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Soc 111 Introduction to Anthropology ETHNICITY AND RACE

Ethnicity and race

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Page 1: Ethnicity and race

Soc 111 Introduction to Anthropology

ETHNICITY AND RACE

Page 2: Ethnicity and race

Ethnicity and Race

• What is social status, and

how does it relate to ethnicity?

• How are race and ethnicity

socially constructed in various

societies?

• What are the positive and

negative aspects of ethnicity?

Page 3: Ethnicity and race

Ethnicity and Race

• Ethnicity is based on cultural similarities and differences in a society or nation.

• What is an ethnic group and what is ethnicity?

Members of an ethnic group share certain beleiefs, values, habits, customs and

norms because of their common background.

Page 4: Ethnicity and race

Ethnicity and Race

• Ethnic Group: a collective name, belief in common descent, common history, same sense of solidarity, an origin from a specific territory.

• Ethnicity: feeling part of an ethnic group and exclusion from other groups because of this feeling.

Page 5: Ethnicity and race

Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity

• Status: any position that determines where

someone fits in society

– Ascribed status: little or no choice about

occupying the status given

For ex: Age, Race, Gender

– Achieved status: gained through choices,

actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments

For ex: to be a political leader, to be a

father/mother, to be a union member etc.

Page 6: Ethnicity and race

Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity

• Situational Negotiation of Social Identity

To have different status for a person in different settings.

For ex: A woman maybe a mother at home and a professor at university.

2 different statuses.

Page 7: Ethnicity and race

Status Shifting

• Some statuses, particularly

ascribed ones, are mutually exclusive

– Some statuses are contextual.

– Minority groups: have an ascribed status

that is associated with their position in

the sociopolitical hierarchy

• Inferior power and less secure access

to resources than majority groups

Page 8: Ethnicity and race

Race

• Race: an ethnic group assumed

to have a biological basis

• Racism: discrimination against

an ethnic group assumed to

have a biological basis

Page 9: Ethnicity and race

Race and Ethnicity

• Race is a cultural category rather than a

biological reality.

– It is not possible to define

human races biologically.

– Only cultural constructions of race are

possible.

– Better to use ethnic group than race

Page 10: Ethnicity and race

Race and Ethnicity

• Today, scholars in many fields argue that race as it is understood now, was a social mechanism invented during the 18th century to refer to those populations brought together in colonial America.

• Thus, race was a mode of classification linked specifically to people in the colonial situation.• The ideology magnified the differences among Europeans, Africans and Indians, established a rigid

hierarchy of socially exclusive categories, an unequal rank, status differences and people

believed that this inequality was natural or God given.

Page 11: Ethnicity and race

Race and Ethnicity

• It was not limited to colonial situation.

• In the second half of the 19th century, it was employed by Europeans to rank one another and to justify social, economic and political inequalities among their people.

• Race, thus evolved as a world view, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior.

Page 12: Ethnicity and race

Ethnic Groups, Nations,

and Nationalities

• Nation: a society sharing a common language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship

– State: a stratified society with a formal, centralized government

– Nation-State: an autonomous political entity; a country• Migration, conquest, and

colonialism led most nation-states not to be ethnically homogeneous

Page 13: Ethnicity and race

Nationalities and Imagined Communities

• Ethnic groups that one had, or wish to have or regaion, autonomous political status are called nationalities.

• Benedict Anderson Imagined Communities

– Language and print played a crucial role in various European national consciousnesses.

– Colonialism (the long-term foreign domination of a territory and its people) often erected

boundaries that corresponded poorly with pre-existing cultural divisions.

Page 14: Ethnicity and race

Assimilation

• Assimilation: when

a minority adopts the

patterns and norms

of the host culture

• Incorporates the

dominant culture to the point

where it no longer exists

as a separate cultural unit

Page 15: Ethnicity and race

The Plural Society

• Plural society: a culture combining ethnic

contrasts, ecological specialization, and

economic interdependence

• Frederick Barth is the anthropologist who came with the idea of plural society.

• Barth: Ethnic boundaries are the most stable

and enduring when groups

occupy different ecological niches.

Page 16: Ethnicity and race

Multiculturalism & Ethnic Identity

• Multiculturalism: The view of

cultural diversity as valuable and worth

maintaining in its own right

• Multiculturalism seeks ways for people to

understand and interact with a respect for their

differences.

• Multiculturalism is related to globalization.

• Migration has effect on multiculturalism.

Page 17: Ethnicity and race

Roots of Ethnic Conflict

• Ethnicity based on perceived cultural similarities and differences in a society or

nation, can be expressed in peaceful multiculturalism or in discrimination or violent

interethnic confrontation.

• The roots of ethnic conflict can be political, economic, religious, linguistic, cultural or

racial.

Page 18: Ethnicity and race

Roots of Ethnic Conflict

• Prejudice: the devaluing of a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes– Stereotypes: fixed ideas

about what the members of a group are like

• Discrimination: policies and practices that harm a group and its members

o Genocide

o Ethnocide

o Forced Assimilation

o Cultural Colonialism

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