Race and ethnicity function as forms of collective social identity

Evidence

Race and ethnicity are intrinsically forms of collective social identity. The subject of identity consequently has been at the heart of both historical and contemporary discussions about ethnoracial issues. The question of identity has become a keyword in contemporary politics and it has taken on so many different connotations that sometimes it is obvious that people are not talking about the same phenomena. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 116

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames race and ethnicity as intrinsically collective identity-structures and warns that ‘identity’ has become overloaded to the point of polysemy in contemporary political talk.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 116
• XREF: connects to: Physical and symbolic ties to homeland drive minority-race identification in children — Tatiana I. Zamora and Amado M. Padilla, Making sense of conflicting messages of…, 122; Mixed members treat racial-ethnic identities as context-switchable need satisfiers; Ethnic identity choices are constrained by socially defined categories carrying unequal advantage — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 941 (+1 more)