Spring 2008
Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective
New College of Florida
Professor Uzi Baram
Class Meets: Tuesday and Thursday 10:30 - 11:50
Classroom: Anthropology Lab
Office Hours: Tuesday 12:30-2:30 & by appointment
Office Telephone Number: 487-4217
Email: Baram@ncf.edu
URL: http://faculty.ncf.edu/baram/RaceandEthnicitycourse.htm
Catalogue description:
This course offers anthropological perspectives on human diversity in the world today. We will consider the historical development of the race concept, models for ethnic identity and ethnic interactions, and explanations for social relations around the globe. Examples will include southern Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and East Asia. The implications of our understandings of race and ethnicity in conjunction with the implications of the divisions will be explored via ethnographic texts. Recommended: prior coursework in anthropology.
Prospectus:
The central concern in the course revolves around the ways and means of organizing and classifying human difference. Race and ethnicity are significant approaches for understanding and managing human biological and social variation. We will critically examine the historical development and cultural construction of these categories.
The course has two major components. The first half focuses on the intellectual history of the Race Concept. The majority of that discussion will expose the legacy of Anthropology for understanding human biological and social diversity. Models for understanding race and ethnicity are influenced by but go beyond Anthropology. We will critically evaluate several models and understandings in order to recognize their social and intellectual implications. The second half of the course examines how the American Race Concept has gone global, employing case studies to illustrate changes in ethnic relations as well as transformations in the understandings of those relations. The approach follows the person-to-person interactions that ethnographers seek to capture. The two components of the course come together in our attempt to better understand the social phenomena of difference in the world today.
The anthropological perspective will hopefully help to build an understanding of human diversity. We will use the analysis of the race concept and of ethnicity and nationalism as a guide through ethnographic texts and case studies. The implications of the social divisions will be considered in terms of history, social relations, and identity, with the recognition that Race continues to be a pressing concern in academic discourse, social analysis and theory, and in human social relations.
Format:
Lectures, seminar style discussions, videos, and student presentations will be employed in this course. The readings will provide the basis for class discussions. Students are responsible for completing readings on time, to research the background on the case studies and to use a case study to complete several written assignments as well as present their work to the class. The class will discuss the implications of various models presented during the semester. The topics confronted in this course are quite challenging; please see the last page of the syllabus for approaches to a successful seminar classroom.
Course Goals:
The main goal of the course is a comparative, historical perspective on human difference, focused on the concept of race. Anthropology, as the study of people, has been obsessed with the issue of race, propelling the race concept into scientific and popular discourse and recently debunking the notion that humans are divided into `races.' We will consider these academic developments as well as popular perspectives on race and ethnicity. Through this examination, it will be argued that the race concept is now found in the terms ethnicity, civilization, and cultures. As new terminologies are formed to continue the racialist notions, we need to understand the social implications of the race legacy.
The implications of race and ethnicity, racism and ethnocentrism, and other aspects of social relations will be delineated over the semester. As components of social stratification, race and ethnicity organize social relations. The details of people's lived lives from the ethnographies should inject complexity to our understandings of social difference. The global perspective is meant to provide context for our society, to see the contested issues more clearly.
Thirdly, by exploring several case studies from around the world, we will be able to evaluate models and theories regarding human difference. Hopefully, via this endeavor, we will reach a better understanding of the silencing of people, oppression, and genocides of the late twentieth century. This understanding should be useful in conceptualizing solutions to social divisions or, at least, help us to rethink academic and folk explanations of social difference.
Questions for the Course:
Race and ethnicity open up many topics and arenas for discussion. The main foci for the course revolve around variation, social power, and identity. In terms of general questions, we will examine:
*What is race and ethnicity? Under which circumstances do race and ethnicity become important?
*How does race and ethnicity intersect with culture and biology? with language? with the state?
*How does race and ethnicity intersect with social relations, social power, and social identities?
*How does race and ethnicity look from the top of social hierarchies? from the bottom of social hierarchies? why is privilege masked as natural?
*How can anthropologists study a worldview?
*Are notions of race and ethnicity necessarily negative and hurtful? What are other possibilities for socially organizing differences in nation-states? How are race and ethnicity used for identity?
*What is the trajectory for conceptualizing, understanding, and living with human diversity and differences around the world?
Evaluation:
Your evaluation will be based on three components: attendance, written work, and a final class presentation.
