CUL120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: White Australia Policy, White Privilege, Manifest Destiny
27 Aug 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Race
Racism, Racialised regimes of representations
* social construct, utilises appeal to biology
* discourses of race
* maintains through discourses
* COPY NOTES FROM LAST WEEKS SUMMARY
* Overview:
* Biological models of race
* Poststructrualist approaches to race (social construction for positioning in places of power)
* unveiling whiteness (wealth and power)
* Intersectionality
* Crenshaw,1989 “dominant conceptions of discrimination condition us to think about
subordination as a disadvantage occurring along a single categorical axis… marginalises those
who are multiply burdened” (both black and a woman)
* “Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but bound together and influenced by
the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability and
ethnicity” (Collins)
* Defining race; a class or kind of person unified by shared interests, habits or characteristics
(agricultural under tones)
* concept which is made and un made
* Proper definition; A system of classification, make appeals to biological differences and in so
they rank radicalised groups in a hierarchic of social ad material superiority and subordination
and is at the base of racism.
* The invention of Race
* The concept of race makes its first appearance in the english language around 1580
* during the age of enlightenment european used a biological concepts of race as a means of
classifying groups of people according to genetic and therefore cultural, intellectual and social
difference.
* it then follows that race develops as a concept in line with the continued diffusion of european
rationality, institutions, culture and control
* religious racism; superior because their were gods, european thoughts (religiously superior)
* manifest destiny discourse ^, gods plan for white colonial settlers to civilise united states
* Biological racism and cultural racism
* Biological racism; the use of scientific techniques and theories to support the belief in the
biological, evolutionary and genetic superiority or inferiority of certain races
* Cultural racism: the belief that some races were culturally backward in comparison to others as a
result of lesser cultural evolution
* 1940’s supporting discourse of biological determination became reconfigured due to the NAZI’s
use of biological determination
* turns to cultural racism:
* the terms historical emergence is tied to two key factors: Colonialism and science
* Colonialism; the process by which an external power will claim to a territory by exercising military
and /or economic power in order to subjugate other inferior
* imperialism: refers to the forced imposition of the colonisers language, culture, system and law
etc
* ^intrinsically tied to power, turn colonised people into commodities. not even seen as humans
* Slavery connected intimately to race
* racial differentiation
* skin colour, signified primitive and inferiority, justify slave trafficking and human labor
* the emergence of modern science
* in the 18th century scientific investigation was heavily focused on the differences among
humans, producing taxonomies or classifications of ‘racial’ phenotypes… (MISSED SLIDE)
* Linnaeus, 1707-1778 4 categories of humans in the world
* Blumenbach 1752-1840 size of skull
* Physiognomy: a science based on the belief that a persons facial features are and index of their
character
* Phrenology: the shape of your skull shows the intelligence and personality of people
Document Summary
* poststructrualist approaches to race (social construction for positioning in places of power) * crenshaw,1989 (cid:1688)dominant conceptions of discrimination condition us to think about subordination as a disadvantage occurring along a single categorical axis marginalises those who are multiply burdened(cid:1689) (both black and a woman) * (cid:1688)cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability and ethnicity(cid:1689) (collins) * defining race; a class or kind of person unified by shared interests, habits or characteristics (agricultural under tones) * concept which is made and un made. * proper definition; a system of classification, make appeals to biological differences and in so they rank radicalised groups in a hierarchic of social ad material superiority and subordination and is at the base of racism. * the concept of race makes its first appearance in the english language around 1580.
