Race

A race is a population of humans distinguished from other populations. The most widely used racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin color and facial features). Conceptions of race, as well as specific racial groupings, vary by culture and time and are often controversial due to their impact on social identity hence identity politics.

The Social Interpretation of Physical Variation

The Incongruities of Racial Classifications

Even as the idea of "race" was becoming a powerful organizing principle in many societies, the shortcomings of the concept were apparent. In the Old World, the gradual transition in appearances from one group to adjacent groups emphasized that "one variety of mankind does so sensibly pass into the other, that you cannot mark out the limits between them," as Blumenbach observed in his writings on human variation (Marks 1995, p. 54). In parts of the Americas, the situation was somewhat different. The immigrants to the New World came largely from widely separated regions of the Old World?western and northern Europe, western Africa, and, later, eastern Asia and southern Europe. In the Americas, the immigrant populations began to mix among themselves and with the indigenous inhabitants of the continent. In the United States, for example, most people who self-identify as African American have some European ancestors?in one analysis of genetic markers that have differing frequencies between continents, European ancestry ranged from an estimated 7% for a sample of Jamaicans to ?23% for a sample of African Americans from New Orleans (Parra et al. 1998). Similarly, many people who identify as European American have some African or Native American ancestors, either through openly interracial marriages or through the gradual inclusion of people with mixed ancestry into the majority population. In a survey of college students who self-identified as "white" in a northeastern U.S. university, ?30% were estimated to have

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In the United States, social and legal conventions developed over time that forced individuals of mixed ancestry into simplified racial categories (Gossett 1997). An example is the "one-drop rule" implemented in some state laws that treated anyone with a single known African American ancestor as black (Davis 2001). The decennial censuses conducted since 1790 in the United States also created an incentive to establish racial categories and fit people into those categories (Nobles 2000). In other countries in the Americas where mixing among groups was more extensive, social categories have tended to be more numerous and fluid, with people moving into or out of categories on the basis of a combination of socioeconomic status, social class, ancestry, and appearance (Mörner 1967).

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Efforts to sort the increasingly mixed population of the United States into discrete categories generated many difficulties (Spickard 1992). By the standards used in past censuses, many millions of children born in the United States have belonged to a different race than have one of their biological parents. Efforts to track mixing between groups led to a proliferation of categories (such as "mulatto" and "octoroon") and "blood quantum" distinctions that became increasingly untethered from self-reported ancestry. A person's racial identity can change over time, and self-ascribed race can differ from assigned race (Kressin et al. 2003). Until the 2000 census, Latinos were required to identify with a single race despite the long history of mixing in Latin America; partly as a result of the confusion generated by the distinction, 42% of Latino respondents in the 2000 census ignored the specified racial categories and checked "some other race" (Mays et al. 2003).

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Race as subspecies

With the advent of the modern synthesis in the early 20th century, biologists developed a new, more rigorous model of race as subspecies. For these biologists, a race is a recognizable group forming all or part of a species. A monotypic species has no races, or rather one race comprising the whole species. Monotypic species can occur in several ways:

Related Topics:
Modern synthesis - Species - Monotypic

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• All members of the species are very similar and cannot be sensibly divided into biologically significant subcategories.
• The individuals vary considerably but the variation is essentially random and largely meaningless so far as genetic transmission of these variations is concerned (many plant species fit into this category, which is why horticulturists interested in preserving, say, a particular flower color avoid propagation from seed, and instead use vegetative methods like propagation from cuttings).
• The variation between individuals is noticeable and follows a pattern, but there are no clear dividing lines between separate groups: they fade imperceptibly into one another. Such clinal variation always indicates substantial gene flow between the apparently separate groups that make up the population(s). Populations that have a steady, substantial gene flow between them are likely to represent a monotypic species even when a fair degree of genetic variation is obvious.

A polytypic species has two or more races (or, in current parlance, two or more sub-types). These are separate groups that are clearly distinct from one another and do not generally interbreed (although there may be a relatively narrow hybridization zone), but which would interbreed freely if given the chance to do so. Note that groups which would not interbreed freely, even if brought together such that they had the opportunity to do so, are not races: they are separate species.

Related Topics:
Polytypic - Parlance - Interbreed - Hybridization zone

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Although this attempt at conceptual precision gained currency with many biologists, especially zoologists, evolutionary scientists have criticized it on a number of fronts.

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The rejection of race and the rise of "population" and "cline"

At the beginning of the 20th century, anthropologists questioned, and subsequently abandoned, the claim that biologically distinct races are isomorphic with distinct linguistic, cultural, and social groups. Then, the rise of population genetics led some mainstream evolutionary scientists in anthropology and biology to question the very validity of race as scientific concept describing an objectively real phenomenon. Those who came to reject the validity of the concept, race, did so for four reasons: empirical, definitional, the availability of alternative concepts, and ethical (Lieberman and Byrne 1993).

