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Scientific racism and the biological concept of race
... Human biological variation does not fit a model of biological race variation (Fuentes et al., 2019). However, early naturalists from the 18th and 19th centuries strongly believed that human biological variation naturally separated humans into clearly defined races that determined behavior and that could be ranked (Blakey, 1999;Caspari, 2003;Marks, 2009;Roberts, 2012;Watkins, 2012). Unsurprisingly, the White researchers placed their own race at the top of the hierarchy and used their ranking to justify the genocide, sterilization, and enslavement of non-White races (Blakey, 1999;Caspari, 2003;Marks, 2009;Roberts, 2012;Watkins, 2012). ...
... However, early naturalists from the 18th and 19th centuries strongly believed that human biological variation naturally separated humans into clearly defined races that determined behavior and that could be ranked (Blakey, 1999;Caspari, 2003;Marks, 2009;Roberts, 2012;Watkins, 2012). Unsurprisingly, the White researchers placed their own race at the top of the hierarchy and used their ranking to justify the genocide, sterilization, and enslavement of non-White races (Blakey, 1999;Caspari, 2003;Marks, 2009;Roberts, 2012;Watkins, 2012). Stereotypes developed that linked fertility and sexuality with being animalistic, and these behaviors were considered more common in non-White races, especially those from Africa (Cooper Owens, 2018;Schiebinger, 1993). ...
... The biological race concept-that races are naturally existing biologically quantifiable categories that determine behavior and can be ranked-was a mainstream belief in European and American academic and clinical circles well before and during the time that Caldwell and Moloy developed their typology (Roberts, 2012). Early anthropologists sought to identify race-defining features of the skeleton and use them to reify the idea that biology determines behavior and ability (Blakey, 1999;Caspari, 2003). After the cranium, the pelvis was considered the second-best skeletal element for identifying race (Garson, 1881). ...
Medical education's treatment of obstetric‐related anatomy exemplifies historical sex bias in medical curricula. Foundational obstetric and midwifery textbooks teach that clinical pelvimetry and the Caldwell–Moloy classification system are used to assess the pelvic capacity of a pregnant patient. We describe the history of these techniques—ostensibly developed to manage arrested labors—and offer the following criticisms. The sample on which these techniques were developed betrays the bias of the authors and does not represent the sample needed to address their interest in obstetric outcomes. Caldwell and Moloy wrote as though the size and shape of the bony pelvis are the primary causes of “difficult birth”; today we know differently, yet books still present their work as relevant. The human obstetric pelvis varies in complex ways that are healthy and normal such that neither individual clinical pelvimetric dimensions nor the artificial typologies developed from these measurements can be clearly correlated with obstetric outcomes. We critique the continued inclusion of clinical pelvimetry and the Caldwell–Moloy classification system in biomedical curricula for the racism that was inherent in the development of these techniques and that has clinical consequences today. We call for textbooks, curricula, and clinical practices to abandon these outdated, racist techniques. In their place, we call for a truly evidence‐based practice of obstetrics and midwifery, one based on an understanding of the complexity and variability of the physiology of pregnancy and birth. Instead of using false typologies that lack evidence, this change would empower both pregnant people and practitioners.
... Despite the social dimensions of racial categories, the hallmark of the Western race concept is that races are believed to be components of a biological taxonomy. From the inception of the race concept as part of the18th-century natural-history tradition (Linnaeus, 1758), both physical and behavioral characteristics were incorporated into racial taxonomy (Blakey, 1999;Marks, 1995). The categories were typological constructs that listed physical features such as skin color, behavioral features such as industriousness and intelligence, and even clothing, as part of the essence of the type. ...
... It has been well argued that because social races are unequal social categories, once "biologized" by the race concept, social inequality will be perceived as having a biological basis (Blakey, 1999). For this reason, racism is an intrinsic component of the race concept; proof of (intellectual) equality is not enough to undermine scientific racism. ...
... race is social, its "naturalness" is even further validated by incorporating racial categories into a biological taxonomy; race is at once both a taxonomy of "living kinds" and a taxonomy of "human kinds." Conflating biological and social taxonomies by fiat "biologizes" social categories (Blakey, 1999), and may make the western race concept even more insidious than other forms of social classification. ...
