Material Covered Before the Scientific Racism Flashcards
Anthropology
the study of humans, it’s a holistic discipline (meaning it studies all aspects of humanity in relation to each other)
Biological Anthropology
the study of humans as biological organisms, it studies where humans originated from, origins of natural selection, and the biological concept of race
Cultural Anthropology
the study of variations in the beliefs and behaviours of different human groups, how they learned and acquired as members of society
Early Anthropological Theories were based on?
based on the theory of natural selection, but often confused the idea of “evolution” with that of “progress”
Lewis Henry Morgan
he proposed an unilateral evolution held that all humans go through a similar sequence of development, a form of Cultural Determinism.
- and order was created that ranked cultures from lower savagery, to barbarianism, to civilization due to their technological innovations
- this classification was ethnocentric, as it implied that only a culture that has a writing system is civilized
Franz Boas’s Historical Particularism
(arguing against the Henry Morgans classification)
he argued that each culture is the unique product of all the influences that it was subjected to in the past, which made cross-cultural generalizations very suspect.
- Boas argued that we have to look at the past to evaluate the culture
- The idea of cultural relativism grew, which mean that a society should be understood in terms of its own cultural practices
Racism as Colonialism
by 1890, 90% of Africa was under the control of foreign powers, most predominantly Europe, also in 1890 all of the Americas were under the control of European powers or the US.
Racism as Warfare
WWI & WWII killed over 60 million, ethnic cleansing is defined as removing a cultural group from a particular region, the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980’s killed 1 million, Gulf War killed 1 million
Racism as Civil Rights
Apartheid in S.Africa led to repression, segregation, murder, and a loss of human rights for the black majority, civil rights movement in N.America continues today, Caste System in India basic civil rights to approx 200 million ppl
Racism as Statelessness
the United Nations estimates that there are approx 15 million people affected worldwide, it occurs in both rich and poor countries.
Colonization
where resources are taken and civil rights revoked (or not granted) to inhabitants
Economic Imperialism
is the a nation-state can control resources in another country
Xenophobia
the fear of strangers and other people, especially the strangeness of their culture or actions
Oppression
both real and perceived
Fear of Change
related to xenophobia, it is sometimes linked with immigrants, they are often used to scape problems or issues, government may use this to transform them into “they enemy.”
Social and Economic
those who are in power will try to maintain their power, this was common in the 1800’s and a modern example is Mubarak in Egypt, the common understand was that the poor were fundamentally unable to govern themselves. Therefore, a group of elite was essential within society.
The two main questions that arose when asked by Greek Philosophers were:
how and why are humans different.
Herodotus (484-425 BC)
explained differences among humans as a result of natural forces, as oppose to supernatural forces. He believe that the environment was responsible for the differences in behaviour and physical characteristics.
Aristotle (348-322 BC)
believe that every was originally created in the desired by the creator and that the nature of things could not change.
- he was a teleologist (ID), believed in a natural hierarchy of organisms — a theory later called “The Great Chain of Being” (Euros had both +/- traits like Asians, Greeks were in the middle), the Christian Church adopted his position (that a Creator made the world ideal) and for 1000 years, speculation about evolution was taboo
In the 15th Century, attempts at trying to explain differences moved from religious towards
on that challenged accepted beliefs. There were two main categories of belief regarding the origin of humans…
There were two main categories of belief regarding the origin of humans…
Monogenists and Polygenists
Monogenists
believed in a single origin of all humans with Adam and Eve as the original pair.
Polygenists
believed that human groups had different origins & were the result of a different Creator
early attempts to explain the vast diversity of life forms could not escape
the notion of fixity of species: the belief that once created, a species could not change
The Bible
Degeneration
likely based on the Bible, as Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Once this happened, populations increased and spread away farther from the Garden of Eden. As a result, these groups revered to sub-human forms.
Buffon’s description of Native American’s was based on…
he ones who had been captured as slaves or on the fact that most of them has relatively few children. He concluded that their “reproductive organ” must have degenerated
Francois Bernier
believed that he was the first author to categorize races based on physical characteristic — he found that there are four or five races of man — however, doesn’t make a clear distinction between humans and races.
Francois Bernier: the five races
the five races: Whites, Blacks, Asians, Browns, and Northern European natives
his writings are not scientific, but describe the individual races (especially women)
Francois Bernier is important because…?
because he first categorized races based on physical appearance
Carl Linnaeus
devised the binomial nomenclature system (the devising or choosing of names for things) for all living organisms. His organization classified humans with primates, this caused conflict as humans were widely thought of as superior.