Related Topics:
Anthropologist - Isomorphic - Population genetics - Anthropology - Biology

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The first to challenge the concept of race on empirical grounds were anthropologists Franz Boas, who demonstrated phenotypic plasticity due to environmental factors (Boas 1912), and Ashley Montagu (1941, 1942), who relied on evidence from genetics. Zoologists Edward O. Wilson and W. Brown then challenged the concept from the perspective of general animal systematics, and further rejected the claim that "races" were equivalent to "subspecies" (Wilson and Brown 1953).

Related Topics:
Anthropologists - Franz Boas - Ashley Montagu - Zoologists - Animal systematics

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One of the crucial innovations in reconceptualizing genotypic and phenotypic variation was anthropologist C. Loring Brace's observation that such variations, insofar as they are affected by natural selection, migration, or genetic drift, are distributed along geographic gradations; these gradations are called "clines" (Brace 1964). This point called attention to a problem common to phenotypic-based descriptions of races (for example, those based on hair texture and skin color): they ignore a host of other similarities and difference (for example, blood type) that do not correlate highly with the markers for race. Thus, anthropologist Frank Livingstone's conclusion that, since clines cross racial boundaries, "there are no races, only clines" (Livingstone 1962: 279). In 1964, biologists Paul Ehrlich and Holm pointed out cases where two or more clines are distributed discordantly—for example, melanin is distributed in a decreasing pattern from the equator north and south; frequencies for the haplotype for beta-S hemoglobin, on the other hand, radiate out of specific geographical points in Africa (Ehrlich and Holm 1964). As anthropologists Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda Jackson observe, "Discordant patterns of heterogeneity falsify any description of a population as if it were genotypically or even phenotypically homogeneous" (Lieverman and Jackson 1995).

Related Topics:
Genotypic - Phenotypic - C. Loring Brace - Natural selection - Migration - Genetic drift - Geographic gradation - Cline - Frank Livingstone - Paul Ehrlich - Melanin - Haplotype - Beta-S - Hemoglobin - Leonard Lieberman - Fatimah Linda Jackson

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Finally, geneticist Richard Lewontin, observing that 85 percent of human variation occurs within populations, and not between populations, argued that neither "race" nor "subspecies" was an appropriate or useful way to describe populations (Lewontin 1973). This view is purportedly debunked as Lewontin's Fallacy. Some researchers report the variation between racial groups (measured by Sewall Wright's population structure statistic FST) accounts for as little as 5% of human genetic variation2. However, because of technical limitations of FST, many geneticists now believe that low FST values do not invalidate the suggestion that there might be different human races (Edwards, 2003). Meanwhile, neo-Marxists such as David Harvey (1982, 1984, 1992) believe that race is a social construct that in reality does not exist, used instead to extenuate class differences.

Related Topics:
Richard Lewontin - Lewontin's Fallacy - Sewall Wright's - Neo-Marxists - David Harvey

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These empirical challenges to the concept of race forced evolutionary sciences to reconsider their definition of race. Mid-century, anthropologist William Boyd defined race as:

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:A population which differs significantly from other populations in regard to the frequency of one or more of the genes it possesses. It is an arbitrary matter which, and how many, gene loci we choose to consider as a significant "constellation" (Boyd 1950).

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Lieberman and Jackson (1994) have pointed out that "the weakness of this statement is that if one gene can distinguish races then the number of races is as numerous as the number of human couples reproducing." Moreover, anthropologist Stephen Molnar has suggested that the discordance of clines inevitably results in a multiplication of races that renders the concept itself useless (Molnar 1992).

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Alongside empirical and conceptual problems with "race" following the Second World War, evolutionary and social scientists were acutely aware of how beliefs about race had been used to justify discrimination, apartheid, slavery, and genocide. This questioning gained momentum in the 1960s during the U.S. civil rights movement and the emergence of numerous anti-colonial movements worldwide.

Related Topics:
Second World War - Discrimination - Apartheid - Slavery - Genocide - 1960s - Civil rights movement - Anti-colonial movement

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In the face of these issues, some evolutionary scientists have simply abandoned the concept of race in favor of "population." What distinguishes population from previous groupings of humans by race is that it refers to a breeding population (essential to genetic calculations) and not to a biological taxon. Other evolutionary scientists have abandoned the concept of race in favor of cline (meaning, how the frequency of a trait changes along a geographic gradient). The concepts of population and cline are not, however, mutually exclusive and both are used by many evolutionary scientists.

Related Topics:
Population - Taxon - Cline

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In the face of this rejection of race by evolutionary scientists, many social scientists have replaced the word race with the word "ethnicity" to refer to self-identifying groups based on beliefs in shared religion, nationality, or race. Moreover, they understood these shared beliefs to mean that religion, nationality, and race itself are social constructs and have no objective basis in the supernatural or natural realm (Gordon 1964). See also the American Anthropological Association's Statement on Race http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm.

