SOCI 2001 week 1 Discussion Essay
Race and Ethnic Group Relations
Issues of race and ethnicity dominate the academic discourse of many disciplines, including the field of multicultural education, and the sociology-political arena. Heightened interest in these issues is in response to the demographic reality of increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the United States and other nations.SOCI 2001 week 1 Discussion Essay
This collection of the annotated literature focuses on the validity and vitality of racial and ethnic studies in international contexts and to the importance of the issues to today’s human experience. This introductory essay explores the concepts of race and ethnicity, construction of racial and ethnic differences, and the connection between socially-constructed differences and conflicts in sociology-political contexts. The essay will be followed by a limited annotated bibliography of 20 books and 13 journal articles organized by geographic division and type of the literature (book or article).
Most of the literature included in this essay is concerned with issues of race and ethnicity emerging within the last two centuries. Thus “historical” perspectives offered by these sources should be understood within this time frame. Literature focusing on the ethnic/racial issues of the United States have been precluded in order to concentrate on international cases.SOCI 2001 week 1 Discussion Essay
Definitions of Race and Ethnicity
The use of the terms “race” and “ethnicity” is varied. The two terms are misused as if they are identical. The casual and common appearance of the terms side by side in the public discourse may discourage people from regarding them as distinct terms. Serious students of race and ethnicity differentiate between them and study their usage in classifying and categorizing people.
The term “race” is based on the premise of biological and physical differences. According to Robb (1995), “the concept of ‘race’ included any [essentializing] of groups of people which held them to display inherent, heritable, persistent or predictive characteristics, and which thus had a biological or quasi-biological basis” (p.1). In the study of race, particularly during the 19th and early 20th century, people were classified on the basis of different phenotype s determined by physical attributes such as skin color, cranial size and shape, and hair type.
Classification of humans into distinct racial groups claims to draw on scientific facts. This endeavor is a facade lacking genuine scientific validity for at least two reasons. First, racial classification assumes that pure phenotype s exist. This premise is difficult to prove, even if one accepts the conjecture that pure phenotypes had existed in the early stage of human existence. Biological intermixing between people of apparently different phenotypes complicates today’s “scientific” attempt to sort people out purely by phenotypic traits. Second, any claim that racial differences are based on biological differences ignores the fact that people with identical physical attributes are often classified differently and hold different social positions in societies. Brazil’s complicated racial categories based on skin shade (Stam 1998) do not coincide with the black-white-colored paradigm sustained in South African apartheid racial discourse (Deng, 1997). Koreans and Japanese who can be easily classified into the same racial category are considered two different “races” by Japanese due to their notion of differing “blood” affinities (Dikkster, 1997; Min, 1992). Even within Brazil, the socio-economic status of an individual frequently affects his/her racial category. This is reflected in the popular ideology, “Money whitens,” whereby a darker-skinned person may become “white” based on economic status (Hanchard, 1994; Reichmann, 1999; Twine, 1998). Both of these problems are apparent in Mexican society where scholars have noted that it is often impossible to distinguish between Indians and Mestizos phenotypically. Instead, individuals of both groups are more commonly categorized according to social and cultural traits. SOCI 2001 week 1 Discussion Essay
Furthermore, the work of Nutini (1997) demonstrates that it is common for Indians to “become” Mestizo by mere acquisition of social and cultural traits regardless of phenotypic characteristics. Despite the impossibility of scientifically constructing racial classifications based on phenotypic attributes, claims of racial classifications based on pseudo-science and ideology have been used to promote notions of racial differences and superiority, justifying domination of certain “racial” groups over others. This is done despite the fact that genetic differences among groups with different phenotypic attributes are in fact minor and do not account for much difference in human behavior (Unander, 2000).