... Scientific racism is defined as the use of science to justify discrimination against groups of people based on perceived inherent differences. These inherent differences typically begin with skin color and other phenotypic traits that have been used to classify races and are expanded to include culture, intelligence, and morals (Nash, 1962;Blakey, 1999). Scientific 8 This book in particular showcases Hooton's beliefs that people could be categorized almost ad infinitum (he has groups such as "native white" and "Old American," the difference between which depends upon how many generations their families have been in the United States) and that this typology determines one's propensity to commit certain types of crimes. ...
... The book was revolutionary for the field of biology for obvious reasons, but it also spurred unforeseen effects in other fields and for society at large. While Darwin only briefly mentioned the implication of his theory for human beings in the last chapter of that volume, 9 other scholars latched onto the idea and extrapolated natural selection to include cultural achievement and development (Nash, 1962;Blakey, 1999;Graves, 2001). Each race, therefore, was believed to have its own specific level of intellect and culture by which it could be characterized (Nash, 1962;Blakey, 1999). ...
... While Darwin only briefly mentioned the implication of his theory for human beings in the last chapter of that volume, 9 other scholars latched onto the idea and extrapolated natural selection to include cultural achievement and development (Nash, 1962;Blakey, 1999;Graves, 2001). Each race, therefore, was believed to have its own specific level of intellect and culture by which it could be characterized (Nash, 1962;Blakey, 1999). ...
Ancestry is the most controversial aspect of the biological profile due to the vast societal impact the practice of dividing people
into groups on the basis of physical characteristics has had. Regardless of the controversy however, ancestry will continue to
remain part of the biological profile assessed by biological anthropologists due to its social meaning and utility for positive
identification in forensic cases. This chapter reviews anthropology’’s history with regards to the race concept and presents the
state of current thought with regards to human variation. Current research using advanced statistical methods for the analysis
of cranial metric and nonmetric traits such as discriminant function analysis is presented.
Keywords: ancestry estimation, race, scientific racism, eugenics, discriminant function analysis, craniometrics, morphoscopic
traits, nonmetric traits, FORDISC, ordinal regression, logistic regression
... Essentialism is a critical component of all such taxonomies. Moreover, the western race concept, by conflating biological and social taxonomies, by fiat 'biologizes' social categories (Blakey 1999) and may make the western race concept more insidious than other forms of social classification. ...
... The western race concept is based loosely on ideas about geographic variation, variation which has great social meaning because of the history of colonialism and slavery, which continues to link differences in power and privilege to geographic ancestry. It developed in part through science, in the age of discovery, as racial classifications were used to make sense of new social groups, effectively 'biologizing' relationships between Europeans and other people they encountered, and even relationships between different European groups (Blakey 1999). Incorporated into the natural history tradition, race was a taxonomy of 'living kinds,' even as it was simultaneously a taxonomy of 'human kinds.' ...
... These traits were considered a part of the essence of the category and were implicitly (and explicitly) understood to be part of the intrinsic biology of the race. European prejudices were clearly incorporated into Linnaean typology (Marks 1995;Blakey 1999), so that Africans (Homo sapiens afer) were described as impassive and lazy, and Europeans (Homo sapiens europus) as very smart. Thus, from its very inception, the race concept embodied both essentialism and biological determinism, the linking of behavioral traits such as intelligence, criminality, industriousness, and other personality traits to the essences of racial categories. ...
... According to social constructionists (e. g. Holdaway, 1997;Blakey, 1999;Rodkin, 1993;and Schiele, 1998), most social theories about race and crime tend to reify race and ignore the social process that is involved in the creation of racial categories. ...
... The following studies run the spectrum from seeing race as a social phenomenon (e. g. Rodkin, 1993 andBlakey, 1999), to treating it as a concrete variable (e. g. Roberts and Doob, 1997). ...
... According to social constructionists, the term race has no biological basis, but rather, it is socially constructed. Blakey (1999) states that: ...
"MQ-87186." Thesis (M.A.)--University of Calgary, Dept. of Sociology, 2002. Includes bibliographical references. Microfiche.
... Over the past twenty-plus years, Monge has been cobbling together part-time positions across two states to make a living. 8 Third, there is a distancing from the modalities of racial and state violence that have not only shaped the conditions of the death of the MOVE members and Africa children, but that are also tied to a long history of dehumanisation of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour's (BIPOC) bodies and to forms of white supremacy that have produced exclusions and rendered some bodies subject to bare life and bare death (Blakey 1999;Jackson 2020;Mignolo 2015). The conditions of detachment are related to Monge's position as a middleclass white Philadelphian liberal, for whom such histories of surveillance and targeting do not constitute everyday realities. ...
