The term race refers to the division of living things according to a series of physical attributes and shared biologics. In the case of the human raceis a social construction in which human populations are divided, under the assumption that a group of people has physical attributes that unite them.
Refering to ethnicitythis refers to a group of people who maintain a social bond as a result of a shared culture, language, religion or origin.
Race
ethnicity
Definition
It is a categorization of human populations based on physical and biological attributes.
It is a human group in which its members share a culture, religion, language, geographical origin and/or origin.
Characteristics
It implies a genetic inheritance. Classification of a person as a member of a race does not imply that the latter agrees. Observable genetic markers (phenotypic traits) are used to divide breeds. It is believed that a breed maintains its attributes without changing over time. It is a social construction. Ethnic identity is the product of a socialization process. Its members are united by a shared feeling of belonging. It manifests itself in behaviors and cultural expressions. It is dynamic, there can be changes in the individuals and ethnic groups to which they belong. It is a social construction.
determining elements
Physical characteristics and genetic inheritance.
Common origin (geographical or by descent) and shared cultural practices.
Main attributes
Skin color, hair type, face shape, region of origin.
Geographical origin, religion, style of dress, language, dialects, common history. Examples Negroid. Caucasian. Mongoloid. Capoid Australoid. Aymara and Quechua (several countries in South America). Miskito (Honduras and Nicaragua). Nahuatl (Mexico). Berber (North Africa). Samoan (Samoa). Croatian (Croatia).
what is race
talk about a race is to refer to a social division that is made of different human groups according to physical characteristics.
The term race is a social construction. This has been used since the Middle Ages and means ‘people who share a common descent’. Already in the 18th century, race came to include the grouping and division of people according to their phenotypic (observable) characteristics.
At present, both in social and natural sciences, the use of the word “race” is controversial. Its function as a way of establishing a division of human populations has no scientific value. This is because the attributes that separate one breed from another, at the genetic level, are not well defined, and their selection is usually arbitrary.
Even if there are phenotypic variations between individuals, genetic diversity (and its causes) is a complex issue. Breeds as scientific concepts are not capable of containing the complexity of these genetic phenomena.
When a group of people is categorized as a “race”, it is usually done to establish differences between human populations and in the treatment of individuals belonging to a race.
Breed Characteristics
It is mainly based on observable physical differences in people (phenotypic attributes). These differences are the result of and are transferred by genetic inheritance. It is common to be confused with the idea of ethnicity. Skin color, hair type and face shape are some of the most used attributes in its categorization. It is assumed that the attributes of a breed as a whole tend not to change over time.
Race as a social construction
The idea of race it is largely a social construction. It is a product of the categorization that is made between human groups, established mainly through phenotypic differences (physical and observable).
It is also common for a population or group of people who share an ethnic group (culture, nationality, religion) or who have the same geographical origin to be designated as a race, or racial group.
Thus, the definition of a race changes according to the social context, as well as throughout different historical moments.
Why divide human groups into races?
One of the main reasons for dividing humans into races has been to establish discriminatory and segregation policies, in order to legitimize the dominance of one human group over another.
In any case, race as a scientific category of analysis in the human context has lost value. This does not mean that it is not practical to establish divisions between human groups.
For example, studying different ethnic groups for social/anthropological analysis, or studying populations that share genetic attributes for medical reasons, are valid scientific reasons for categorizing human populations.
Historical factors that influenced racial classification
European maritime and commercial expansion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries led to the meeting of large human groups on different continents.
Migration, both forced and voluntaryresulted in the differentiation between ethnic groups and individuals with physical characteristics different from each other.
Colonialism and ethnocentrism led to the creation of hierarchies between people of different origins.
Slavery that accompanied the colonization of America was markedly racial.
Carolus Linnaeus’s Classification of Breeds
The Swedish physician, zoologist and botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) proposed that human beings were divided into 4 subspecies or races based on the people’s place of origin and skin color: the americanus, asiaticus, africanus and the europeanus.
For Linnaeus, each of these races presented particular characteristics, favoring the race europeanus. For example, among the behaviors attributed to the africanus they were found to be negligent and capricious. In contrast, the europeanus they were Gentiles and were guided by the law.
Classification of the races of Johann F. Blumenbach
At the end of the 18th century, the German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) divided human populations into 5 different families or racial types, namely: Caucasian, Malay, American, Ethiopian (Negroid) and Mongoloid.
The cranial study of Samuel Morton
In the 19th century, the physician and naturalist Samuel Morton (1799-1851) carried out a study in craniology, specifically analyzing the size of human skulls from different parts of the world.
According to his research, the total brain volume of Caucasians was larger than that of Africans. Among his conclusions was that the size of the brain was proportional to the intellectual capacity of each race.
However, later (even until a few years ago) there would be debates about the possible prejudices that affected the methodology and results of Morton’s studies.
Race and eugenics during the 19th and 20th centuries
At the end of the 19th century and during a large part of the 20th century, different positions that proposed racial and ethnic discrimination were based on practices such as eugenics.
This practice was intended to improve or cleanse the human species. Eugenics was based on biology, particularly genetics, and established that the behaviors and differences between different races were the result of biological inheritance.
This current would serve as a support from science to racist ideologies. For example, as in Nazi Germany, eugenics promoted the idea of a superior and pure race, promoting the murder and sterilization of those racial groups that were considered inferior.
Contributions to the study of the races of Theodosious Dobzhansky
Ukrainian-American biologist and geneticist Theodosious Dobzhansky (1900-1975) proposed that breeds are not static, being capable of showing change. For this biologist, the definition of race depends on the categories used to analyze it and the scientific methodology used.
Dobzhansky considered that although races exist, these are constructions that help to understand biological phenomena, and that they do not have a scientific nature to establish arbitrary (social) divisions among human beings.
Human races and their relationship with genetics
According to the biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin (1929-) approximately 85% of genetic variations in human beings occur regardless of a person’s ethnic, geographical or cultural background.
This means that between a person classified as “white” and another as “black”, the existing genetic variation is no greater than that between two people of the same race. That is, there is no specific genetic trait in a human population that differentiates it from another.
The distinctive physical traits of populations that come from different regions are the result of the remaining 10%-5% of the genetic content. These traits are a consequence of the evolution and adaptation of different human groups to different environmental conditions.
For Lewontin, genetic differences in humans are not a matter of differences between human populations, but between human individuals.
What is a cline?
In biology and genetics, a clina It refers to gradual change that occurs in specific characteristics of a species, caused by environmental conditions (geographical spaces).
A cline is expressed in the genetic adaptation that occurs in an individual of a given species to a habitat.
An example of two clines that adapted to the environment can be seen in the skin pigmentation in humans.
In general terms, the genetic adaptation to life near the equator, where there is greater exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays, stimulated the skin of humans near that region to be pigmented in such a way that it had greater resistance to these rays, resulting in a darker skin tone.
On the other hand, human populations that settled further from the equator show gradually less pigmentation, resulting in a lighter skin tone. In this way, people who live far from the Equator line can better absorb vitamin D, which is synthesized by exposure to sunlight.
race and racism
He racism is the belief that members of a race possess certain characteristics or qualities that make them superior to another.
The division of human groups into races was and has been influenced by positions that are not limited to the scientific field. The different races have been found categorized according to a social and cultural value, as inferior or superior.
This has resulted in inequality, segregation and slavery,…