Middle East studies privileged ethnicity and culture where Western social science stressed structure

Evidence

It is the prevalence of such accounts in modern Middle East studies, which has given analytical primacy to ethnicity and the cultural dimension in most interpretations of sociopolitical reality. This also differentiated it from conventional Western social science, which had assumed that the assimilation of cultural and religious identities into a national society was a necessary precondition for socioeconomic and political development. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3466 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Middle East scholars were demonized on ethnic rather than scholarly grounds; Middle East studies diverged from Western social science by prioritizing ethnicity over assimilation — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3466; Western social science assumed modernity would dissolve ethnic identity into citizenship

Broader Connections

• Middle East studies diverged from Western social science by prioritizing ethnicity over assimilation #corroborates (0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3466