Race and Ethnicity Flashcards
What is race?
a social fabrication
a social fact
What is race, according to Desmond & Emirbayer ?
According to Desmond & Emirbayer.
1. symbolic category, based on 2. phenotype or ancestry, and
3. constructed according to specific social and historical contexts, that is,
4. misrecognized as a natural category
What does symbolic category mean?
Belongs to the realm of ideas, meaning-making, and language
Actively created and recreated by humans
Not something inherent in a person
What does phenotype mean?
Classified based on appearance
Ex. color of your skin, texture of the hair, eye color
What is ancestry?
Based on family lineage
What are the different social and historical contexts?
Place-specific and Time specific
What is place-specific?
Depending on the country/government
What is time-specific?
Can change in a country over time
What is misrecognized as natural related to race?
People view race as natural and not socially constructed
What is racialization?
The formation of a new racial identity in which new ideological boundaries of difference are drawn around groups of people
Ex. The Irish and Italians were seen as a lesser version of white when they first arrived in the US, but that has changed over time, since they are now accepted as white
What is racial ideology?
The racially based frameworks used by actors to explain and justify the racial status quo
Ex. Scientific racism, social Darwinism, eugenics
What is ethnicity?
Ethnicity refers to a shared lifestyle informed by cultural, historical, religious, and/or national affiliations
Ex. The food, cultural traditions
