Cultural Anthropology / M. Waters
THE CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE
- Race is said to be a “cultural construction, not a biological reality (Marks, 1995)”, meaning that “race” is often assumed to have a biological basis, though it is defined culturally or socially (e.g. someone with one “black” great-grandparent is defined as “black”, even though he or she might have seven “white” great grandparents. Biologically, it would be more logical to call this person “white”).
- Today “ethnicity” is preferred by anthropologists – allows individuals to choose their own category based on shared customs and traditions in a group of people (rather than categories created by government officials, scholars, etc., that place people in categories based on physical traits)
- “Race” has generally been defined by physical characteristics, while “ethnicity” is defined in cultural terms
- How many races are there? Four? Ten? Twenty-one? Throughout human history scientists, naturalists, governments, academicians, etc. have claimed that there are a set number of races. Yet, data from around the world indicates that race is not defined the same way by everyone. Different societies recognize various numbers of racial categories, and use different criteria to classify people.
- In the late 1700’s European naturalists came up with a system that included four categories: Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasoid and Australoid. Each category was defined by a “suite” of physical features, and to a degree also considered one’s geographic location (or that of one’s ancestors). This system was widely used until as recently as a few decades ago (some people still believe it is valid).
- Supposedly all people, in every part of the world, could be defined by one of these categories. They did not take into account the many exceptions that exist in the human species (i.e. those people who could not be “pigeon-holed” into just one category). These naturalists also underestimated the complexity of human variation.
- Anthropologists find several problems with traditional racial classification systems (i.e. those that focus on physical, rather than cultural, traits):
Lumping people together ignores variability within each category - ignores individual differences, does not consider people of interracial unions, and does not take into account that one person may belong to more than one category
Use of the “race concept” can lead to racism(the belief that some people are superior to others) - has often falsely led people to believe that different human groups are biologically different
Racial typologies do not indicate the possible adaptive significance of the variability– ignores the relationship that exists between some of our physical traits and climate and/or environment