... While holding these four forms of estrangement in tension, this talk will focus on the fourth: the positivist detachment required for disciplinary reproduction. We will see that the disciplinary detachment that has normalised such practices is deeply connected to the rise of positivism and, by extension, of four-field anthropology (Blakey 1999(Blakey , 2020Harrison 2011). Estrangement and detachment through the subject-object distinction are core components of particular approaches to the scientific method that involve inductive and deductive reasoning. ...
... The body of theory is therefore used as a mechanism to elucidate and dismantle the structures that uphold white supremacy and privilege (Bracey II, 2015;Byfield, 2019). Here, we define white supremacy as racially constructed social systems that privilege whites (Bonilla-Silva, 2010;Mills, 1998) Blakey, 1999;Fuentes, 2020;Harrison, 1995Harrison, , 2012Smedley & Hutchinson, 2012). ...
... We remind readers that our critiques are not novel (Albanese & Saunders, 2006;Blakey, 1999;Goodman, 1997;Goodman & Armelagos, 1996;Smay & Armelagos, 2000), although as board- Physical anthropology was created specifically to study human racial differences; the primary focus was on human physical form, especially that of the skull given its function of housing the brain (the seat of personality and intelligence) to classify humans into groups (Rankin-Hill & Blakey, 1994;Watkins, 2007). These classifications were often hierarchical in nature, with men of European descent placed in the foremost position. ...
Since the professionalization of US‐based forensic anthropology in the 1970s, ancestry estimation has been included as a standard part of the biological profile, because practitioners have assumed it necessary to achieve identifications in medicolegal contexts. Simultaneously, forensic anthropologists have not fully considered the racist context of the criminal justice system in the United States related to the treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; nor have we considered that ancestry estimation might actually hinder identification efforts because of entrenched racial biases. Despite ongoing criticisms from mainstream biological anthropology that ancestry estimation perpetuates race science, forensic anthropologists have continued the practice. Recent years have seen the prolific development of retooled typological approaches with 21st century statistical prowess to include methods for estimating ancestry from cranial morphoscopic traits, despite no evidence that these traits reflect microevolutionary processes or are suitable genetic proxies for population structure; and such approaches have failed to critically evaluate the societal consequences for perpetuating the biological race concept. Around the country, these methods are enculturated in every aspect of the discipline ranging from university classrooms, to the board‐certification examination marking the culmination of training, to standard operating procedures adopted by forensic anthropology laboratories. Here, we use critical race theory to interrogate the approaches utilized to estimate ancestry to include a critique of the continued use of morphoscopic traits, and we assert that the practice of ancestry estimation contributes to white supremacy. Based on the lack of scientific support that these traits reflect evolutionary history, and the inability to disentangle skeletal‐based ancestry estimates from supporting the biological validity of race, we urge all forensic anthropologists to abolish the practice of ancestry estimation.
... Because race/ethnicity is a prominent feature of this paper, some definitions and discussion are necessary. 'Race' is a social construct composed of physical and cultural features (Blakey, 1999;Jablonski, 2012;Krieger, 2010;Marks, 1996). As such, concepts and definitions of 'race' and 'racial' identity are fluid, changing across time and space and between nations (Alba, 1990;Harris and Sim, 2002;Lieberson and Waters, 1993). ...
Results.:
Hispanic children have higher odds of growth stunting than non-Hispanic White children. Native American children die younger and have higher odds of respiratory diseases and porous lesions than Hispanic and non-Hispanic Whites. Rural/urban location does not significantly impact age at death, but housing type does. Individuals who lived in trailers/mobile homes had earlier ages at death. When intersections between housing type and housing location are considered, children who were poor and from impoverished areas lived longer than those who were poor from relatively well-off areas.
Conclusions.:
Children's health is shaped by factors outside their control. The children included in this study embodied experiences of social and ELS and did not survive to adulthood. They provide the most sobering example of the harm that social factors (structural racism/discrimination, socioeconomic, and political structures) can inflict.
... As part of Fisher's societal activities, he advocated for voluntary sterilization of disabled people to prevent an increase in the prevalence of "feeble-mindedness" and "grave transmissible defects" in the human population(Bodmer et al. 2021). Carl Linnaeus, who established the contemporary system of taxonomy, applied his classification systems to races of humans(Blakey 1999), while Konrad Lorenz, a foundational member of the field of animal behavior, was a documented member of the Nazi party(Kalikow 2020). ...
