Phrenology and the Rwandan Genocide

André, Charles

doi:10.1590/0004-282x20180022

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Starting toward the end of the 18th century, psychological researchers set out to identify "natural" differences between systemically marginalized and privileged groups of people. From phrenology to intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, psychology's pseudo-scientific contributions to efforts aimed at reifying biological deficits among systemically marginalized individuals are unmistakable (see André, 2018;Bergler, 1956; Center for the History of Psychology, 2021; Comas, 1961;Durrheim & Dixon, 2000;Lawler, 1978;Richards, 2003). These efforts served as "intellectual justification" for segregation and other forms of discrimination against Black, Brown, and Native people throughout the Western World, as well as the creation of concentration camps for "geneticallyinferior" Jews and Roma, the Rwandan genocide, the pathologizing of homosexuality, underinvestment in low-income communities, and many other dehumanizing acts over the last two centuries.…”

Section: The Deficit-based Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ongoing Development of Strength-Based Approaches to People Who Hold Systemically Marginalized Identities

Silverman

Rosario

Hernandez

et al. 2023

Pers Soc Psychol Rev

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Academic Abstract Personality and social psychology have historically viewed individuals’ systemically marginalized identities (e.g., as people of color, as coming from a lower-income background) as barriers to their success. Such a deficit-based perspective limits psychological science by overlooking the broader experiences, value, perspectives, and strengths that individuals who face systemic marginalization often bring to their societies. The current article aims to support future research in incorporating a strength-based lens through tracing psychology’s journey away from an emphasis on deficits among people who contend with systemic marginalization and toward three distinct strength-based approaches: the universal strengths, difference-as-strength, and identity-specific strengths approaches. Through distinguishing between each approach, we advance scholarship that aims to understand systemically marginalized identities with corresponding implications for addressing inequality. Strength-based approaches guide the field to recognize the imposed limitations of deficit-based ideologies and advance opportunities to engage in research that effectively understands and values systemically marginalized people. Public Abstract Inequalities, including those between people from higher- and lower-income backgrounds, are present across society. From schools to workplaces, hospitals to courtrooms, people who come from backgrounds that are marginalized by society often face more negative outcomes than people from more privileged backgrounds. While such inequalities are often blamed on a lack of hard work or other issues within marginalized people themselves, scientific research increasingly demonstrates that this is not the case. Rather, studies consistently find that people’s identities as coming from groups that face marginalization in society often serve as a valuable source of unique strengths, not deficiencies, that can help them succeed. Our article reviews these studies to examine how future research in psychology may gain a broader understanding of people who contend with marginalization. In doing so, we outline opportunities for psychological research to effectively support efforts to address persistent inequalities.

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Section: The Deficit-based Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ongoing Development of Strength-Based Approaches to People Who Hold Systemically Marginalized Identities

Silverman

Rosario

Hernandez

et al. 2023

Pers Soc Psychol Rev

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“…In the 1930s, physiognomy became a scientific colonial export with dramatic consequences. One setting was Rwanda, where Belgian scientists traveled in order to measure the skulls and features of different Rwandan ethnic groups (Straus, 2006; Curtis, 2011; André, 2018). The Belgian imperialists determined that there existed three essentially different “racial” groups that could be ranked in order of “superiority”: the Tutsi, the Hutu, and the Twa.…”

Section: Racializing the Face Sexing The Body: A Colonial Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auto-essentialization: Gender in automated facial analysis as extended colonial project

2021

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Scholars are increasingly concerned about social biases in facial analysis systems, particularly with regard to the tangible consequences of misidentification of marginalized groups. However, few have examined how automated facial analysis technologies intersect with the historical genealogy of racialized gender—the gender binary and its classification as a highly racialized tool of colonial power and control. In this paper, we introduce the concept of auto-essentialization: the use of automated technologies to re-inscribe the essential notions of difference that were established under colonial rule. We consider how the face has emerged as a legitimate site of gender classification, despite being historically tied to projects of racial domination. We examine the history of gendering the face and body, from colonial projects aimed at disciplining bodies which do not fit within the European gender binary, to sexology's role in normalizing that binary, to physiognomic practices that ascribed notions of inferiority to non-European groups and women. We argue that the contemporary auto-essentialization of gender via the face is both racialized and trans-exclusive: it asserts a fixed gender binary and it elevates the white face as the ultimate model of gender difference. We demonstrate that imperialist ideologies are reflected in modern automated facial analysis tools in computer vision through two case studies: (1) commercial gender classification and (2) the security of both small-scale (women-only online platforms) and large-scale (national borders) spaces. Thus, we posit a rethinking of ethical attention to these systems: not as immature and novel, but as mature instantiations of much older technologies.

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“…Belgian colonization of Rwanda started in 1912 and was granted legitimacy in 1919 by the League of Nations. Belgian settlers and colonial authorities subscribed to the belief of the racial superiority of Tutsi over Hutu and in 1933 anthropologists went to Rwanda to classify the population by phenotype following the classificatory principles of the phrenological science (André 2018).…”

Section: The Rwandan Genocidementioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropologists as Experts: Cultural Expertise, Colonialism, and Positionality

Holden¹

2021

Law Soc. Inq.

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This article addresses the positionality of anthropologists and the impact of anthropological theories in cultural expertise with the help of three case studies that highlight the engagement of anthropologists with law and governance during colonialism and in the wake of it: a well-known case of witchcraft in Kenya, Volkekunde theories in Africa, and the Rwandan genocide. The article starts with a short genesis of the concept of cultural expertise and its cognate concepts of culturally motivated crimes and cultural defense, to introduce the main question of this article: What can we learn from the use of cultural expertise in the colonial past? Today, as much as in the colonial past, anthropologists have been torn between action and abstention. The article’s three case studies show that neither action nor abstention is free from ethical responsibility. This article argues that the concept of procedural neutrality and its reformulation in the form of critical affirmation help anthropologists to carve out an independent role for themselves in the legal process. Procedural neutrality and its reformulation as critical affirmation make it possible to comply with the ethics and deontologies of the disciplines across which anthropologists operate when providing cultural expertise.

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Phrenology and the Rwandan Genocide

Cited by 7 publications

References 4 publications

The Ongoing Development of Strength-Based Approaches to People Who Hold Systemically Marginalized Identities

The Ongoing Development of Strength-Based Approaches to People Who Hold Systemically Marginalized Identities

Auto-essentialization: Gender in automated facial analysis as extended colonial project

Anthropologists as Experts: Cultural Expertise, Colonialism, and Positionality

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