以Paul Naroll為代表的部份西方社會科學家和社會主義中國民族學者均相信同族（族裔群體〔ethnic group〕或民族）即等於承載同文化的同祖先之後。另外，Charles F. Keyes、Gehan Wijeyewardene以及其它西方學者則堅持以認同的角度來界定族裔群體。 在本文中，筆者以當前被不少學者關切的西南中國與北東南亞跨國境族群或民族研究的議題為對象，討論上述在界定「祖裔共同體」時所出現之「文化派」與「認同派」兩種理論的對話過程。筆者認為，瞭解具共同祖先認同的群體，及共享大部分文化生活的人群，均是人類學的努力目標之一，但這兩種人類“自我感知的整合體”（族裔群體）與“形象類同的團體”（文化群體），似不應混而論之。

　　　　　Some western social scientists, such as Paul Narroll, and almost all Chinese Socialist ethnologists believe that people who bear the same culture must inherit from a common ancestor. However, other western anthropologists like Charles F. Keyes and Gehan Wijeyewardene insist on defining ethnic entities in terms of personal identity instead of objective cultural traits. In this paper, I have discussed the dialogical process between the "culture people" and the "identity people" in academic circle who are in pursuit of the nature of "descent community" on the new appeared issue of ethnic phenomena across the border of southwest China and northern Southeast Asia. I suggest that both cultural group and identity group are worthy to be studied by anthropologists, but we should not mix them up in any sphere of discourse to attempting to understand the grouping principle of human kind.