Guillermo-Sven Reher Díez (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC); gsreher@ih.csic.es) and Mª Cruz Cardete del Olmo (Complutense University; mcardete@ghis.ucm.es)

The session aims to analyse the relation between ethnic identity and the construction of the political landscape in the ancient world. For this purpose, the relation between ethne and political entities must be re-examined, overcoming the traditional equation of both concepts.

The role that ethnicity played in the construction of political entities has been recently studied in many ways. An adequate use of written sources and the incorporation of recent theoretical work in Anthropology have helped shed new light on the articulation of identities that was –and is– constantly undergone by societies. For this reason, some of the topics discussed here will be:

• The historiographical construction of ethnicity.
• The relation between ethnic groups and political entities.
• Ethnicity vs. other forms of identity in the written and archaeological record.
• Ethnic ‘labelling’: an imperialist habit, not a proper source.

Contributions dwelling on ethnic identity and ethnicity, how they are constructed and formulated, will be welcome. New insights, case-studies and working documents will help generate an intense and fruitful debate on the current state of ethnicity studies.