Related Topics:
Ethnicity - Religion - Nationality - Social construct

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Ethnicity as a Way of Categorizing People

As the problems surrounding the word "race" became increasingly apparent during the 20th century, the word "ethnicity" was promoted as a way of characterizing the differences between groups (Huxley and Haddon 1936; Hutchinson and Smith 1996). Ethnicity typically emphasizes the cultural, socioeconomic, religious, and political qualities of human groups rather than their genetic ancestry. It may encompass language, diet, religion, dress, customs, kinship systems, or historical or territorial identity (Cornell and Hartmann 1998).

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However, as a way of understanding human groups, ethnicity also suffers from several shortcomings. First, ascribing an ethnic identity to a group can imply a much greater degree of uniformity than is actually the case. In the United States, the ethnic group "Hispanic or Latino" contains such subgroups as Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and recent immigrants from Central America (Hayes-Bautista and Chapa 1987). Combining these groups into a single category may serve useful bureaucratic or political ends but does not necessarily result in a better understanding of these groups.

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Also, ethnicity, like race, is a malleable concept that can change dramatically in different times or circumstances (Waters 1990; Smelser et al. 2001). Ethnic groups may come into existence and then dissipate as a result of broad historical or social trends. Individuals might change ethnic groups over the course of their lives or identify with more than one group. A researcher, clinician, or government official might assign an ethnicity to an individual quite different from the one that person would acknowledge (Kressin et al. 2003).

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Finally, despite attempts to distinguish "ethnicity" from "race," the two terms often are used interchangeably (Oppenheimer 2001). Ethnic groups can share a belief in a common ancestral origin (Cornell and Hartmann 1998), which also can be a defining characteristic of a racial group. Furthermore, ethnic groups tend to promote marriage within the group, which creates an expectation of biological cohesion regardless of whether that cohesion existed in the past.

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Ancestry as a Way of Categorizing People

An alternative to the use of racial or ethnic categories is to categorize individuals in terms of ancestry. Ancestry may be defined geographically (e.g., Asian, sub-Saharan African, or northern European), geopolitically (e.g., Vietnamese, Zambian, or Norwegian), or culturally (e.g., Brahmin, Lemba, or Apache). The definition of ancestry may recognize a single predominant source or multiple sources. Ancestry can be ascribed to an individual by an observer, as was the case with the U.S. census prior to 1960; it can be identified by an individual from a list of possibilities or with use of terms drawn from that person's experience; or it can be calculated from genetic data by use of loci with allele frequencies that differ geographically, as described above. At least among those individuals who participate in biomedical research, genetic estimates of biogeographical ancestry generally agree with self-assessed ancestry (Tang et al. 2005), but in an unknown percentage of cases, they do not (Brodwin 2002; Kaplan 2003).

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Genetic data can be used to infer population structure and assign individuals to groups that often correspond with their self-identified geographical ancestry.

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The inference of population structure from multilocus genotyping depends on the selection of a large number of informative genetic markers. These studies usually find that groups of humans living on the same continent are more similar to one another than to groups living on different continents. Many such studies are criticized for assigning group identity a priori. However, even if group identity is stripped and group identity assigned a posteriori using only genetic data, population structure can still be inferred. For example, using 377 markers, Rosenberg et al. (2002) were able to assign 1,056 individuals from 52 populations around the globe to one of six genetic clusters, of which five correspond to major geographic regions.

Related Topics:
A priori - A posteriori

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However, in analyses that assign individuals to group it becomes less apparent that self-described racial groups are reliable indicators of ancestry. One cause of the reduced power of the assignment of individuals to groups is . Some racial or ethnic groups, especially Hispanic groups, do not have homogenous ancestry. For example, self-described African Americans tend to have a mix of West African and European ancestry. Shriver et al. (2003) found that on average African Americans have ~80% African ancestry. Likewise, many white Americans have mixed European and African ancestry, where ~30% of whites have less than 90% European ancestry. In this context, it is becoming more common place to describe "race" as fractional ancestry. Without the use of genotyping, this has been approximated by the self-described ancestry of an individual's grand-parents.

Related Topics:
Hispanic - African Americans

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Nevertheless, recent research indicates that self-described race is a near-perfect indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the United States. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with their self-described race (white, African American, East Asian, or Hispanic) for all but 5 individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). They conclude that ancient ancestry, which correlates tightly with self-described race and not current residence, is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population.

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Genetic techniques that distinguish ancestry between continents can also be used to describe ancestry within continents. However, the study of intra-continental ancestry may require a greater number of informative markers. Populations from neighboring geographic regions typically share more recent common ancestors. As a result, allele frequencies will be correlated between these groups. This phenomenon is often seen as a cline of allele frequencies. The existence of allelic clines has been offered as evidence that individuals cannot be allocated into genetic clusters (Kittles & Weiss 2003). However, others argue that low levels of differentiation between groups merely make the assignment to groups more difficult, not impossible (Bamshad et al. 2004).

