ABSTRACT
In migration literature migrant populations are commonly referred to as ethnic communities. It is easy to understand that this term is used rather habitually but in reality these so-called communities radically depart from the sociological ideal-typical constructions of community. The main characteristics of community in both its classical (Tönnies 1988) and its modern (Etzioni 1995) version is the assumption about the possibility of holism, closeness and unity. The obsession with identification and search for communities should be juxtaposed with Benedict Anderson's (1993 rev.ed., p. 6) classical statement that "all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined." Indeed, it seems that the notion of community obliterates the richness of empirical heterogeneity from the field of vision.
