[Data-modeling] what is Country of nationality?

[Jon Reitsma]

I also agree with the citizenship definition and that's how I've been using it.  I use the ethnicity property to modify for heritage/color.  So our example of Arnold Schwarzenegger places his nationality as USA and ethnicity as Austrian and white.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Karlak" <zenkat at metaweb.com>
To: "Freebase data modeling mailing list" <data-modeling at freebase.com>
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 4:21:05 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] what is Country of nationality?





On May 11, 2009, at 4:01 PM, brendan wrote: 


+1 because 99% of the time it's the equivalent of citizenship; the wikipedia has a long answer: 




The word citizenship is often used in a different sense from nationality . The most common distinguishing feature of citizenship is that citizens have the right to participate in the political life of the state, such as by voting or standing for election . The term national includes both citizens and non-citizens. Alternatively, nationality can refer to membership in a nations (collective of people sharing a national identity, usually based on ethnic and cultural ties and self-determination ) even if that nation has no state, such as the Basques , Kurds , Finland-Swedes and Palestinians . 

My read on this quote is that it contradicts the idea that nationality is citizenship. Citizenship is a narrowly defined legal status; nationality encompasses questions of personal identity, current residence and shared culture. For those of us who have never emigrated from their home lands, there may be no difference (unless that homeland is Palestine or Basque Country). For all of the examples Viral gave, however, there is a significant difference. 


Personally, I prefer the citizen definition because it's more definitive. However, if we actually mean "citizenship", shouldn't we rename the property to "/people/person/citizen_of "? 


Brian 
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