1. You are expected to attend each and every class, to complete the readings for that day, and be prepared to discuss the readings and your own research. The key for discussion is quality not quantity. If you need to miss class, contact the professor via email, voice mail, or a message in his mailbox. All reasonable requests for absences will be honored; more than one unexcused absence is a basis for not satisfying the course.
2. The written work for the course is structured around a case study of your choosing. As an anthropology course, you have wide latitude in choosing an example for your semester long project, but I will discourage using the USA as the focal point. Within the first few weeks of the term, you will need to decide on your case study, and have it approved by the professor. Examples used in the course are encouraged. All the below papers are based on your case study and are created to provide a step-by-step development of mastery of a case study and success with anthropological analysis.
a. Your Case Study and Race: Social Relations
The first course paper has two components. The first part focuses on the theoretical contribution of Audrey Smedley’s careful examination of the development of the Race concept in its complexities for North America. For the paper, explain her key concerns regarding the Race concept. The second part of the assignment requires you employ the theoretical contribution to your case study. The paper must include relevant background information on your case study. Address the following questions in your seven to ten double-spaced typed paper: How does Smedley's definition for Race fit the social categories in your case study? What is the contribution of The Concept of Race in North America in exposing the significant elements for understanding the social relations? The more historical background information for your case study you provide for this paper, the more likely you can work through the analysis in the second half of the semester toward a meaningful final paper - due on March 13th.
b. Social Identity and Social Hierarchies: the Role of the State
Benedict Anderson famously provides a useful definition for nationalism; more importantly, the concept of "imagined communities" gives us several social and institutional elements involved in the development of nationalism among people within a state's boundary. Ethnic Identity in China illustrates the significance of the state in organizing social identities. This assignment has two components. In the first, explain Gladney's argument regarding Hui identity in the People's Republic of China integrating Anderson’s discussion of imagined communities. In the second component, discuss the role of the state, whether a nation-state or colonial regime, for your case study. The more you provide in terms of institutional frameworks for the case study, the more meaningful will be your final paper. Four to seven double-spaced typed pages – due on April 15th.
c. Final paper
Race and ethnicity in the contemporary world is a locus of tensions and conflicts. For the final paper, analyze your case study in terms of the anthropological perspective developed in the course. Which models best help us to understand the social identities and social tensions involved in your case study? What are the implications of that model for ameliorating, solving, or better understanding the racial/ethnic conflict? Citation of the course texts, the explicit use several of the course readings for the analysis and for comparisons, and at least four significant references on the topic, are required for the final paper. Twelve to twenty pages - due on May 15th.
3. Oral Presentations
There will be three opportunities, beyond class discussions, for oral presentations. Two are group activities and one focuses on your term project
a. You will present your research project to the class before the end of the semester. The presentation is the opportunity to explain your term project and test out your analysis in front of the class. The format of the oral presentation will be discussed at the start of the second half of the semester.
b. For the unit on South Africa, teams of students will be assigned portions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report to present to the class.
c. For the unit on genocide, primary materials on Darfur will be assigned for presentation to the class.
Required Texts:
· Benedict Anderson 2006 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Third edition. Verso.
· Dru Gladney 2003 Ethnic Identity in China. Thomson.
· Audrey Smedley 2007 The Concept of Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview. Third edition. Westview Press.
· Raymond Scupin, editor, 2003 Race and Ethnicity: An Anthropological Focus on the United States and the World. Prentice Hall.
The articles and book chapters listed below are on electronic reserve via the Cook Library. You also are expected to explore information posted on the course web page and to research for your case study. Since the course outline is organized into units, at the end of each class meeting, the professor will assign the specific readings for the next class meeting. Please look over the syllabus often, particularly since some weeks have heavier reading loads.
Mini-Class
1/31 Social Divides and Commemorations, Memories and Amnesia
I. Introduction - Social Divisions
Week 1 (2/5 & 2/7). Introduction to the course: Human Nature, Social Divides, and the Diversities of Social Identity
Readings:
1. Stephen Jay Gould 1985 "Human Equality is a Contingent Fact of History" The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History pp. 185-198.
2. Franz Boas 1906 "The Outlook for the American Negro" The Franz Boas Reader, pp. 310-316.
3. Samuel Huntington 1993 "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs Summer:22-49.
4. Scupin Chapter 1 The Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity
II. Framing the Issues: Race and History
Week 2 (2/12 & 2/14). Origins of Race Concept
Readings:
1. Roger Sanjek 2000 "Color Full Before Color Blind: The Emergence of Multiracial Neighborhood Politics in Queens, New York" American Anthropologist 102(4):762-772.
