本文認為，族群不只是文化團體，族群衝突也不應被理解為文化團體之間的衝突，如何超越「文化團體」的迷思將是我們檢視當代台灣族群政治的關鍵。本文嘗試反思當代台灣社會的族群現象，比較兩種不同的「族群政治」觀點。第一種觀點將族群理解為「文化團體」，認為族群是一種「不連續、有著清楚範圍、以文化內容為主、可以延續傳承」的「團體」；族群政治則是探究不同族群之間「團體差異」的比較研究，以「百分比、平均數、眾數」來繪測族群差異，包括語言使用習慣、收入、教育成就、選舉行為、政黨支持等，因而容易具體化族群，將族群衝突視為集團式的人群對立；族群關係被理解為「文化差異是否可以彼此包容尊重」的問題，因而忽略族群關係的歷史成因與政治脈絡。本文提出的第二種觀點嘗試將族群理解為「政治社群」，主要是從「文化」與「團體」這兩種面向來修正文化團體觀點對於族群現象與族群政治的看法。政治社群觀點認為，族群不只是文化團體，而是具有政治任務的文化團體，我們必須掌握歷史與政治面向來理解「文化差異」的再現與影響。本文也主張，將族群視為一種變項，以團體性的角度來理解族群，才可以從組織、事件、活動、框架、密碼、認知等角度來理解「文化」的政治作用與「團體性」的起伏消長，進而理解族群政治的歷史成因、現實操作與政治影響。

The goal of this paper is to reflect on Taiwan’s ethnic phenomenon and to compare two theoretical perspectives on the study of ethnic politics. The first perspective sees ethnic group as cultural group, which is often described as “discrete, bounded, culturally distinctive and enduring”. Accordingly, one major task for analyzing ethnic politics is to provide a comparative study of group/cultural differences. The tools of percentage, mean and mode are often favored to conduct a comparative study on the topics of language use, income, education, voting behavior, political position etc., and it leads to a reification of ethnic group. Ethnic relations are then reduced to a question of tolerance and respect. Ethnic conflict is equated with ethnic groups in conflict, i.e., cultural groups in conflict. The second perspective sees ethnic group as a political community, and argues that an ethnic group is more than a cultural group, but a cultural group with a political mission. We do not mean to downplay the significance of culture, but to emphasize a need to analyze the production and representation of cultural differences in terms of political context. In addition, we choose to see ethnic group as a variable, in the conception of group as groupness. This political-community perspective observes the existence of ethnic group as an on-going event and directs our attention to the role of organizations and ethno-political entrepreneurs, the dynamics and consequences of events and activities, the competition for interpretative framing and rhetoric keywords, and the process of social construction and cognitive development.