ANTH Week 4 Notes

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Anthropology

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Oct 30, 2023

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ANTH Week 4 Notes (Race: Between Social Construction and Real Experience) 30 JAN Alan Goodman - Race is Real, But It's Not Genetic ● Race is a highly flexible way in which societies lump people into groups based on appearance that is assumed to be indicative of deeper biological or cultural connections ○ Racial categories do not map onto any kind of scientific conclusion ○ Scientists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries believe there is a scientific basis behind racial classifications ○ Certain groups, by virtue of what phenotype (physical characteristics) they fell into, were seen as more susceptible to certain behaviours and personality traits ● The idea that race is biological or genetic is the social construct Carl Linnaeus and the beginnings of Human Classification ● Race is a byproduct of human classification → Goodman ● Inspired by Aristotle’s Great Chain of Being → hierarchical matter where all matter and living organisms are arranged in a continuum, humans are at the top ● Classification of Human types in Systema Naturae (it was marginalized then, people didn't care) ○ Divides humans into four (Europeans, Asians, Africans, Americans) ○ Based on physical characteristics and associated them with the geographical locations and perceived behaviours ○ Africanus is always at the bottom with irrational behaviour ● Groundwork for racial classification ○ People who look like X belong to Y group of people ○ Y group of people has a,b,c biological and behavioural traits Race: A category based on conflation of geographic ancestry with biological traits ● Conflation of geographic ancestry with biological difference ● The assumption that geographic ancestry, which indeed matters to genetics, can be conflated with race, which does not ○ People living in different places may be susceptible to physical vulnerability, but it's not because of genetics but because of the environment ● Races vs racialization

○ Racialization → the social process by which certain groups of people are singled out (in various ways) on the basis of real or imagined physical characteristics ■ Forms of singling out → systematically depriving groups of rights, resources, and recognitions and elevating others ■ The bad environment they live in contributed to their physical development Race: a retroactive category ● The term race gained traction in the 18th century in North America, but the ideas behind it in full force from the 15-17th centuries ● Portuguese colonization of Africa ○ Circulation of pamphlets about Africans being inferior because of their skin colour ● Trans-Atlantic slave trade ○ People are inferior so they are always in a state that can be exploited or enslaved ● Proponents of colonialism used the logic that differences in appearance were also differences in ranking ● Race is seen as biological, unchanging, and a god given quality The problem with race ● There is nothing ‘essential’ about members who are categorized as part of a racial group - biologically or behaviourally ● There are no natural hierarchies between people ○ Because you are told by someone that you are in X, it doesn't mean you are naturally better/worse than Y ● Geography has more bearing on your biological traits more than anything else ○ All the archaeological and genetic data point to abundant flows of individuals, ideas, and genes across continents, with modern humans evolving at the same time, together Race as genetics is bad science ● Race is a sociopolitical construction, but it has powerful effects on people (race is an invention but it's real) ○ The stereotypes given to each ‘race’ does not capture the complexity of the actual behaviour and lived experiences of the people ● It misses the larger societal cause underlying racial inequalities in health, wealth, and opportunity Effects of Racialization ● Have less access to medical care and food security ● Are subject to police violence and surveillance ● Experience greater social stress ● Suffer higher maternal mortality rates ● Struggle to get recognized in the healthcare system Franz Boas contributions to the study of culture

● Race is a construct that does not explain much about social relations or social changes ● Culture is relative ● Western civilization is not inherently better ● History and human progress are not linear The Rise of Eugenics ● European and American scientists build upon human classification systems about biological inferiority ● Eugenics → science should be used to racially purify a society which would mean making it better according to the logics of racial hierarchies ● Eugenist ideas are based on unscientific conclusions, not verifiable data ● Eugenist ideas are an inevitable outcome of human classification, it can not be supported; the idea of race as inherent by logic is dangerous The Natural Instability of Human Types ● The ability of races of humankind should not be seen as natural or hereditary; shaped by the environment ● Physical development is based on the environment ● Eugenics as a framework is based on a faulty premise ● Doesn’t completely reject the idea that there are separate races, but he doesn’t believe that such differences reflect any intrinsic biological differences ● Minimize the importance of race as a determinant of human behaviour ● Behaviour is determined by a range of variables → environment, social customs and rituals ● If behaviour is determined by a range of variables, then engineering a society based on the idea that certain people are biologically more inclined toward certain behaviours, makes no sense and is empirically incorrect

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1 FEB Lived experience → byproduct of taking racial classifications and using is as a basis for policy, access to resources W.E.B. Du Bois - Of Our Spiritual Strivings ● Du Bois work ○ Founder of Atlanta school of sociology ○ Systemic equality in the US ○ Show that Black Americans are not incapable as the racial thoughts ○ Employs methods like intensive interviews, surveys, look at historical archives (combine qualitative and quantitative methods) ○ Break down generalizations denaturalize identities ○ Embrace cultural traditions, challenge assimilation ○ Black American experience double consciousness ○ Pan African diasporic identity ● Soul → a consciousness; an awareness of self; something that makes us feel complete ○ Self- awareness is the double consciousness, that he is different form the others ● Double consciousness, color line, veil ○ The sense that he is Black and American, he sees it as incompatible ○ There is a veil/color line that separates the two identity ● The realization of one’s difference as Black and American ○ He suddenly sees himself as a racialized person, changing his view ○ He looks at himself from others perspective (the dominant group) ● A reflection on the experience of racialization (of Du Bois) ● A key quote → his cultural heritage is suppressed in order to assimilate with the white community ○ What does it mean to present yourself in a certain way to be accepted to the people of power? ○ Generational inequality shape lived experience ● Relation with anthropology ○ How difference is experienced by the individual → relating it to history ■ How can a society that is so religious be entrenched with racism

■ Religion as a source of strength and power ○ Auto-ethnography and reflecting on one’s own society ○ The ‘native anthropologists’ is both the insider and outsider ○ What does it mean to be an anthropologists of one's own community Kimberle Williams Crenshaw ● Second wave doesn’t fully advocate the rights of poc women ● The concept of intersectionality ○ Focuses on how the law responds to discrimination, which have tended to look at gender and race separately, leaving out Black and other women unable to get justice ○ DeGraffenreid vs General Motors → prior to 1964, black women was not employed by GM, seniority layoffs (the black women are laid off), the court didn’t see a problem because they employed women and black women, Crenshaw argued that the court ignored compound discrimination ○ Intersectionality is the lens to see how power comes and collides, everyone has their own unique experience of discrimination and privilege Gillian Creese - Unsettling the Great White North ● Chapter: creating spaces of belonging ○ Ethnographic, interviews, lived experience, emic approach, historical approach, lived experience of racialization, breaking down generalizations through select interviews

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3 FEB → medical, legal, education → does knowing about race provides substance to the research or does it make it biased → double consciousness (self conscious + perspective from others that is forced upon you; internal), intersectionality (show the social factors, → the data collection methods → first-hand sources, interviews First answer They could ask about how different cultures view race and how it is invented in each culture. They could also ask about how race may or may not impact the lived expperience of people in the different communities Second answer Creese’s analysis of the New African community in Vancouver uses methods that are evident in ethnographic work. She uses an emic approach by doing interviews with the community and asking about their lived experiences. Moreover, she also approaches it historically by including the historical background of the communities. By doing so, people can understand the experiences through the narrative of the people from the Black community, hence breaking down the generalizations and stereotypes made towards them.

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