2. Smedley Chapters 1-4
3. Nancy Shoemaker 1997 "How Indians Became Red" American Historical Review 102(3):625-644.
4. Scupin Chapters 2 Concept of Race in Anthropology & 7 American Indians
5. Anderson 2006 Epilogue: Travel and Traffic
Week 3 (2/19 & 2/21). Determining Race
Readings:
1. Smedley Chapters 5-8
2. Christine Gailey 1994 "Politics, Colonialism, and the Mutable Color of Southern Pacific Peoples" Transforming Anthropology 5(1/2):34-40.
3. Scupin Chapter 8 African Americans
Week 4 (2/26 & 2/28). Scientific Acceptance of Race
Readings:
1. Smedley Chapters 9-11
2. Thomas Jefferson 1787 Selection from Notes on the State of Virginia. From Defending Slavery, pp. 47-54.
3. Scupin Chapters 3 History of "Scientific" Racialism, 9 Jewish Americans, & 10 Hispanic Americans/Latinos
4. Barbara Ferry and Debbie Nathan 2000 "Mistaken Identity?: The Case of New Mexico's "Hidden Jews"" The Atlantic 283(6):85-96
5. Katya Azoulay 2003 “Not an Innocent Pursuit: The Politics of a `Jewish’ Genetic Signature” Developing World Bioethics 3(2):119-126.
6. Kevin Yelvington 2005 “Patterns of “Race,” Ethnicity, Class, and Nationalism” Understanding Contemporary Latin America, pp.237-271.
Week 5 (3/4 & 3/6). Popular Acceptance of Race
Readings:
1. Smedley Chapters 12-14
2. Pamela Perry 2001 “White Means Never Having to Say You’re Ethnic: White Youth and the Construction of “Cultureless” Identities” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30(1):56-91
3. Carolyn Ellis 1995 “The Other Side of the Fence: Seeing Black and White in a Small Southern Town” Qualitative Inquiry 1(2):147-167.
4. WEB DuBois 1953 “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” The Souls of Black Folk.
III. Race/Ethnicity and Social Power
Week 6 (3/11 & 3/13) Apartheid South Africa and its Legacy
Readings:
1. Immanuel Wallerstein 1991 "The Construction of Peoplehood: Racism, Nationalism, Ethnicity" Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, edited by E.Balibar and I.Wallerstein, pp. 71-85.
2. Scupin Chapter 14 Africa
Week 7 (3/18 & 3/20). Frameworks and Debates regarding Race, Ethnicity, Culture
Readings:
1. Anderson 2006 Imagined Communities Chapters 1-3
2. Frederik Barth 1969 "Introduction" Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, pp.9-38.
3. Gerald Berreman 1972 "Race, Caste, and Other Invidious Distinctions in Social Stratification" Race 31(4):385-414.
4. Eric R. Wolf 1994 "Perilous Ideas" Current Anthropology 35(1):1-12.
5. Kathleen D. Hall 2004 “The Ethnography of Imagined Communities: The Cultural Production of Sikh Ethnicity in Britain” Annals of the AAPSS 595:108-121.
6. Scupin Chapter 4 Ethnicity & 5 Ethnicity and Ethnocentrism: Are They Natural
Week 8 - Spring Break
IV. Ethnicity and Ethnic Divides
Weeks 9 & 10 (3/31, 4/3, 4/8, & 4/10). Cultural Diversity in a Nation-State
Readings:
1. Anderson 2006 Chapters 4-10
1. Gladney 1998 Ethnic Identity in China
2. Frank Dikötter 1990 “Group Definition and the Idea of `Race’ in Modern China (1793-1949)” Ethnic and Racial Studies 13(3):420-431.
3. David Buck 1997 "China and the Containment of Ethnonationalism" Global Convulsions, pp.281-297.
4. Scupin Chapter 16 Asia
Week 11 (4/15 & 4/17). When a State Against its own People: Genocides of the Last Century
Readings:
1. Anderson 2006 Chapter 11
1. Robert M. Hayden 1996 "Imagined Communities and Real Victims: Self-Determination and Ethnic Cleansing in Yugoslavia" American Ethnologist 23:783-801.
2. Scupin Chapter 18 Europe
3. Gunnar Haaland 1969 “Economic Determinants in Ethic Processes” In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries page 58-73
4. Alex de Waal 2005 Who are the Darfurians? Arab and African Identities, Violence and External Engagement. African Affairs 104(415):181-205.
