Understanding Race: A Social Construct

• Study notes have been prepared as requested

Aspects of Culture: Race

• Race is biologically meaningless, as all humans belong to the same species
• Humans exhibit physical differences, racial categories are not a valid way to divide people
• Race is a social and cultural construct
• Categorizing humans into distinct groups to define what "race" means biologically is difficult
• People in the same region share more genes and physical traits
• People of different races can share physical characteristics and be genetically similar

Why Race is Not Biological

• Humans are genetically similar with limited genetic diversity
• Human variation is continuous, making it impossible to define racial categories
• No group of traits consistently appears in one race and not others
• People of different races can be genetically closer than people of the same race

Race as a Social Construct

• Race exists as a cultural and historical construct not a biological fact
• Race still important due to racial prejudice/discrimination and systemic racism

History of Race

• The concept of race is a product of historical events
• Early colonization involved determining if colonized people were human
• It was believed that non-Europeans were inferior
• 18th Century: Race became understood biologically
• Linnaeus: established 5 human varieties based in both physical and cultural attributes
• Blumenbach: defined 5 physical categories of race building on racist ideas

Scientific Racism and Eugenics

• Influenced the 19th-early 20th centuries
• Connected biological characteristics, intelligence, and abilities to race
• Herbert Spencer created social Darwinism
• Eugenics attempted to purify humans by only allowing superior people to breed
• Prevented inferior people (POC, Working Class, Disabled) from breeding, culminating in WW2

Ethnicity

• Ethnicity defined by common history, culture, language, and shared collective identity
• Ethnicity is more specific than race, as one race can include multiple ethnic groups
• French/Swedish/English people are of the same race but have different ethnicities

Language (Linguistic Anthropology)

• Language is a defining aspect of human culture
• Communication allows for complex thought and interaction
• Language is a symbolic system that expresses meaning through voice, gestures, writing
• It passes down culture

The Sign

• Made of signifier and signified
• Signifier: the way meaning is communicated (ex: the word "dog")
• Signified: the concept communicated (ex: an actual dog)
• Symbols are arbitrary without natural connection between the signifier and the signified
• Icons have physical resemblance to the signified (photograph)
• Indices show evidence of what's being represented (smoke indicating fire)

Symbols

• Concepts that represent something else via mark/image/gesture/behavior
• Symbols are learned and shared by people in a group

Qualities of Language

• Biological: The body is used physically to communicate via mouth, face, hands and tongue
• Socio-Cultural: Language varies between groups and is linked to culture
• Language influences culture, and culture influences language

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (1930s)

• Linguistic Relativity Principle: Language influences worldview
• Different languages categorize colour/time/space/ideas differently
• Culture influences language but language determines how people perceive the world

Linguistic Determinism

• The idea that language determines how people experience the world has been debated and abandoned
• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has two versions
• Strong Version: Linguistic Determinism determine culture by grammar
• Weak version: Language has a role in shaping thought/culture

How Context Affects Language

• Communication varies across platforms and locations (social media vs. work)
• Languages have different variants for difference contexts (formal/familiar pronouns)

Non-Verbal Communication

• Paralanguage: Expressing meaning through sounds beyond words using voice qualities
• Vocalization: Intentional sounds that are not words
• Silent language: Nonverbal cues expressed through gestures, body movements, and facial expressions

Politics and Power

• Politics refers to actions/reactions related to power
• Power is the ability to compel behaviour
• Politics is about the negotiation, use, and abuse of power
• Power relations exist at individual and group levels

Power Relations/Inequalities

• Power is not distributed equally by groups/individuals
• Unequal distribution of resources results from power use and misuse
• Power can be used coercively (force/threat/punishment) or persuasively (religious/cultural beliefs/reward)

Political Systems

• Two main types include collective decision-making and concentrated power
• Smaller groups make decisions collectively through informal means but this cannot work in large, complex societies
• Larger societies centralize power and control more formally

Uncentralized Systems

• Groups operate without a central governing body, use collective decisions, and are more homogenous

Centralized Systems

• Systems are those with a ruling body by one or more people
• Authority is found in larger and more complex societies which makes formal codes and sanctioning more appropriate

Elman Service

• Popular classification of political systems include Uncentralized Bands and Tribes and Centralized Chiefdoms and States

Bands

• Bands consist of 50-100 individuals who hunt and gather
• Their temporary structures and move frequently
• Decisions are made collectively without centralized authority
• Most egalitarian: All members have access to resources
• Leaders chosen temporarily based on charisma and skill
• Power is informal and used to negotiate disagreements

Tribes

• Horticulturist or pastoralist groups living in villages with kinship ties, languages, and common ancestors
• No centralized government
• More official rulers than bands with disputes resolved through meditation or unofficial courts