Evolutionary biology and many of its foundational concepts are grounded in a history of ableism and eugenics. The field has not made a concerted effort to divest our concepts and investigative tools from this fraught history, and as a result, an ableist investigative lens has persisted in present-day evolutionary research, limiting the scope of research and harming the ability to communicate and synthesize knowledge about evolutionary processes. This failure to divest from our eugenicist and ableist history has harmed progress in evolutionary biology and allowed principles from evolutionary biology to continue to be weaponized against marginalized communities in the modern day. To rectify this problem, scholars in evolutionary research must come to terms with how the history of the field has influenced their investigations and work to establish a new framework for defining and investigating concepts such as selection and fitness.
... based, and indeed, this shift can be seen in our data analysis of terminology over time. However, while the terms "Asian," "African," and "European" are meant to denote geographic origin, they are actually understood to not be completely geographically based (Blakey 1999;Brace 1995). For example, "Asia" does not refer to the entire Asian continent. ...
To understand the implications of the forensic anthropological practice of “ancestry” estimation, we explore terminology that has been employed in forensic anthropological research. The goal is to evaluate how such terms can often circulate within social contexts as a result, which may center forensic anthropologists as constituting “race” itself through analysis and categorization. This research evaluates terminology used in anthropological articles of the Journal of Forensic Sciences between 1972 and 2020 (n = 314). Terminology was placed into two categories: classifiers and descriptors. Classifiers were standardized into one of five options: “race,” “ancestry,” “population,” “ethnic,” or “other.” Descriptors included terms used to describe individuals within these classificatory systems. We also compared these terms to those in the NamUs database and the U.S. census. Our results found that the terms “ancestry” and “race” are often conflated and “ancestry” largely supplanted “race” in the 1990s without a similar change in research approach. The NamUs and census terminology are not the same as that used in forensic anthropological research; illustrating a disconnect in the terms used to identify the missing, unidentified, and in social contexts with those used in anthropological research. We provide histories of all of these terms and conclude with suggestions for how to use terminology in the future. It is important for forensic anthropologists to be cognizant of the terms they use in medicolegal contexts, publications, and in public and/or professional spaces. The continued use of misrepresentative and improper language further marginalizes groups and perpetuates oppression rooted in systemic racism.
... This has been rationalized by the notion that we can connect craniofacial morphology (i.e., size and shape variants of skull bone features) to social race categories (e.g., United States Census categories) [8,9]. However, some biological anthropologists questioned the ethics of even estimating this parameter fearing that its continued use would endorse racist views and be complicit in the social injustices faced by underrepresented groups [2,[10][11][12]. ...
One of the parameters forensic anthropologists have traditionally estimated is ancestry, which is used in the United States as a proxy for social race. Its use is controversial because the biological race concept was debunked by scientists decades ago. However, many forensic anthropologists contend, in part, that because social race categories used by law enforcement can be predicted by cranial variation, ancestry remains a necessary parameter for estimation. Here, we use content analysis of the Journal of Forensic Sciences for the period 2009–2019 to demonstrate the use of various nomenclature and resultant confusion in ancestry estimation studies, and as a mechanism to discuss how forensic anthropologists have eschewed a human variation approach to studying human morphological differences in favor of a simplistic and debunked typological one. Further, we employ modern geometric morphometric and spatial analysis methods on craniofacial coordinate anatomical landmarks from several Latin American samples to test the validity of applying the antiquated tri-continental approach to ancestry (i.e., African, Asian, European). Our results indicate groups are not patterned by the ancestry trifecta. These findings illustrate the benefit and necessity of embracing studies that employ population structure models to better understand human variation and the historical factors that have influenced it.
... Race is a social construct, a composite comprised of physical and cultural attributes (Blakey 1999;Delgado and Stefancic 2017;Edgar and Hunley 2009;Fuentes et al. 2019;Jablonski 2012;Jones 2000;Krieger 2010;Marks 1996; Van Arsdale 2019). Definitions of "race" vary among nations and over time (Alba 1990;Lieberson and Waters 1993). ...
