Ethnicity in the Making:

This paper proposes an agent-centered approach to research on the social construction of ethnicity. I review past research implicating the constructed character of ethnicity, and then introduce two constructionist theoretical perspectives as the basis for a constructionism of ethnicity: the construction of social problems, which emphasizes the "claims-making" strategies of social problems activists -- and actor-network theory, which explores the fashioning of networks and alliances between ideas, things, and people in order to develop scientific facts. Together they suggest that in order to elucidate how ethnicity is socially constructed we must sensitize our research to "ethnicity in the making," following the agents of ethnicity through society. I propose and describe "ethnicity-industries" and "ethnicity-work," as orienting concepts for the development of an analytic vocabulary on the social construction of ethnicity.