Introduction

This chapter provides a complete sketch of the key concepts and arguments introduced in this book as well as the stakes attached to each. It introduces the conceptual framework for thinking about ethnic identity and ethnic identity change proposed in this book. It shows how this framework synthesizes constructivist arguments into a set of testable and logically connected propositions about why and how ethnic identities change; how this framework-and the propositions derived from it-into a new, combinatorial language; and how these conceptual, constructivist, and combinatorial tools are deployed to theorize about the relationship between ethnicity, politics and economics using a variety of methods.