The Economic Viability of Ethnicity: Economic Behavior as an Expression of Ethnic Identity among Serbian Immigrants in the USA

Abstract

The economic aspect of ethnicity represents a wide topic of research which still hasn’t been extensively studied in Serbian ethnology and anthropology. It encompasses numerous kinds of relationships between people who belong to the same ethnic group, as well as all kinds of economic discrimination or economic favorizing based on ethnic identity. In this paper I shall attempt to highlight some of the basic characteristics of this issue, and to point out the interconnectedness of economic behavior and ethnic identity, based on one case study. I shall also demonstrate some of the specifics of the socio-economic system within which the studied topic was considered (USA), as well as the complex and ambiguous influence that this system has had on ethnic identity through certain economic actions. The paper focuses on the economic aspect of ethnicity of the Serbian Diaspora in the US, and certain specific issues are considered through the example of the economic behavior of one Serbian immigrant from Romania.