In the article “Foreigners in Egypt”, Schneider talks about the notion of “foreigners” in ancient Egypt, how they are viewed, and the process they go through when they come to Egypt. He gives a definition of what “ethnicity” means, the process foreigners go through when they join a new culture, and the history of foreigners arriving in ancient Egypt.
Ethnicity is described as a social construct that is the result of perceptions. It is used to describe groups of people who possess a strong connection and share sense of identity with each other. They are groups who are connected by common beliefs, culture, history, and experiences. There is a distinction between group identification within an ethnic group and a group that is classified together by people outside of the ethnicity. This means that foreigners could eventually come to be considered ethnically Egyptian if they were willing to assimilate into the culture and were not guaranteed to always be seen as outsiders.
The process of foreigners moving into ancient Egypt and adapting to their new culture involves an initial accommodation, followed by acculturation and then eventually, assimilation once they cross a cultural border and alter their position as foreigners in ancient Egypt. Accommodation means that they are living within the society, but are not changing themselves or their beliefs to fit the culture they are in. Later, they will acculturate, meaning that they begin changing their values to line up with those in the culture they are living with, as well as learn the language and gain cultural knowledge. Lastly, they will finally assimilate, meaning they have completely accepted the culture as their own and reject their original culture. This could potentially change the perceptions of people as foreigners and they could be viewed more as part of the culture.
The process of foreigners moving to ancient Egypt was varied, happening in all different time periods and with many different kinds of people. There are examples of foreigners like Nubians, Libyans, and the Hyksos becoming acculturated in ancient Egypt dating from archaic Egypt up to the New Kingdom. The amounts of evidence showing these migrations and the assimilation of foreigners also varies between time periods. For example, the Old Kingdom has a limited amount of evidence and the amount of evidence seemed to increase as time passed, likely due to improved methods of record keeping, resulting in the New Kingdom has a rich amount of evidence of foreigners. The reasoning for foreigners traveling to Egypt range from transfers of people through trade, voluntary migration, and due to the influence of military activity. The pursuit of resources and trade also forced relations with foreigners outside of Egypt and could sometimes result in their capture. If foreigners were willing to reject their own culture and were willing to assimilate, they could potentially become ethnically accepted by the natives and be viewed as ancient Egyptians.