Embodied Ethnicity: the Ethnic Affiliation Grounded in the Body

Drawing on cultural phenomenology, this paper extends the literature on ethnicity by investigating its embodied dimensions and by studying infra-national referents (e.g., regionalism in France). Findings show the central role of embodiment in ethnicity. Three dimensions of ethnicity are outlined: embodied ethnicity (being-in-the-world), embodied ethnic imaginary (remembering being-in-the-world), and embodied ethnic interactions (being-in-the-world with others). This analysis extends the post-assimilationist model by adding an embodied dimension, highlights the specificities of local ethnicity, and questions the concept of habitus.