Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Chapter 9
Introduction
- Strati ed societies: societies in which there is a permanent hierarchy that accords
some members privileged access to wealth, power, and prestige
- Class, caste, race, ethnicity, and nationality are “cultural inventions,” designed to
create boundaries around one imagined community or another
- Capitalism and colonialism introduced new forms of strati cation to societies or re-
shaped already existing forms
Race
- Race: A broad human population category that allegedly corresponds to distinct
heritable sets of biological attributes and often con ates geographic ancestry and
physical type
- Racialism: belief in the existence of biologically distinct races
- Racism: the systematic oppression of one or more socially de ned “races” by
another socially de ned “race” that is justi ed in terms of the supposedly inherent
biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent biological inferiority of
those they rule
- Races are imagined communities that do not correspond to major biological
di erences within the human species
The Biology of Human Variation
- Species: a reproductive community of populations (reproductively isolated from
others) that occupies a speci c niche in nature
- Cline: The gradual integration of genetic variation from population to population
- Variations in physical traits are found within and across populations are caused by
selective pressures based on selective advantage of particular traits
1
ff fi fi fi fi fl fi fi
, Wednesday, November 6, 2019
- Interbreeding, geographical dispersion, natural selection and variation in genetic
frequencies challenge the existence of ‘race’
- **********FILM**************
Race as a Social Category
- Race persists as a social category, which leads to exclusion
- However, racial practices are not the same cross-culturally
- Social race: an achieved status with a racial label in a system strati cation that is
composed of open, class-like categories to which racial labels are assigned
• E.g., social race in Colonial Oaxaca, Mexico
Colourism in Nicaragua
- Colourism: a system of social identities negotiated situationally along a continuum
of skin colours between white and blacK
- Roger Lancaster found three systems of colour classi cations which were used in
di erent contexts. Whiteness was the desired classi cation, and people competed in
di erent settings to claim whiteness:
1. Phenotypic system
2. Polite system
3. Pejorative/ a ectionate system
- Read textbook and look through variations !!!
Ethnicity
- Ethnic groups: social groups that are distinguished from one another on the basis go
ethnicity
2
ff ff fi fi fi
Chapter 9
Introduction
- Strati ed societies: societies in which there is a permanent hierarchy that accords
some members privileged access to wealth, power, and prestige
- Class, caste, race, ethnicity, and nationality are “cultural inventions,” designed to
create boundaries around one imagined community or another
- Capitalism and colonialism introduced new forms of strati cation to societies or re-
shaped already existing forms
Race
- Race: A broad human population category that allegedly corresponds to distinct
heritable sets of biological attributes and often con ates geographic ancestry and
physical type
- Racialism: belief in the existence of biologically distinct races
- Racism: the systematic oppression of one or more socially de ned “races” by
another socially de ned “race” that is justi ed in terms of the supposedly inherent
biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent biological inferiority of
those they rule
- Races are imagined communities that do not correspond to major biological
di erences within the human species
The Biology of Human Variation
- Species: a reproductive community of populations (reproductively isolated from
others) that occupies a speci c niche in nature
- Cline: The gradual integration of genetic variation from population to population
- Variations in physical traits are found within and across populations are caused by
selective pressures based on selective advantage of particular traits
1
ff fi fi fi fi fl fi fi
, Wednesday, November 6, 2019
- Interbreeding, geographical dispersion, natural selection and variation in genetic
frequencies challenge the existence of ‘race’
- **********FILM**************
Race as a Social Category
- Race persists as a social category, which leads to exclusion
- However, racial practices are not the same cross-culturally
- Social race: an achieved status with a racial label in a system strati cation that is
composed of open, class-like categories to which racial labels are assigned
• E.g., social race in Colonial Oaxaca, Mexico
Colourism in Nicaragua
- Colourism: a system of social identities negotiated situationally along a continuum
of skin colours between white and blacK
- Roger Lancaster found three systems of colour classi cations which were used in
di erent contexts. Whiteness was the desired classi cation, and people competed in
di erent settings to claim whiteness:
1. Phenotypic system
2. Polite system
3. Pejorative/ a ectionate system
- Read textbook and look through variations !!!
Ethnicity
- Ethnic groups: social groups that are distinguished from one another on the basis go
ethnicity
2
ff ff fi fi fi
