The neologism ethnogenesis has been in use since the nineteenth century but became a regular feature of archaeological work after 1945 in Russia. There it was used to describe a very slow process (thousands of years) by which people of different 'race' and linguistic groups acquired a stable sense of self.
In more recent anthropological and theoretically inclined archaeology it has become something a code-word to indicate a belief that ethnic identities are rapidly, and self-consciously, reformulated on a a routine and regular basis.
I am aware of quite a literature on this bu wondered what people thought the best accounts of it were...
Try Reinhard Wenskus' Stammesbildung und Verfassung and the traditionskerne model as a starting point. The literature is large, particularly for the early medieval period. You might have a look at works by Walter Pohl and then have a look at the volume 'On Barbarian Identity' by A. Gillett http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503511689-1
Oswald Spengler's ideas may be relevant. He describes how specific cultures and civilizations come into being and then grow and evolve. I tried to summarize his thesis in http://www.dlmcn.com/oswaldspengler.html#beg
For the use in the second sense (the relatively fast emergence of a form of collective consciousness) you can have a look on the Roma-Gypsy Ethnicity in Eastern Europe
by Nicolae GHEORGHE http://www.jstor.org/stable/40970676?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents in the similar vein he argued here: Gheorghe, N. (1997). The social construction of Romani identity. In T. Acton (Ed.), Gypsy politics and Traveller identity (pp. 153–171). Book Section, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press. I think it is an interesting contemporary case.
Two edited volumes that address ethnogenesis at length are John Terrell's Archaeology, Language, and History: Essays On Culture and Ethnicity, and Jonathan Hill's History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1492-1992. The former includes good reviews of the concept, the latter mostly contains cases that illustrate a broader usage than the original Russian one.
Although my own publications on neo-Indian ethnogenesis arguably fall within the "rapidly, and self-consciously" mode you mention, I see those two characteristics as fully consistent with the Barthian perspective that Richard Jenkins describes as the basic anthropological model of ethnicity. We don't need ethnogenesis to label those two things apart from other processes of change.
I lean toward reserving ethnogenesis to the processes causing a change of identity tht is marked by a new ethnonym. Even better, ethnogenesis labels those circumstances in which a new social group and identity emerge together through either fusion or fission. Purists like John Moore only allow cases of fusion to be labeled ethnogenesis.
By the way, I meant no disrespect to John Moore. I view his work on ethnogenesis to be seminal not merely in expanding our understanding of that topic, but also in reinvigorating an American style four-field anthropology.
Thank you for the helpful responses. I am reading the volume editd by John Edward Terrell at the moment, and finding it very useful. The paper by Lindstrom on Soviet scholarship is particularly useful. It confirms a strong sense I have had that theory and practice sharply diverge in the archaeological/historical study of ethnicity. Practical examples where scholars act as if ethnicity were a static primordial feature of peoples are common enough - the particular poblem I am pursueing relates to the treatment of Northern Pakistan in this way by an Austrian and a Russian scholar (Jettmar and Litvinsky). However, as far as I can see those who theorise have always viewed it as invented and arbitrary - they simply disagree on the speed or frequency of ethnogenesis. Most theorists suggest there is some group who do theorise ethnicity as static but when I get there I always find that position is 'over the next hill'.
Once I have had a chance to digest I will try to respond with those items I found most useful.
Brian Haley: Thank you for your comments on terminology, very useful. I have found the terminology particularly slippery.
From social-anthroplogical perspective I find most useful interactionist theories of ethnicity construction which originate from Fredrik Barth's introduction in: Barth, F. ed., 1969. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries - The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Boston: Little, Brown And Company.
Another interesting source is an article by Georges Devereux, Ethnic Identity: Its Logical Foundations and Its Dysfunctions
Yes and not
Yes as new etnographical fenomomenon emerge in each culture when external and internal factors matches or collides
No, enthongraphy has been there since the birth of each culture; what happen after is just and addition to the existing one
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