Politics and problematics of the definition and categorization of ethnicity in Nepal

Race is a product of social conflicts between different groups of people, and hence it is guided by the interests and politics of privileging some groups over the others. Omi and Winant (2002) define race as “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (p. 123). Race, when defined loosely, is taken interchangeably with ethnicity. According to Miles & Brown, ethnicity is a concept related to race (2003). By and large, it denotes a category that distinguishes groups based on sociocultural characteristics, such as ancestry, language, religion, custom and lifestyle. However, like race, ethnicity does not denote innate or inherent attributes of humans. Rather, it is a relational concept that sets one group of people apart from another — a process of constructing differences.