Carl Linnaeus: Four Types included in his organization were
the Americanus, Africanus, Europeanus, Asiaticus
Carl Linnaeus: never mentions what in his book?
He never mentions races in his book — this posed a question for ppl, as race is never defined
Immanuel Kant
his essay was written to combat polygenesis & defend the concept of race as valid. He separates/ distinguishes race from species + says that humans are all the same species, but there are subspecies to divide them.
Immanuel Kant: Important because?
Important: as he is the first to rigorously describe the scientific definition of race
Immanuel Kant: his writing argues…
argues that the first humans contained the seeds of all 4 races — the seed was actualized based on environmental conditions
Immanuel Kant: the description of his races
1st Race: Noble Blonde from humid cold,
2nd Race: Copper Red from dry cold,
3rd Race: Black from humid heat,
4th Race: Olive Yellow from dry heat
Johann Gottfried von Herder
once a student of Kant, but argues against the usefulness of the concept of race since he saw many grey areas when it came to skin colour; the colours appear to run into each other
- because of this, Herder felt that “race” was not overly useful for classification
Johann Friedrich Blumenback
includes all humans in the same species & does not use the term race. Instead, he recognized five principle varieties of mankind and the arbitrary nature of the categories of race, but believes that some were more “natural”
Johann Friedrich Blumenback: important because
he organized his categories to reinforce the idea of population degeneration through his connotations
G.W.F Hegel
rejected the usefulness of race to prove superiority of races over others, instead he divided mankind into cultures, arguing that it is a more useful way to divide humans.
G.W.F Hegel dividing mankind into cultures resulted in…?
resulted in the number of races raising from 4 or 5 to upwards of 80 (argued that Caucasians are civilization builders and other races play a small role in history)
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Arthur de Gobineau
he perpetuated the idealized view of Europeans by arguing that every single human race has degenerated, expect Europeans. He believed that races are maintained by the law of repulsion expect Euros who had a law of attraction
Law of Attraction
means that they are physically attracted to other cultures, despite these cultures not being interested in Europeans. As a result, Europeans are civilization builders by mating w/ people around the world, civilization would improve.
- The European stock in Europe should not become diluted through, so Europeans must travel to these cultures. He felt that race mixing was good, but not in Europe.
skulls were measured for many reasons
they are believed to not change from generation to generation, they can determine ancestry, measure the intelligence and personality of an individual, measure easily for all populations and not be intrusive
Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) & Johann Kaspar Spurzheim (1776-1823)
together, their collective work formed the basis of phrenology, which is the study of the skull’s contours to determine an individuals latent abilities and talents
Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) & Johann Kaspar Spurzheim (1776-1823): important because
to remember that the notion of “fixity of species” dominated and this reaffirmed the belief in distinct races, both physically and behaviourally
Anders Reitzius
he devised an index to divide the shape of the skull into three categories based on relative length and width:
Anders Reitzius: what were the names
Dolicocephalic: Long and Narrow
Mesophilic: Intermediate
Brachycephalic: Round or Short and Wide
Pierre Paul Brocca
he further developed cranial measurements in order to link cranial features with intelligence, personality, temperament, etc… although he later refuted the notion that races could be separated based on this approach, his influence remained into the 20th century.
Samuel Morton (1799-1851)
believed that brain size was more indicative of intelligence and abilities, his work found out that races differed in cranial capacity, therefore in intelligence.
Samuel Morton: determined what through faulty experimentation
that Europeans had larger brains and Native Americans and Blacks had the smallest — this have been disproven
Both Darwin and Wallace discovered the…
the theory of natural selection although both interpreted it very differently.
Darwin argued what about the theory of natural selection?
argued that humans had evolved just like any other animal, through natural processes
Wallace argues what about the theory of natural selection?
argued that humans evolved like animals, but a “divine will” guided evolution
Natural Selection and Race: is the replacement of a ?
status by an evolving world
Natural Selection and Race: is the refutation of ?
cosmic teleology
Natural Selection and Race: is the application to ?
humans of the principle of common descent
Natural Selection and Race: is the explanation of the ?
natural world in terms of natural selection
Natural Selection and Race: is the replacement of ?
essentialism by popular thinking
Natural Selection explained evolution as consisting of two important principles
- the relative stability of species and
2. the maintenance of variation within species
Herbert Spencer introduced…
Theory of Social Darwinism by combining this and the concept of stability.