Related Topics:
Allele frequencies - Allelic - Genetic cluster

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Despite its seemingly objective nature, ancestry also has limitations as a way of categorizing people (Elliott and Brodwin 2002). When asked about the ancestry of their parents and grandparents, many people cannot provide accurate answers. In one series of focus groups in the state of Georgia, 40% of ?100 respondents said they did not know one or more of their four grandparents well enough to be certain how that person(s) would identify racially (Condit et al. 2003). Misattributed paternity or adoption can separate biogeographical ancestry from socially defined ancestry. Furthermore, the exponentially increasing number of our ancestors makes ancestry a quantitative rather than qualitative trait?5 centuries (or 20 generations) ago, each person had a maximum of >1 million ancestors (Ohno 1996). To complicate matters further, recent analyses suggest that everyone living today has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors who lived as recently as a few thousand years in the past, although we have received our genetic inheritance in different proportions from those ancestors (Rohde et al. 2004).

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For some people, the very claim that all human beings share one ancestor is sufficient to demonstrate that the only "race" is the human race.

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Rachel Caspari (2003) argued that clades are by definition monophyletic groups (a taxon that includes all descendents of a given ancestor); since races are not monophyletic, they cannot be clades.

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For anthropologists Lieberman and Jackson (1995), however, there are more profound methodological and conceptual problems with using cladistics to support concepts of race. They emphasize that "the molecular and biochemical proponents of this model explicitly use racial categories in their initial grouping of samples" (emphasis added). For example, the

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:large and highly diverse macroethnic groups of East Indians, North Africans, and Europeans are presumptively grouped as Caucasians prior to the analysis of their DNA variation. This limits and skews interpretations, obscures other lineage relationships, deemphasizes the impact of more immediate clinal environmental factors on genomic diversity, and can cloud our understanding of the true patterns of affinity.

Related Topics:
Macroethnic - Caucasian

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They argue that however significant the empirical research, these studies use the term race in conceptually sloppy ways. They suggest that the authors of these studies find support for racial distinctions only because they began assuming the validity of race.

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:For empirical reasons we prefer to place emphasis on clinal variation, which recognizes the existence of adaptive human hereditary variation and simultaneously stresses that such variation is not found in packages that can be labeled races.

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Indeed, recent research reports evidence for smooth, clinal genetic variation even in regions previously considered racially homogeneous, with the apparent gaps turning out to be artifacts of sampling techniques (Serre & Pääbo 2004). These scientists do not dispute the importance of cladistic research, only its retention of the word race, when reference to populations and clinal gradations are more than adequate to describe the results.

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In the end, the terms "race," "ethnicity," and "ancestry" all describe just a small part of the complex web of biological and social connections that link individuals and groups to each other.

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The current disagreement across disciplines

The result of these developments is that the current literature across different disciplines regarding human variation lacks consensus, though some fields, such as biology, have strong consensus. Some studies use the word race in its previously essentialist taxonomic sense. Many use the term race, but are using it to gloss a populationist or cladistic approach. Others eschew the word race altogether, and use the word population.

Related Topics:
Consensus - Essentialist - Taxonomic

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A 1985 survey (Lieberman et al. 1992) asked 1,200 scientists how many disagree with the following proposition: "There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens." The responses were:

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• biologists 16%
• developmental psychologists 36%
• physical anthropologists 41%
• cultural anthropologists 53%

The figure for physical anthropologists at PhD granting departments was slightly higher, rising from 41% to 42%, with 50% agreeing.

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(This survey did not specify any particular definition of race; it is impossible to say whether those who supported the statement thought of race in taxonomic or population terms.)

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In the 19th century, race was a central concept of anthropology. In 1866, James Hunt, the founder of the Anthropological Society of London, declared that anthropology?s primary truth ?is the existence of well-marked psychological and moral distinctions in the different races of men.? However, this view became marginalised in the 20th century. Since 1932, college textbooks introducing physical anthropology have increasingly come to reject race as a valid concept: from 1932 to 1976, only seven out of thirty-two rejected race; from 1975 to 1984, thirteen out of thirty-three rejected race; from 1985 to 1993, thirteen out of nineteen rejected race.

Related Topics:
James Hunt - Anthropological Society of London - College - Textbook

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Nevertheless, the belief that human races exist remains almost universal amongst lay audiences and, like any widely held belief, is significant regardless of its scientific validity. Moreover, some social and natural scientists argue that new studies in molecular genetics support a nomenclature strongly reminiscent of traditional racial and ethnic terminology.

Related Topics:
Molecular genetics - Nomenclature

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