CHAPTER 11 ETHNICITY AND RACE CHAPTER OVERVIEW This chapter provides an introduction to the anthropological study of ethnicity and race It discusses how race is culturally constructed and examines differences in the construction of race in Brazil Japan and the United States The chapter also examines the relationship of ethnic groups to the nation state and to nationality and outlines the sources and consequences of ethnic tolerance assimilation oppression and conflict Kottak also investigates why race is a discredited concept in human biology and presents other explanatory approaches e g natural selection that scientists take to understand human biological variation CHAPTER OBJECTIVES 1 Understand why race is a discredited concept in human biology Know at least three ways in which the notion of race fails to account for human genetic variation Race is a cultural category rather than a biological reality Ethnic groups including races derive from contrasts perceived and perpetuated in particular societies rather than from scientific classifications based on common genes Lack of a precise distinction between race and ethnicity makes it better to use the term ethnic group instead of race to describe any such social group Intrinsic Racism the belief that a perceived racial difference is a sufficient reason to value one person less than another Brazil s racial classification pays attention to phenotype A Brazilian s phenotype and racial label may change because of environmental factors such as the tanning rays of the sun or the effects of humidity on the hair 2 Understand how human skin color has been shaped by natural selection acting in a given population and a particular environment The racial categories included in the 1990 census were white black negro indian eskimo aleut pacific islander and other Attempts by social scientists and interested citizens to add a multiracial census category have been opposed by the NAACP and the National Council of La Raza Racial classification is a political issue minorities fear their political clout with decline if their numbers go down 3 Be able to distinguish between ethnicity and race Know the defining characteristics of ethnicity Understand how people may or may not negotiate social identities Races are ethnic groups assumed by members of a particular culture to have a biological basis but actually race is socially constructed IM 11 1 Hypodescent automatically placing the children of a union between members of different groups in the minority group Hypodescent divides American society into groups that have been unequal in their access to wealth power and prestige 4 Be able to distinguish among ethnic groups nationalities and nation states Why have nationalities been described as imagined communities by Benedict Anderson and others Know how migration and colonialism have in some cases impelled alliances and affiliation across wide geographic spaces Once the term nation was synonymous with tribe or ethnic group all three of these terms have been used to refer to a single culture sharing a single language religion history territory ancestry and kinship Now nation has come to mean state an independent centrally organized political unit or a government Nation state refers to a autonomous political entity a country like the US Nationalities Ethnic groups that once had or wish to have or regain autonomous political status their own country In the words of Benedict Anderson they are imagined communities Even when they become nation states they remain imagined communities because most of their members will never meet They can only imagine they all participate in the same unit 5 Be able to distinguish between the process of assimilation and the defining characteristics of plural society and multiculturalism According to Kottak why is multiculturalism of growing importance in the United States and Canada Be able to critically assess what might be the positive and negative aspects of policies of multiculturalism Assimilation describes the process of change that a minority ethnic group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates The minority adopts the patterns and norms of its host culture Plural society a society combining ethnic contrasts ecological specialization use of different environmental resources by each ethnic group and the economic interdependence of those groups Ethnic boundaries are most stable and enduring when the groups occupy different ecological niches Multiculturalism the view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable Opposite of the assimilationist model the multicultural view encourages the practice of cultural ethnic traditions US and Canada multiculturalism is of growing importance this reflects awareness that the number size of ethnic groups have grown dramatically in recent years Multiculturalism seeks ways for people to understand and interact that don t depend on sameness but rather on respect for differences Multiculturalism stresses the interaction of ethnic groups and their contribution to the country IM 11 2 6 Be able to distinguish among prejudice stereotypes and de jure and de facto forms of discrimination Be able to identify the aftermaths of cultural oppression genocide ethnocide forced assimilation and cultural colonialism Prejudice devaluing a group because of it s assumed behavior values capabilities or attributes Stereotypes fixed ideas often unfavorable about what the members of a group are like Prejudice people assume that members of the group with act as they are supposed to act and interpret a wide range of individual behaviors as evidence of the stereotype Discrimination refers to policies and practices that harm a group and it s members Discrimination may be de facto practiced but not legally sanctioned or de jure part of the law Ex of de jure apartheid in South Africa or segregation in the south Genocide the most extreme form of ethnic discrimination the deliberate elimination of a group through mass murder Ethnocide a dominant group may try to destroy the cultures of certain ethnic groups Forced assimilation forcing a certain group to adopt the dominant culture Cultural colonialism refers to internal domination by one group and it s culture or ideology over others IM 11 3