Chiefdoms

• Centralized societies more populous
• Extensive agriculture
• There is official government and leadership
• The chief is the leader and may or may not be hereditary
• Family line dictates prestige in ranked societies, but access to resources is generally equal

States

• Governed by intensive agriculture
• Have centralized government
• Official authority, laws, and court systems with codified punishments and social stratus

Social Stratification/Inequality

• Unequal access to resources
• Not characteristic for all groups (only in states)
• High ranking/low ranking members (inequalities)
• Social Mobility: to move upward or downward in the system
• Class: based on difference in wealth/status
• Based on births

Sex vs Gender

• All cultures have norms regarding how individuals should act based on sex/gender
• Sex and gender are not the same thing
• Sex: Biological/physiological (chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, etc)
• Gender: Socio-cultural construct
• Gender often based on sex, but does not have to be
• Intersex: a variation

Gender Roles

• Gender roles are culturally specific
• What is considered masculine in West might be seen as feminine in another culture, and vice versa (not based in nature)

Gender

• Social category (in many cultures, based on biology)
• Assigned at birth based on sex
• Gender Identity: One's sense of self as a person of a specific gender
• Cisgender: Gender identity aligns with gender assigned at birth
• Transgender: Gender identity different than what was assigned at birth
• IN THE WEST: Very focused on individuals own identity

Performing Gender

• Gender Expression: How a person chooses to express gender identity through clothing/mannerisms, etc
• Contemporary anthropologists consider individuals as active agents rather than passive
• Individuals learn different skills such as how to perform an act (mimicry/bodily movement) through social interaction and each performance is part of their identity

Nonbinary Genderes

• There can be more genders recognized in a culture then two
• Since genders a cultural category, it can be defined in different ways
• Genders outside of male/female traditionally occur in many cultures

Two Spirit

• Two spirited people are considered a third/fourth gender, signaled by specialized labor

Sexuality

• Explores how people experience/value physical desire in context of sexual intercourse
• Anthropologists are interested in how desires/pleasures are shaped by social structures
• Ideas about fixed sexuality (heterosexuality) is relatively new

Sexual Orientation

• Sexual or romantic attraction towards others
• Culture dictates what is acceptable
• Common sexual orientations include heterosexuality, homosexuality, pansexuality, and asexuality
• Sexual orientation is distinct from gender identity

Attitudes Towards Sexuality

• Different cultures, different ideas about sexuality and what is/isn't allowed
• Important: Sexual orientation as understood in the West is not about what someone does, but what their identity is. This might be understood differently in different cultures

Identities

• Social Identity: Who we are and how we stand in relation to others
• Since this is anthropology, focus on many identities instead of one
• Identity can be about sense of self, but also about belonging to specific group (shared)
• Identity must be learned/constructed
• Identities can change, not fixed

Imagined Communities

• In identities such as nationality, groups need to be imagined because every member cannot be literally reached

Nature vs Nurture

• Biocultural approach: biology and culture are mutually constructive

Importance of Self

• North America: Individuals are stable, autonomous entities who exist more or less independently of the situation/status they occupy. Individualistic culture
• Some Societies: Individuals not seen as distinct from their social position or group; persons not seen as existing separately from society. Collectivistic culture

Communicating Identity

• Done through presentation and material culture
• Through language (words used, concepts, accents, etc)

Food and Economy

• Food getting strategies: foraging (hunter/gatherers) or production (manipulate environment to produce food)
• Food Production Strategies: Horticulture (gardening and hunting/gathering), Pastoralism (herding), and Industrialism (production through highly mechanized industry)
• Food gathering strategies are FLEXIBLE

Food Foragers

• Human societies built on this during prehistory (99% of time)
• Nomadic, live in Bands (political organization)

Plant/Animal Domestication

• Shift from hunting/gathering, around 10,000 years ago
• Sedentary lifestyle slowly led to development of States
• More people, created more inequalities

Horticulturalists

• Plant food producers (growing crops)
• Sustainable practices: Swidden (shifting) cultivation, burning trees/other plant material

Pastoralists

• Animal food producers (herding pasture animals) and animal husbandry

Theories of Progress

• Evolution and progress in the 19th century
• Leslie White (mid 20th century): Technology as a driving force; harness energy through

Economic Activity

• Can be divided into three phases: production, distribution, and consumption

Production

• Using natural resources to produce items
• Gender Specialization: Typically present in some form (hunter vs. gatherers)

Distribution

• Modes of Exchange are important for distribution

Modes of Exchange

• Marshall Sahlin (1972) identified 3 patterns of distribution: reciprocity, redistribution, market exchange

Gift vs Money

• Marcel Mauss (1950) contrasted:
• Capitalist Commodity Exchanges: Impersonal exchange of goods for cash, no further contact
• Non-Capital Gift Exchange: Emdedded in social relations

Consumption

• Varies greatly between societies
• Commodity: an item that is consumed by someone whos not its producer