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Some contributors to the theory of ethnicity trace back its origins to the early works of Max Weber. Weber in one of his important contributions namely Economy and Society first published in 1922 and reprinted in 1968 regards an ethnic group to be a group whose members share a belief that they have a common ancestor or to put it differently ‘they are of common descent’. He qualifies his statement by suggesting that: Ethnic membership does not constitute a group; it only facilitates group formation of any kind, particularly in the political sphere. On the other hand, it is primarily the political community, no matter how artificially organized that inspires the belief in common ethnicity (1968:389).

It is apparent from Weber’s statement that biology had little role to play in cultivating ‘sense of belonging’. Weber perceived Ethnic group as a status group. A status group may be rooted in perceptions of shared religion, language or culture.

Members of the group on the basis of shared communality tend to form ‘monopolistic social closure’—that is they refuse to let others enter their exclusive domain. Every member of the group knows what is expected of him in situations of collective participation. They also function together to protect each other’s honour and dignity. It is on these perceptions that ‘suicide squads’ operate in political struggles. Weber also argues that ‘since the possibilities for collective action rooted in ethnicity are ‘indefinite’, the ethnic group, and its close relative nation, cannot easily be precisely defined for sociological purposes’. (for details refer to Jenkins, 1997:10). This profound statement by Weber enables us to understand how political acts of subversion under one regime are celebrated as heroic and patriotic by those who are seeking political sovereignty; and are condemned as acts of treason by those governing the nation states. You must be reading articles in Newspapers about ongoing struggle between Israel and Palestine and various other so called insurgent groups and the nation states. Ethnicity forms complex equations and simple cultural or ethnological explanations are not enough to unfold its mysteries.

Ethnicity as a theoretical tool for understanding complex questions of social interaction and political formations holds equal interest not only for sociologists but also for anthropologists and political scientists. In a broad sense, three approaches to the understanding of ethnicity can be considered, namely Primordialist,

Instrumentalist and constructivist.

In general ethnicity is defined as a comprehensive form of natural selection and kinship connections, a primordial instinctive impulse. Which continues to be present even in the most industrialized mass societies of today.(1981:35)

Socio-biological interpretations of ethnicity assume that there are tangible explanations for ethnicity. Some of the followers of this school are convinced that genetic linkages by itself are responsible for accentuating ethnic ties. Another group within the same school thinks that biological and kinship ties evolve and are furthered by cultural influences. The explanations offered by various scholars suggest that this school of though is primarily rooted in evolutionary construction of human societies. Shaw and Wong (1989) argue that ‘recognition of group affiliation is genetically encoded, being a product of early human evolution, when the ability to recognize the members of one’s family group was necessary for survival’.