noting the very brief (definitional) article re meta-ethnicity on Metapedia, it again seems that white supremacist attention to this term and concept should be mentioned somehow in the article. The issue of interest for the article is the larger one of appropriation by various groups outside of academia of the term - who is using it, with what intended meaning, and to what end?--A12n (talk) 00:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Addition of Muslims as an example for meta-ethnicity
I believe that Muslims would be an ideal example of meta-ethnicity, with a level of commonality that is wider than ethnicity and not necessarily corresponding to a particular nationality, transcending it at times. It would fit the current definition perfectly. I have added it as an example until further review. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.180.102.144 (talk) 01:53, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * One of the cited examples in the article refers to the Hindu religion as a kind of meta-ethnicity. It is certainly true that religions can to varying degrees give a sense of identity across ethnic, regional or national boundaries. A question (I'm asking, not criticising) is whether religion fits the definition of meta-ethnicity, or is really a distinguishably different kind of trans-group identity? There may be no "correct" answer as the concept is used variously to mean something larger than local/limited identities, but not the same as "nation." I think more examples of usage of the term would help.--A12n (talk) 18:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I suggested the above mentioned example of meta-ethnicity. Well your concerns about the basis of religion fitting into as a criteria for meta-ethnicity are legible, the criteria I based the inclusion on depends upon 2 aspects- one, the need for the term came up to describe a large ethnic group that crosses national boundaries. the idea of racial and religious affiliation gets muddled together, for example Jewish individuals are considered to belong to a separate ethnicity though it is a religion, its one of the only few identities based upon religion that people are born into unlike Caucasians or African Americans, even if they dont have any religious affiliation, a certain degree of common cultural heritage is shared by them regardless of national boundaries. Muslims can also be considered to have a similar identity, Turkish Muslims identify themselves as cultural Muslims something unique in the muslim world but still considered an integral part of it, even from a cultural standpoint- many aspects like architecture(arabesque), cuisines, literature and social norms are shared between many different countries solely joined together by the meta-ethnic identity. secondly, the racial heritage and identities that exist between them is too wide to be classified as one single race from indo-aryans to Arabic to Persians etc., there is a great deal of linguistic and racial heritage that is entwined between them, derived and influenced by each other, meta-ethnicity seems like an apt description for that identity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.180.105.52 (talk) 20:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
 * This is fine, but the reference should probably have some sort of citation - certainly reference to a published source would strengthen the point as well as giving readers somewhere to go for further information. A quick Google came up with some hits apparently using metaethnic in describing Muslims.--A12n (talk) 01:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

"Intermarriage" or redirect to "interracial marriage"
User:Grafen changed intermarriage to intermarriage in the quote from A. Robert Lee about US demographics toward 2050. I think this is more narrow than the intended use of the term in the original. Unfortunately, there is not an article on "intermarriage" as a general term covering interracial marriage as well as other forms of "cultural exogamy." For the moment I'll leave as is but would like to find a better solution.--A12n (talk) 01:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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What IS it?
Your article needs to DEFINE it. You have some descriptive material but no actual definition.

If you can't come up with a definition, you should delete the article. ---Dagme (talk) 14:45, 7 June 2021 (UTC)