Notions

  • ethnic diversity

    diversity linked to “ethnic groups” - the cultural grouping of a population, as opposed to the characteristics of individuals. We also talk about “visible minorities”. It is characteristic of a population that has been built up, like France, by successive waves of migration over the centuries. The ethnic origins of a population are studied in some countries (such as the United States) using ethnic statistics which are considered a tool of knowledge. They make it possible in particular to better identify the inequalities to which certain citizens are victims because of their "ethnic" origins, and therefore to measure the integration of immigrants or nationals of immigrant background by highlighting, where appropriate, processes of segregation and discrimination, conscious or unconscious; in particular in France in the “Trajectories & origins” surveys carried out by INED and INSEE (2010), the most cited grounds of discrimination by “visible minorities” (belonging to families from the Maghreb or Africa Sub-Saharan) are first of all the origin (or nationality) and the color of the skin. They are perceived by some researchers as "tools of democracy and equality to better understand and therefore recognize the diversity of society, therefore as" tools of recognition and integration into the nation of visible minorities "

    INSEE & INED, 2010
  • ethnic statistics & republican taboo

    the production of ethnic statistics is prohibited in France because it does not appear compatible with the republican model of integration which does not distinguish individuals according to the color of their skin or their origins, unlike the 'current use in some Anglo-Saxon countries

    Vie publique, 2019
  • Ethnicity

    it can have two meanings "in the strict sense, ethnicity can refer to a group of individuals sharing the same mother tongue"; in the broad sense, ethnicity is defined as "a group of individuals linked by a complex of common characteristics - anthropological, linguistic, politico-historical etc. - the association of which constitutes its own system, an essentially religious structure: a culture ". The ethnic group is then the collectivity, or better the community united by a particular culture. (Roland Breton, 1992 cited by Moussa Abou Ramadan, “The definition of minorities in international law”, Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2016.)

    Roland Breton, 1992
  • Ethnicity

    While race has been particularly used to classify individuals according to certain physical characteristics - in particular the most visible such as skin color - ethnicity concerns the classification of individuals according to their common social and cultural heritage, therefore customs, language, traditions, religion, etc. So while race is related to the biological and physical aspects of a person, ethnicity deals with learned or learned patterns of behavior.

    UNIMI, projet Migraid , 2019
  • Ethnocentrism

    Propensity of a group ("in") to consider its members and values ​​as superior to the members and values ​​of other groups ("out") (Staszak, 2008)

    Tendency to consider the world or other social groups by taking as a reference its own culture or its own social group, by privileging the social norms of its country, by systematically valuing them or by considering them as superior. This overestimation of the social, ethnic, geographic or national group to which one belongs can lead to prejudice, to contempt for other groups or cultures, or even to racism.

    Staszak, 2008 & La Toupie, 2020
  • Ethnocide

    neologism that appeared at the end of the 1970s, it designates the destruction, the annihilation of the culture, civilization, social identity of an ethnic group or a human group, without there necessarily being the desire to physically eliminate this group. This destruction is implemented by another human group, by means of violence or of soft power with, for example, the introduction of more or less brutal economic, social or cultural changes. Ethnocide must be distinguished from genocide which is the physical destruction of a human group. Examples where the term ethnocide was or is used: the Tibetan culture by China, the Amerindian culture by Spain, England and France, then by the United States; the aboriginal culture of Australia, the culture of the first peoples of Siberia through Russia, the Berber culture in North Africa, the Breton, Catalan, Basque languages, etc. (www.toupie.org, 2020) - synonyms: cultural genocide, act of de-civilization, forced assimilation.

    "any enterprise or action leading to the destruction of the culture of a group, to the eradication of its ethnicity or ethnic identity". (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, 1983)

    La Toupie, 2020 & Union internationale des sciences anthropologiques et ethnologiques, 1983
  • Exoticism

    characteristic of things / places / people belonging to a distant / distant land, foreign country or civilization and thus departing from the norms established in and by the West (Staszak, 2008). The notion is ambivalent because it can easily fall into folklore and stereotypes depending on its propensity for ethnocentrism.

    Staszak, 2008
  • Ecumenism

    from the Greek oikoumené: whole inhabited earth - Designates among Christians what concerns all of the Christian Churches. The word applies in particular to the relations between different Christian denominations. The term "ecumenism" is commonly used to refer to all the efforts aimed at the visible unity of the Churches which Christ willed. (eglise.catholique.fr 2020)

    Originally marked by a planetary aim, the word “ecumenism” took on a narrower meaning in the twentieth century. It designates the various efforts, sometimes institutionally structured, to restore to the divided Christian family a deep and visible unity, in conformity with the teaching of Jesus (apostolic message) who wished the communion of Christians in the world in a universal reconciliation. Ecumenical vision and action express a prophetic attempt to rediscover the beginnings of Christianity, and foreshadow “the end of the human adventure”. Faced with the radical challenges for the different Churches of militant atheism, secularization and materialism of civilizations, productivity and consumption, ecumenism could seem conservative. With increasingly virulent opponents, it is better to silence historical oppositions and consider that "what unites is more important than what has divided"; from apostolic, ecumenism has become defensive with a growing awareness of the public tasks of the Churches. (Universalis, 2020)

    Eglise catholique, 2020 & Encyclopédie Universalis, 2020
  • economic diversity

     two European directives adopted in 2000 have clarified the framework for economic diversity (as opposed to discrimination) in the world of work:

    1- the first on equality in employment which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, religious beliefs, age and disability in the field of employment;

    2- the second on racial equality which prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnic origin in the context of employment, but also in access to the social protection system and social security, as well as to goods and services

    European Commission, 2000
  • Equal opportunities for all

    the principles of non-discrimination and equal treatment are part of the fundamental values ​​of the Council of Europe which find expression in particular in Article 14 and in Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights. 'Homme (CEDH), as well as in part V paragraph E of the European Social Charter. Equality of opportunity concerns in particular equality between women and men and the integrated approach to equality, the fight against racism, the integration of people of immigrant origin, the integration of people with disabilities, and aging and the elderly

    Conseil de l'Europe, 2004
  • equal opportunities

    the principles of non-discrimination and equal treatment are part of the fundamental values ​​of the Council of Europe which find expression in particular in Article 14 and in Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights. 'Homme (CEDH), as well as in part V paragraph E of the European Social Charter. Equality of opportunity concerns in particular equality between women and men and the integrated approach to equality, the fight against racism, the integration of people of immigrant origin, the integration of people with disabilities, and aging and the elderly

    Conseil de l’Europe, 2004
  • essentialism

    a way of thinking deeply rooted in the mental habits of scholars and philosophers since Plato and Aristotle, and deeply erroneous and sterile. For Popper (who created it in 1945), it is about a general conception of science, consisting in explaining phenomena by assertions about "the essential nature of things". For Mayr (who made him famous among biologists), within the framework of a philosophy of nature, and more specifically of biological thought, essentialism is an erroneous conception of living nature, which neglects or ignores the population variability and evolution, and favors typological thinking, everything is reduced to “types”

     

    Essentialist theories assign to an identity that no longer owes anything to the will but rather to the structural elements that shape individuals. They generate a "war of identities" as a reality built around clashes between different ethnic or social groups (Perrine Simon-Nahum quoted by Ariel Toledano, reading note on "Modern unreasoning" in "La règle du jeu", 9 août 2021, https://laregledujeu.org/2021/06/29/37441/comment-faire-renaitre-l- esprit-d-utopie/)

    Gayon, 2012 ; Simon-Nahum, 2021