Distinguished from the concept of “race,” “ethnicity” is a culturally-derived term. Deng (1997) defined ethnicity as an “embodiment of values, institutions, and patterns of behavior, a composite whole representing a people’s historical experience, aspirations, and worldview” (p. 28). Ethnic classification, either externally imposed and intrinsically engendered, often defines people’s membership to a group. Aside from social constructs, ethnicity is innately more central to human experience and identity than race. In turn, ethnic distinctiveness is more likely to invoke an innate sense of peoplehood. Ethnic uniqueness thus provides an immediate identity marker both within a group and between groups. As is the case with racial categorization, ethnic categories are often perceived or discussed as though they are fixed and unchanging entities. However, because ethnicity incorporates language, religion, demarcations of territory, and other cultural traits, changes in people’s affinity with any of them can occur over time. Thus ethnic categorization should be viewed as somewhat subjective and dependent upon human perception and identity. In the milieu of fluidity ethnic consciousness and “way of life” may be created and reinforced to maintain the status quo at certain times and be transformed to embrace other social constructs at other times. Provided that choice, process, and change are all central to ethnic identity, consciousness, and categorization, ethnicity must not be viewed as entirely objective, permanent, or static (Haug, 1998).
Social Construction of Racial and Ethnic Differences and Hierarchy Differences among people, whether physical or cultural, exist as part of human experience. The recognition of differences may be intensified as contacts between different groups grow. Some of the differences may be absorbed into the innate fabric of a society. Socially constructed meanings are often added to perceived or actual differences whereby these differences become signifiers for people’s worth in a society. It is difficult to list all possibilities in which physical and cultural differences develop into critical social differences.
In many cases some groups gain privileges over others on the basis of their racial or ethnic differences, perceived or actual. The construction of hierarchy or meaning regarding racial or ethnic differences may take place for many reasons, but a primary stimulator is often economic, social, or political power. Competition for resources or the drive for greater privilege often underlies the social construction of racial or ethnic hierarchies. These hierarchical classifications are then utilized to establish, develop, or maintain dominance or hegemony of a group over others.
Those on the lower end of opportunity, noting their losses to racial or ethnic classifications, may develop a heightened awareness of group identity in order to challenge the social constructions of privilege. This phenomenon of “ethnogenesis” (Hanchard 1994; Harell, 1995) has proliferated in the contrast of dominance and subjugation based on the ethnic/racial differences throughout the world.
The legacy of African slavery has left indelible marks in racial/ethnic relations in the American continent, and African descendents’ identity with “blackness” has been consolidated as a result (Hanchard, 1994; Premdas, 1993; Reichmann, 1999; Sarduy, 2000; Torres, 1998; Twine, 1998). Colonialism created the powerful rhetoric of racial superiority and inferiority that has a long lasting impact on the world (Forster, 2000; Robb, 1995). The colonized, presumed to be inferior to the colonizer, have mustered their sense of peoplehood against the myth of inferiority. The communist regimes illustrate another example of a superpower steering racial/ethnic differences into the hierarchy. In the former Soviet Union, the central government sought to impose a Russian ethnic identity, including language and political beliefs, upon all Soviet citizens regardless of their ethnic identities. Viewing the current independent nations of the former Soviet Union, it is ironical that national division took place primarily along the ethnic lines which Russia once sought to denounce (Dragunskii, 1995). A similar effort has been attempted by the Chinese central government that imposes a national identity on different ethnic groups (Dikkster,1997; Harell,1995). Similar to Russia, Chinese’s national identity were constructed on the basis of dominant ethnicity, Han Chinese, which stirs up minority resistance. SOCI 2001 week 1 Discussion Essay
In a dominance-subjugation dichotomy socially constructed differences framed into a hierarchy seem to be petrified as facts. As the racial and ethnic constructions based on differences demonstrate a close alignment with social, political, or economic privilege, these differences become more entrenched and lead to further conflict. Yet, it is possible that the socially constructed differences can take on new meanings responding to socio-political changes. The Rwanda’s case illustrates clearly the fluidity of ethnic categories, in which post-colonial ethnic classifications greatly changed due to new socio-political contexts after the independence and hardened categorizations imposed by colonializers (Bowen, 1997; Newbury, 1998; Uvin 1999). Many have argued that Hutu-Tutsi ethnic differentiation in recent decades has more to do with social construction and political manipulation than any innate differences. Many international cases attest to the tenacity of racial and ethnic categories, and they have exercise enormous power as bases for discrimination and dominance.
