Race and Anthropology: A Core Concept without Consensus

Abstract

Race, once a core anthropological concept, is no longer supported by a majority of members of the discipline. The history of the concept is briefly reviewed. Results of a survey are presented indicating acceptance by 50% of biological anthropologists and 31 % of cultural anthropologists, while 42% of the former and 52% of the latter reject the concept. Alternatives for teaching about human biological and cultural variation are discussed. Ethnicity is suggested as an alternative for teaching about folk taxonomies that arose in the colonial era, while cline, or geographic variation, is proposed for human biological variation. RACE, ANTHROPOLOGY, DISSENSUS, CLINES, G R A D A -TIONS, ETHNlClTYLeonard Lieberman teaches physical anthropology and does research in the sociology of science at Central Michigan University. Blaine W. Stevenson teaches collective behavior with an emphasis on the Vietnam era at Central Michigan University. Larry T. Reynolds teaches social theory and is the editor of the "Reynolds Series in Sociology"for General Hall Publishers.

Beyond Discrete Categories: Studying Multiracial, Intersex, and Transgender Children Will Strengthen Basic Developmental Science

“…Rather, most contemporary views of race stress continuous variation across a large number of genetically transmitted but independent phenotypes, so-called "clines" (e.g., Lieberman, Stevenson, & Reynolds, 1989). Thus, even to say that race should be conceived of as a continuum is an inadequate corrective to categorical thinking; rather, race is a space defined by a large number of orthogonal continua within which we have contingently imposed a system of discrete categories.…”

Apportionment of racial diversity: A review

“…39 Only 50% of physical anthropologists and 31% of cultural anthropologists accept the validity of biological races in Homo sapiens. 40 There are many reasons for the decline in acceptance of race as a means of understanding human variation. Some claim that anthropologists are under pressure to maintain a politically correct position.…”

The alchemy of human variation: Race, ethnicity and Manoiloff’s blood reaction

“…The race concept, now generally abandoned by a large majority of American and western European physical anthropologists [e.g., LIEBERMAN et al 1989;CAVALLI-SFORZA et al 1994;CARTMILL 1998;KASZYCKA and ŠTRKALJ 2002;WANG et al 2002;KASZYCKA and STRZAŁKO 2003a,b;LIEBERMAN et al 2004;ELLISON and GOODMAN 2006], dominated the study of human variation for centuries. Until the mid-twentieth century, this typological framework formed the basis of racial research within which a large number of studies were generated [e.g., STOCKING 1968, STEPAN 1982, BARKAN 1992, WOLPOFF and CASPARI 1997, BIONDI and RICKARDS 2002, BRACE 2005.…”