SOCI 2220H Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Genetic Variation, Social Inequality, Ethnic Group
29 Mar 2019
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Race: real and objective subdivisions of humans, ascribed, physical and genetic characteristics, skin colour, hair texture, body and facial shape, historical and political forces vs. biological science, justification for colonialism, enslavement, extermination. Scientific challenges beginning in the 1930s: 1950s arbitrary differences, genetic variation within groups is often greater than the variation between groups. Yes: race is real in its consequences, need to acknowledge it in order to challenge racism, assumed by non-academics, harmful to ignore role in shaping public perceptions. No: race becomes reified, reification = abstract concepts are made real, using the term helps support and reproduce commonly held assumptions about race and racial differences, complex and ambiguous term. Ethnicity: use of the term emerged around the 1960s, ethnos (greek), meaning nation , unity of persons from a common blood or descent versus country, most ethnic categories are more recent developments (ex.