Spencer believed that the…
notion of survival of the fittest applied to humans; individuals at the the top (in any society) were more evolved while the ones at the bottom were less evolved.
Race initially referred to a
lineage of a person, it was then changed to refer to the physical types of humans and the abilities to divide humans based on sight, from here it was transformed to describe subspecies
Social Stratification
transformed the term of race to refer to status
Economic Stratification
then made races into classes
Essentialism
the belief that social groups and their members have a true essence that is irreducible and unchanging
Environmentalism
the belief that races (read: ethnic groups) are the products of their shared physical environment
Racialization
to impose racial character on a group of people based on physical or cultural characteristics.
Heredity
the movement of genes from generation to generation
Biological Diversity
how much variation exists
Heritability
the effect that biology and/or the environment play on traits, this is directly related to the “nature vs. nurture debate”
Science as Legitimation
scientific arguments that are used to convince the public
The origin of modern knowledge about genetics began with…
Mendell, he used peas to experiment on genetics. They were useful because they had easily distinguished characteristics (i.e., only two variations), one main difference between the peas were their colour and texture.
Alleles
one of two or more alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome — various variety of a gene
Genotype
the genetic expression of an allele
Phenotype
the physical expression of the genotype, natural selection acts on the phenotype, as that is what it “sees”
Dominant
refers to the allele that is displayed
Recessive
refers to the allele that is not dominant (dominant is not synonymous with better)
Homozygous
the same alleles are paired
Heterozygous
different alleles are paired
An important allele that is sometimes used to determine races is
blood type, they are either A,B or O
- A and B are co-dominant and O is recessive: often heterozygous alleles are paired — this posed a problem for early classification of humans, as often the same allele was present among all ethnic groups, but it had different penetration
Non-Mendelian Inheritance
a general term that refers to any pattern of inheritance in which traits do not segregate in accordance with Mendel’s laws.
Polygenic Inheritance
a trait affected by the result of the interaction of several genes (i.e., stature, skin colour)
Intermediate Expression
the heterozygous genotype is intermediate between the two homozygous genotypes (i.e., tenor, baritone, bass)
Co-Dominance
both alleles are expressed in the heterozygous person
Modifying Genes
a second gene that alters the expression of the first (e.g. cataracts)
Regulatory Genes
initiate or block the activity of other genes
Incomplete Penetrance
not always expressed in the individual (i.e., diabetes)
Pleiotropy
a single allele may affect an entire series of traits (i.e., sickle-cell anemia)
Epigenetic’s
heritable changes in gene function that occur without a change in the sequence of the DNA
Are Populations Genetically Static?
Populations evolve by a process called microevolution, which is the change in allele frequency that occur from one generation to the next — over long periods of time, microevolution produces more obvious changes in a species (macroevolution)
Sources of Biological Variation
Mutations, Sexual Reproduction, Random Mating
Mutations
are the only new source of alleles in a species
Sexual Reproduction
recombines the parents DNA to form new combinations
Random Mating
the process whereby every allele has equal chance of being passed on to the next generation
Adaptation
any change by which organisms respond to selection pressure (anything in the environment that could potentially have a deleterious effect)
Genetic Adaptation
affects populations in response to selection pressure (over several generations); this applies only to populations
Acclimatization
physical responses within individuals to environmental pressure (varies between a few days to months)
Migration (Gene Flow)
is the movement of alleles from one population to another as a result of interbreeding
Genetic Drift
is a change in allele frequencies as a result of random changes in population sizes. This makes the population more different and affects the small population.
Founder Effect
small sub-population migrates away from parent population
Bottleneck Effect
the removal of a large portion of the population because of natural disaster
Mapping Biological Diversity
- Human populations differ in the frequency of alleles, not by the presence or absence of certain alleles.
- While some alleles produce discrete variation, many produce continuous variation
- Mapping the distribution of these alleles produces clines — Clines are the gradual changes in the frequency of genotypes or phenotypes over geographical space
Why the Concept of Biological Races is Rejected
There is no natural way to classify humans into biologically meaningful categories, there are no “pure” races because all populations have been interbreeding with others throughout their history.
Endogamous
interbreeding within the same group
Out of Africa Model
humans originated less than 200 000 years ago from Africa, the population would be very small due to genetic drift, when the population then spread, variation was very small.
Multi-regional Model
different populations acquired characteristics separately, with one single human species originating it