In this study, we examine the impacts of individual ancestry and socioeconomic status (SES) on health in historic African Americans through bioarchaeological means. We estimate ancestry from dental morphology and SES from the costs of coffin hardware. We include 188 adult individuals from Freedman’s Cemetery in Dallas, Texas, and 2,301 individuals of African and European descent for comparison. Freedman’s Cemetery functioned as the only cemetery available to freed people and their descendants between 1869 and 1907. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) of dental morphological traits was used to estimate individual ancestry. LDA results were then used in Cox proportional hazards analysis to examine whether ancestry impacted mortality risk or SES. Ancestry was not found to impact SES. However, paralleling results from analysis of census mortality data, individuals with greater African ancestry on average have shorter lifespans and higher mortality hazards than individuals who have more European ancestry. This finding provides evidence for structural violence in this historic African American skeletal sample. The negative effects of social constructs are embodied and can be detected in skeletal samples through use of statistical methods combined with information about the cultural context in which people lived.
... In order to understand Jamestown as a white public heritage space, it is necessary to understand what I mean by whiteness and how it is perpetuated and maintained in this context. Racial whiteness refers to a constructed identity with material consequences for health, wealth, and other lived experiences that was first invented in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Blakey 1999;Epperson 2004;Goodman et al. 2020;Orser 2007;Smedley and Smedley 2012;Trouillot 2015). Like other identity constructs, whiteness has changed over time (Painter 2010) even as nonwhite identities have consistently served as a boundary allowing for the creation of binaries which promote the perceived backwardness of nonwhite peoples (Fanon 1963). ...
This article explores the complex dynamics involved in making African Diaspora histories and cultures visible at Historic Jamestowne, a setting traditionally viewed as white public heritage space. In response to the 400th anniversary of the forcible arrival of Africans in Virginia, archaeologists and heritage professionals at Jamestown are engaging the local African American descendant community in collective knowledge production centered around Angela, one of the first African women that lived at Jamestown in the 1620s. This article explores the production of dominant histories, alternative interpretations of the (colonial) past, and relationships between heritage sites and local descendant communities.
... In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, anthropologists have continued to debate and discuss the race concept (Allison and Piot 2013;Blakey 1999;Edgar and Hunley 2009;Harrison 1999). Across the subdisciplines within anthropology, robust critical scholarship seeks to "reconcile" different views on race's definition, conceptualization, interpretation, application, and relevance (Allison and Piot 2013;Edgar and Hunley 2009;Hartigan 2013a). ...
This article assesses anthropological thinking about the race concept and its applications. Drawn from a broader national survey of geneticists’ and anthropologists’ views on race, in this analysis, we provide a qualitative account of anthropologists’ perspectives. We delve deeper than simply asserting that “race is a social construct.” Instead, we explore the differential ways in which anthropologists describe and interpret how race is constructed. Utilizing the heuristic of constructors, shifters, and reconcilers, we also illustrate the ways in which anthropologists conceptualize their interpretations of race along a broad spectrum as well as what these differential approaches reveal about the ideological and biological consequences of socially defined races, such as racism in general and racialized health disparities in particular. [race concept, social construction, racism, health disparities].
Biological anthropologists have long engaged in qualitative data analysis (QDA), though such work is not always foregrounded. In this article, we discuss the role of rigorous and systematic QDA in biological anthropology and consider how it can be understood and advanced. We first establish what kinds of qualitative data and analysis are used in biological anthropology. We then review the ways QDA has been used in six subfields of biological anthropology: primatology, human biology, paleoanthropology, dental and skeletal biology, bioarchaeology, and anthropological genetics. We follow that with an overview of how to use QDA methods: three simple QDA methods (i.e., word‐based analysis, theme analysis, and coding) and three QDA approaches for model‐building and model‐testing (i.e., content analysis, semantic network analysis, and grounded theory). With this foundation in place, we discuss how QDA can support transformative research in biological anthropology—emphasizing the valuable role of QDA in inductive and community‐based research. We discuss how QDA supports transformative research using mixed‐methods research designs, participatory action research, and abolition and Black feminist research. Finally, we consider how to close a QDA project, reflecting on the logistics, ethics, and limitations of qualitative data sharing, including how researchers can use the CARE Principles (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics) to support Indigenous data sovereignty.
Objectives
Socioeconomic status, past stress events, and other factors may contribute to the cumulative burden of physiological stress, which influences an individual's susceptibility to mortality and cause of death (COD). Here, we explore the association between skeletal evidence of stress and COD in the Hamann‐Todd Osteological Collection (HTOC), a predominantly low socioeconomic status sample from the late 19th and early 20th century.
Materials and Methods
Skeletal markers of stress including linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), stature, and antemortem tooth loss (AMTL) were analyzed in 298 individuals in the HTOC. Recorded CODs were grouped into six broad categories and contrasted with stress indicators, ages‐at‐death, and demographic variables, using various parametric and non‐parametric statistical tests.
