Ancient Ethnicity and Modern Identity 75identities remain a core issue in Classical Studies. Modern conceptualizations of identi-
ties have changed dramatically during the last century. Our understandings of identities
today and views from the nineteenth or even the early twentieth century are irreconcil-
able in some respects. The emphasis on origins, and the assumption that archaeological
artifacts actually reflect not only the distribution of a people but also their essential and
immutable characteristic traits are dissonant to many of us. Yet, old habits die hard. Essen-
tialist assumptions, such as the idea that culture mirrors the inner capacities of a people,
continue to influence Classical Studies even today.
A dynamic view on ethnicity was introduced independently in the 1960s by anthro-
pologists and historians, but it remained, on the whole, unnoticed in Classical Studies
until the 1990s. The dynamic perspective emphasizes the mutability of ethnic identi-
ties and affiliations. Ethnic identities are considered as constructions that developed in
response to certain needs. Initially, the instrumentalists focused on how ethnicities were
mobilized and framed by sociopolitical contexts. The complex relation between ethnic-
ity and culture was an Achilles heel for the instrumentalists. It remained under-theorized
until scholars turned to practice theories. These provide us with a tool for understand-
ing the embodiment, or subjective internalization, of the external objective structures.
This area of ethnicity studies has not received wider attention in Classical Studies of
ethnicity. In Classical Studies, the major contribution of the dynamic perspective has
been to map processes of ethnogenesis, redefinition, and the decline of ethnic groups.
The dynamic perspective has advanced our sensibility toward the substantial variation of
ethnic expressions in classical antiquity. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that the
dynamic perspectives have not replaced the essentializing discourses in either Classical
Studies or in ethnicity studies. Scholarship does not develop in a straight line in which
one theoretical perspective is replaced by a new one.
In Classical Studies, as I see it from a theoretical point of view, we face two immediate
challenges pertaining to ethnicity. First, I think that we need to utilize archaeological
interpretative models in order to explore how material culture in antiquity contributed
to frame ethnicities. I think that we still tend to view archaeological discourses as auxil-
iary to discourses based on textual evidence. The positivist fallacy will continue to haunt
Classical Studies as long as we do not challenge our discursive frameworks and entertain
the possibility that there were also mute ethnic groups, that is, ethnic groups who are
not accounted for in the literary records. Secondly, the relational perspective, not only in
the guise of Malkin, but also founded on Bruno Latour’s actor–network theory (Latour
2005), is promising, since it provides us with a new conceptual framework that challenges
our conceptions of identities.
REFERENCESAntonaccio, Carla M. 2010. “(Re)Defining Ethnicity: Culture, Material Culture, and Identity.”
In Shelley Hales and Tamar Hodos, eds.,Material Culture and Social Identities in the Ancient
World, 32–53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Banton, Michael. 1998.Racial Theories, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barth, Fredrik. 1969. “Pathan Identity and Its Maintenance.” In Fredrik Barth, ed.,Ethnic
Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference, 117–34. Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.