Social Constructions and Conflict
As social constructions of racial and ethnic hierarchy are often generated to establish or perpetuate privilege for certain groups, a surge of group identity may lead to conflict. According to many popular perceptions, ethnic hierarchies and conflict are inevitable when contact occurs between different races or ethnicities. Ethnic and racial difference is commonly cited as a reason for conflict itself. In many cases, conflict along ethnic or racial lines is construed as age-old and eternal, without hope for relations to improve. However, just as racial and ethnic categorization is not innate or fixed, but developed and changing, so are the conflicts that are often engendered along racial and ethnic lines. Racial and ethnic conflicts are also dependent on the social construction of hierarchies and self-identification, thus adaptive to changing contexts, perspectives, and negotiation. Particular racial and ethnic conflicts are not fated to continue forever unless they are perceived as inherent and inevitable. This notion places the emphasis of racial and ethnic conflict on contexts, ideologies, marginalizing actions, group perceptions of race and ethnicity, and failed negotiations rather than a faulty belief in the inevitable incompatibility of groups from differing races or ethnicities.
Racial and ethnic pluralism does not in all cases lead to conflict. Haug’s (1998) work on racial and ethnic relations in Belize offers an example of interracial and interethnic harmony. Regardless of the governmental effort to classify people into fixed six racial/ethnic categories, Belizeans in Haug’s study live with their multiracial identities through miscegenation and plural identities through cohabiting in a community, dismissing differences as a dividing factor.
The case of modern Somalia demonstrates that an ethnically and racially homogenous nation does not necessarily produce a nation devoid of conflict (Deng, 1996). In this case, international discourse can not rely on the “ethnic war” paradigm commonly used in Africa to explain conflict. Instead, the conflict is referred to as “clan warfare,” although even this concept fails to account for the complex social and political forces which define the conflict. This case demonstrates the need for a closer examination of the social contexts, ideologies, and perceptions, which underlie the constructions of differences rather than accepting the social constructions themselves as the root of the problem. Ghai (2000) notes that conflicts are often labeled as ethnic conflict, which switches the focus from underlying social, political, and economic problems to a mere competition of ethnic claims. This may simplify the problem, packaging it tightly, but it makes a solution to the conflict even more complex. SOCI 2001 week 1 Discussion Essay
Conclusion
As we have reviewed the myriad literature on race and ethnicity in the international context, several themes emerged that take our understanding of race and ethnicity to a deeper level. First, racial differences are more in the mind than in the genes. Thus we conclude superiority and inferiority associated with racial differences are often socially constructed to satisfy the socio-political agenda of the dominant group. Second, racial and ethnic categories are neither fixed across societies nor within a society. Racial and ethnic categories are fluid and changing depending on the socio-political context of a society at any given time. Third, ethnic and racial differences do not inherently lead to conflict. Instead, these differences can take on a social meaning of hierarchy leading to conflict when divided groups fail to negotiate. In such cases, the imbalance of power, not the racial or ethnic differences per se, is the underlying cause of the conflict. In each of these cases, it is critical that the topic of race and ethnicity receives continual examination. The ideology and myth of racial and ethnic differences cannot be validated to support or legitimate superiority, privilege, or conflict as has often been the case in both historical and global contexts. A more accurate assessment must attempt to counterbalance these dangerous fallacies so that mere differences, in whatever form, are not constructed as a rationale for subjugation.SOCI 2001 week 1 Discussion Essay