Results
COD varied by socially ascribed race and sex within the sample. Overall, infectious diseases were more prevalent than degenerative diseases. Individuals that died of infectious diseases had significantly lower ages‐at‐death compared to degenerative diseases ( p < 0.001). There was no association between LEH and COD ( χ ² = 4.449, p = 0.487). Stature varied significantly across COD categories for males ( F = 2.534, p = 0.032), but not females ( F = 1.733, p = 0.132). Controlling for age‐at‐death, AMTL prevalence was associated with COD ( H = 18.53, p = 0.002), with cardiovascular disease being associated with higher prevalence of AMTL.
Discussion
These findings show that some skeletal stress indicators are associated with COD in the HTOC, but the causal pathways of these relationships are not clear. This study adds to growing bodies of literature exploring relationships between past stress events and susceptibility to mortality and long‐term consequences of poor living conditions for past individuals.
Richard Powers’ (2009) Generosity delves into the pursuit of the elusive “happiness gene” and its associated bioethical dilemmas. The narrative centres on Thassadit, an Algerian refugee in the USA, whose profound happiness contrasts with her traumatic past in post-colonial Algeria. This analysis argues that Thassa is not recognized as an individual but is instead defined by preconceived notions of refugee identity and becomes an object of scrutiny for scientists and media grappling with the paradox of post-colonial trauma and happiness. Employing a critical post-colonial lens, the study explores the portrayal of the “stranger” and associated stereotypes, the roles of the colonial and scientific gazes, and finally, the construction of the refugee identity in relation to Derrida’s ethics of hospitality. It examines identity construction through narratives of labelling, fixity, and belonging, exposing the intertwined neocolonial gaze, biased scientific discourse, and media sensationalism as oppressive forces that mutually reinforce orientalist and objectifying practices.
Over the last century, anthropological discourse about race changed dramatically. Once a core concept in anthropology, it is now widely accepted as the “myth” coined by Ashley Montagu to denote that race is a social construction with no basis in biology. The social constructivist view of race was long in the making in American anthropology. Typological thinking about human variation persists in science and society and race continues to be important to biological anthropologists in many ways. This chapter explores three of them. First, the race concept is not dead. Second, racial thinking may still influence researchers' understanding of human variation, population relationships, and human evolution. Finally, while social races are not genealogical entities, they have biological dimensions. The race concept is currently alive and well in the general public, providing fodder for neo‐fascists globally, but it has also persisted in biological anthropology until very recently.
This study explores a neglected episode in the history of Romanian encounters with racial classifications theories before and during the mid-nineteenth century. The study begins with a brief historiographic discussion and illustrates the recent debates concerning the definitions of the origins of scientific racism, as portrayed by Stephen Jay Gould and Nicolaas Rupke. Accordingly, the paper identifies three suggestive case studies (Iacob Czihac, Iuliu Barasch, Dimitrie Ananescu), which might shed some light on the intellectual roots of racial classifications in Romania. Placing the investigation within the emerging studies of the popularization of science, the paper argues that naturalists and physicians alike, trained and influenced by the German tradition of Naturphilsophie, were the ones to express their authority in reproducing and diffusing racial classifications and gendered concepts of reproduction.
This chapter draws on bioarchaeological research of activity to explore how daily life was transformed for urban colonial inhabitants of Mexico City. It examines a portion of the skeletal remains that were found in association with the architectural remains of the hospital during rescue excavations in the early 1990s when a new metro line was being built through the historic downtown of Mexico City. Europeans mostly male, arrived at positions of power in the colonial government or as missionaries of various different Christian orders. The kind of work a person performed was one of the many ways that social reputation was understood in colonial Mexico. Bioarchaeologists analyze variations in the skeleton that result from biomechanical stress to reconstruct what kind of daily activities a person performed throughout their life. Social identities, in all their intersecting forms, constrained the kinds of labor opportunities available to individuals in urban New Spain.
