Race and Anthropology: A Core Concept without Consensus

2007

■ Montagu referred to race as ‘man’s most dangerous myth’, while Lévi-Strauss called it ‘the original sin of anthropology’. Although persuasive arguments against the concept of race were made throughout the 20th century, race remains a particular problem for anthropologists who deal in the classification of human populations. Racial terminology has been perpetuated within anthropology largely owing to the fact that, historically, race formed the very core of anthropological study. Despite the conceptual inadequacy of race, the anthropological enterprise has yet to move beyond it as an explanatory tool for understanding human biological variation because of the lack of a conceptual and/or methodological replacement. This article re-analyses historical anthropological literature on ethnicity and biocultural interaction as a replacement for the race concept, and recasts it in the context of modern philosophical and psychological perspectives on population variation.

Phi Delta Kappan, 2003

SURELY WE'VE all heard people say there is only one race-the human race. We've also heard and seen overwhelming evidence that would seem to contradict this view. After all, the U.S. Census divides us into groups based on race, and there are certainly observable physical differences among people-skin color, nose and eye shape, body type, hair color and texture, and so on. In the world of education, the message of racial differences as biological "facts" is reinforced when we are told that we should understand specific learning styles and behavior patterns of black, Asian, Native American, white, and Latino children and when books such as make pseudoscientific claims about race and learning. The Bell Curve 1 How can educators make sense of these conflicting messages about race? And why should they bother? Whether we think of all human beings as one race, or as four or five distinct races, or as hundreds of races, does anything really change? If we accept that the concept of race is fundamentally flawed, does that mean that young African Americans are less likely to be followed by security guards in department stores? Are people going to stop thinking of Asians as the "model" minority? Will racism become a thing of the past? Many educators understandably would like to have clear information to help them teach students about human biological variability. While multicultural education materials are now widely available, they rarely address basic questions about why we look different from one another and what these biological differences do (and do not) mean. Multicultural education emphasizes respecting differences and finding ways to include all students, especially those who have been historically marginalized. Multicultural education has helped us to understand racism and has provided a rich body of literature on antiracist teaching strategies, and this has been all to the good. But it has not helped us understand the two concepts of race: the biological one and the social one. In this article, we explain what anthropologists mean when they say that "races don't exist" (in other words, when they reject the concept of race as a scientifically valid biological category) and why they argue instead that "race" is a socially constructed category. We'll also discuss why this is such an important understanding and what it means for educators and students who face the social reality of race and racism every day. And finally, we'll offer some suggestions and resources for teachers who want to include teaching about race in their classes.

Race and ethnicity: An anthropological focus on the …, 2011

Anthropology News , 2002

The Science of Difference. Anthropology is the science of human difference, although at present it is a rather shamefaced, ambivalent science. No other field of inquiry has expanded and systematized our understanding of human diversity to the extent that anthropology has accomplished. Yet, like a timid host, we find ourselves stammering apologies for what we do best: "I really didn't mean to suggest that people are all that different. .. certainly, despite cultural variation, people share a fundamental nature, etc., etc." For decades we have been caught up in a dilemma: our heartfelt urge to celebrate a human diversity we have done so much to establish is brought up short by our duty to avoid supplying material for racists and demagogues to feed upon. An anthropological discussion of the concept of race puts us on the horns of this intellectual and moral dilemma. We react in a typically ambivalent manner by proclaiming an underlying uniformity of human nature while emphasizing the cultural diversity of human groups. Either way, we manage to cling to a politically correct egalitarianism.

NAPA Bulletin, 2008

American Anthropologist, 1998

There are hereditary differences among human beings. Some of these differences have geographical correlates. Some genetic variants that produce physical or behavioral deficits occur significantly more often in some areas, or in some ethnic groups, than in others. However, none of these facts provides any intellectual support for the race concept, for racial classifications, or for social hierarchies based on ethnic-group membership. The geographical element of the race concept is important in theory but is widely ignored in practice since it does not conform well to the facts of current human phenotype distribution. Much of the literature on supposed racial differences involves such geographically meaningless exercises as studying differences among "races" by subdividing a sample of North Americans. If races are defined as geographically delimited conspecific populations characterized by distinctive regional phenotypes, then human races do not exist now and have not existed for centuries, [race, human variation, intelligence]

Critique of anthropology, 2007

■ Montagu referred to race as 'man's most dangerous myth', while Lévi-Strauss called it 'the original sin of anthropology'. Although persuasive arguments against the concept of race were made throughout the 20th century, race remains a particular problem for anthropologists who deal in the classification of human populations. Racial terminology has been perpetuated within anthropology largely owing to the fact that, historically, race formed the very core of anthropological study. Despite the conceptual inadequacy of race, the anthropological enterprise has yet to move beyond it as an explanatory tool for understanding human biological variation because of the lack of a conceptual and/or methodological replacement. This article re-analyses historical anthropological literature on ethnicity and biocultural interaction as a replacement for the race concept, and recasts it in the context of modern philosophical and psychological perspectives on population variation.

Education and Urban Society

The Anatomical Record Part B the New Anatomist, 2004

The matter of biological differentiation among human beings has been a perennial concern of physical anthropologists, whose profession grew out of the monogenist/polygenist debates of the 18th century, and who periodically feel impelled to issue sonorous pronouncements on the subject. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the extensive and difficult cultural ramifications of the race issue, such pronouncements have usually presented the matter of race as one that requires extensive bioanthropological exegesis. In reality, however, race is the most banal of biological issues. Within any species, including Homo sapiens, two biological processes are possible: physical differentiation (as routinely occurs in small population isolates) and reintegration (should the resulting differentiated populations come together in the absence of any barrier to mating). The history of Homo sapiens reflects both of these processes: initial differentiation among small, scattered populations in the later part of the Pleistocene, and subsequent reintegration as the human population expanded and these populations came together once more. It is for this reason that, while certain modal physical types can be recognized on any urban street today (differentiation), it is impossible to recognize any clear boundaries between them (reintegration). All of this is perfectly unremarkable in evolutionary terms, and requires no special explanation. The complexities of the race issue are real, of course, and it is important that we come to terms with them; but they will not be resolved by biologists.

The Handbook for Cultural Anthropology, 2021