Black Americans and other racially and ethnically minoritized individuals are disproportionately burdened by higher morbidity and mortality from kidney disease when compared to their White peers. Yet kidney researchers and clinicians have struggled to fully explain or rectify causes of these inequalities. Many studies have sought to identify hypothesized genetic and/or ancestral origins of biologic or behavioral deficits as singular explanations for racial and ethnic inequalities in kidney health. However, these approaches reinforce essentialist beliefs that racial groups are inherently biologically and behaviorally different. These approaches also often conflate the complex interactions of individual level biological differences with aggregated population level disparities that are due to structural racism (i.e., sociopolitical policies and practices which created and perpetuate harmful health outcomes through inequities of opportunities and resources). We review foundational misconceptions about race, racism, genetics, and ancestry that shape research and clinical practice with a focus on kidney disease and related health outcomes. We also provide recommendations on how to embed key equity-enhancing concepts, terms, and principles into research, clinical practice, and medical publishing standards.
Forensic anthropologists traditionally estimate “race” or “ancestry” as part of the biological profile. While practitioners may have changed the terms used to describe regionally patterned human skeletal variation, the degree to which they have altered their typological approaches remains unclear. This study analyzed 119 peer-reviewed forensic anthropology articles published in four relevant journals (1966–2020) by matching combination(s) of the key words “race,” “ancestry,” “ethnicity,” and/or “population affinity.” Results indicated that while “ancestry” has supplanted “race,” this change has not brought concurrent modifications in approach, nor deeper scrutiny of underlying concepts. “Race” and “ancestry” were infrequently defined in 13% and 12% of sampled articles, respectively, and a plethora of social, geographic, and pseudoscientific terms persisted. Forensic anthropologists increasingly engaged with questions addressing the forces patterning human biological variation: 65% of studies postdating 1999 discussed population histories/structures and microevolution; 38% between 1966–1999. Fewer studies contextualized or critiqued approaches to analyzing population variation (32% of studies postdating 1999; 4% from 1966–1999), and virtually no studies considered the possibility that skeletal variation reflected embodied social inequity (5% of studies postdating 1999; 0% from 1966–1999). This lack of interrogation and clarity contributes to the faulty notion that all forensic anthropologists share similar definitions and leads to an oversimplification of complex biocultural processes. While the lack of definitions and biocultural engagement may be partly due to editorial and peer-review pressures, it is likely that many forensic anthropologists have not interrogated their own perspectives. This article holds that it is essential for us to do so.
Biological determinism continues to rest on belief rather than evidence. The racial genetics of David Reich and his immediate predecessors exemplify science applied as racist ideology which obscures evidence for social criticism and moral accountability for inequity.
In this chapter we concentrate on how anthropologists have approached the study of human variation. We find that anthropologists have frequently depended on nebulous or nonscientific theories and questionable methods to justify what seem to be
foregone conclusions, more often reflecting the contemporary views of society or strong personal opinions, rather than using empirical data and the scientific method. As a result, earlier racist pseudoscience gave way to modern antiracist pseudoscience that has prevented further discussion. Until recently, American forensic anthropologists used race to help identify discovered skeletal remains and were simply doing their work with little thought to race theory. Few anthropologists in any discipline examined humans and human races scientifically, which should involve formulating and testing theories and hypotheses, but instead relied on confirmation bias in publications intended for likeminded audiences. More recently, however, the accumulation of a mountain of morphological and molecular evidence shows an association between traditional human races and patterns of human variation, reflecting the interplay of historical, cultural, and evolutionary factors.
Race has been a core concept throughout the history of biological anthropology. Sometimes termed the biological race concept or the Western race concept, it developed as part of the taxonomy associated with the natural history tradition, defining large continental geographic groups—for example, Asians, Africans, Europeans, Americans (i.e., Native Americans)—as subspecies of Homo sapiens: that is, as “races” in the biological sense. As taxonomy, the race concept is typological and carries phylogenetic assumptions about the causes of geographic variation. Race is often conflated with geographic variation, influencing understandings of biological diversity. Although largely rejected by biological anthropologists today, the race concept continues to play an important role in biological anthropology because of its relationship to social race categories and the primacy of racial thinking, which influences the interpretation of human variation.
PREFACE As the study of human variation over space and time, biological anthropology has been deeply affected by the race concept. It was a science that errantly validated the existence of biological race and also justified social inequality. It was a science that defined races (the number of racial types, their constituents, and their attributes), and the history of the racial groups so defined. The history of biological anthropology is replete with studies designed to demonstrate the intrinsic inequality of races; since races are "biologized" social categories, social inequalities have long been justified as the result of biological differences. From the use of polygenism to justify slavery, to the use of eugenics to justify unfair immigration laws, sterilization of the poor, and even genocide, biological anthropology has had a sordid history. Cognizant of this history, modern anthropologists are among the first to discredit scientific racism when it appears today (Edgar and Hunley 2009). The role of anthropological science in the history of race and racism has been well described (e.g., Montagu 1942 ; Marks 1995 ; Blakey 1999 ; Jackson 2001 ; Lieberman 2001 ; Caspari 2003 ; Kaszycka and Strzałko 2003 ; Brace 2005), and it is beyond the scope of this paper to recount it here. Less attention, however, has been paid to the relationship between the race concept and paleoanthropology specifically. In this chapter, we focus on this relationship. At its core lies polygenism, the idea that links the race concept to the study of human evolution through the phylogenetic treatment of human variation.
Les auteurs de 1'article se penchent sur l'assimilation et la répétition des stéréotypes raciaux chez les Noirs canadiens en analysant des interviews semi-dirigées réalisées auprès de huit Noirs ou répondants de race mixte déclarés jeunes contrevenants. Dans leur enquête, ils tentent surtout de déterminer si cette assimilation peut être observée dans le discours des interviewés et jusqu'à quel point. Ils examinent de plus si le concept de soi des répondants entraîne Incorporation d'un profil de « criminel » a leur identité de Noir. Utilisant la construction sociale, les théories postcoloniales et de la transmission culturelle pour étayer cette analyse, les interviews sont examinées pour déterminer si les opinions stéréotypées sur les Noirs sont constitutives de la vision qu'ils ont d'euxmêmes et jusqu'à quel point. Les conclusions de l'étude semblent indiquer que les personnes ayant participéà cette étude-ci non seulement reconnaissent de tels stéréotypes, mais également les adoptent et les font leurs.
This paper investigates the assimilation and iteration of racial stereotypes among Black Canadians by inspecting open-ended interviews with eight Black or mixed-race respondents who are adjudicated young offenders. The focus of this investigation is on whether, and to what extent, this assimilation can be observed in interviewees' discourse and, moreover, whether the speakers' self-concepts entail their incorporation of “criminal” as an aspect of Black identity. Using social construction, post-colonial and cultural transmission theories to inform this analysis, interviews are inspected to determine whether and to what extent stereotypical views of Black persons are constitutive of the subjects' views of themselves. Findings suggest not only that the persons under study here recognize such stereotypes, but also that they adopt and embrace them.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION | Recent theories over human evolution have re-energized discussions about one of this century's most politicized topics — race. In this provocative introduction to the arguments over the origins of the human species, anthropological researchers Rachel Caspari and Milford Wolpoff (wife and husband) consider human diversity, the concept of race, and the importance of culture as it affects evolutionary processes. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/13/3058_ourmre.html http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/12/pop.css http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/11/main.css http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/10/index.html http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/9/button_close.gif http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/8/3058_ourmre_sm.jpg http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/7/3058_ourmre_lg.jpg http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/6/3058_Multir_sm.jpg http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/5/3058_Multir_lg.jpg http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/4/3058_crania.html http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/3/3058_crania_sm.jpg http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/2/3058_crania_lg.jpg http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55281/1/3058_Multir.html
Race was an important topic to the physical anthropologists of 1918, but their views were not monolithic. Multiple perspectives on race are expressed in the first volume of the AJPA, which encompass biological determinism and assumptions about evolutionary processes underlying the race concept. Most importantly, many of the significant alternative approaches to the study of human variation were already expressed in 1918. This paper examines race from the different perspectives of three key contributions to the first volume of the AJPA: papers from Hrdlicka, Hooton, and Boas. The meaning of race derived from this work is then discussed. Despite new understandings gained through the neo-Darwinian synthesis and the growth of genetics, the fundamentals of the modern discussions of race were already planted in 1918.
Prior to World War II research in physical anthropology functioned within its social and political context to produce an inegalitarian ideology. Aleš Hrdlička, 1869-1943, held a prominent place in these developments. Subsequent contextual changes (not simply hypothesis testing) produced epistemological changes.Although the field has been liberalized, many of the research interests and beliefs regarding the concept of race of the pre-war period remained for reasons having little to do with analytical efficacy. The continuing emphasis placed on naturalistic explanation in general is shown in continuity with the apologetic politics of pre-war anthropology. Yet, its promise for political application has dimished. Alternatives with broader application exist in social science approaches to comparative human biology, but social constraints upon the field limit the focus of physical anthropology to natural history. Moreover, this historical analysis shows socio-scientific articulation is intrinsic to the process of scientific discovery and change.