Week 12: Living with Divides
4/21 Baccalaureate/Reading Days – no class
4/24 Cyprus
Readings:
1. Peter Loizos 1999 "How Might Turkish and Greek Cypriots See Each Other More Clearly?" Cyprus and Its People, edited by V.Calotychos, pp.35-51.
2. David Carment, et al, 2006 “The Cyprus Puzzle: Two Nations, One Island” Who Intervenes? Ethnic Conflict and Interstate Crisis, pp.179-205.
Week 13 (4/29 & 5/1). On the Edge of Difference: Israel/Palestine
Readings:
1. Shulamith Hareven 1995 "Portrait of a Terrorist" The Vocabulary of Peace: Life, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East, pp. 127-136.
2. Celia Rothenberg 1999 “Understanding Ghada: The Multiple Meanings of an Attempted Stabbing” Middle East Report Spring:10-12.
3. Scupin Chapter 15 The Middle East
4. Sammy Smooha 2002 “Jewish Ethnicity in Israel: Symbolic or Real?” Jews in Israel, pp. 47-80
5. Rashid Khalidi 1997 "The "Disappearance" and Reemergence of Palestinian Identity" Chapter 8 of Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, pp. 177-210.
Week 14 (5/6 & 5/8) Class Presentations
Week 15 (5/13) Cosmopolitanism
Readings:
1. Ashley Montagu 1942 "What is the Solution?" Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, pp. 351-359.
2. Scupin Chapter 19 Canada
3. Grace Feuerverger 2001 “Teaching Peace: The Power of Love, Art, and Imagination” Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish-Palestinian Village in Israel, pp.147-179.
4. Stephen Jay Gould 1981 "A Positive Conclusion" Mismeasure of Man, pp.321-336.
5. Elijah Anderson 2004 “The Cosmopolitan Canopy” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 595:14-31.
Taking Anthropology Classes
Class formats vary from professor to professor, but most involve lectures, discussion questions, and a series of assigned readings that are presented in class for discussion. Since Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective is a class based in anthropology, I expect you to wrestle with the theories, methods, and data from the discipline of anthropology. But anthropology is about people and there is more data available to you about human behaviors, actions, and understandings than is found in the books and articles. I expect you to think about the issues presented in class in regards to your own experiences and ideas. Those perspectives should not overwhelm the approaches presented by scholars, but either should your own ideas and observations be ignored.
In this particular course, I consider your participation in class discussions to be essential. Everyone learns from the input and varied insights of colleagues. If you deprive the class of your participation, you deprive everyone of this learning experience. But a course on Race and Ethnicity can be particularly challenging since personal experiences, observations, and understandings can be swamped by identity, both self-understood and imposed. The below is meant to be an aid in thinking through the issues for a seminar on these difficult, personal, and occasionally overwhelming topics. The seminar-style discussions are meant to illuminate the course issues and provide the experience of expressing your thoughts, insights, analyzes, and interpretations in front of the professor and your classmates.
A GUIDE TO SEMINARS
Preparation
* Read all materials assigned in time for class discussion.
* Take notes while you read – this is particularly important with electronic readings.
* Jot down questions you have about the readings.
* Formulate and write down 3‑4 questions that might be good for discussion.
Discussion Skills
Some people are nervous about speaking in front of other people. For a seminar, that can pose problems, because a roundtable is about the free exchange of ideas. For this class to be a success people have to talk and you have to feel comfortable enough to forget your worries. There are several secrets to being comfortable:
* Be prepared by having done the readings and having given them some thought before class.
* Be interested in your classmates' ideas.
* Recognize that there is a long-standing discussion and an international discourse on identities and this course is an entry point to those conversations.
* Develop good listening skills.
Good Listening Skills
* Start by being familiar with the materials under consideration. If you are familiar with terms and key ideas, the discussion won't get ahead of you.
* Learn the names of seminar members as quickly as you can. If you have interest in them as people, you will find what they say more interesting too.
* If you are in a discussion, try the approach of summarizing what the person who spoke ahead of you said before you launch into your ideas. This provides continuity and also may help to clarify ideas or misunderstandings. You might start by saying something like: "Did I understand you to say....?" or "Now if I heard you right, you said...," followed by a brief summary of their statements.
* Don't address your comments to the professor. The discussion is not just for the professor; it is for you and the other students. Aiming your remarks at the professor is disrespectful to your classmates and shows that you may not be listening to them. Your job is not to impress the professor, but to exchange ideas with classmates (and with the professor too).
Problems
Difficulties in a seminar are inevitable. You need to be aware that they will occur. Here is a few of them and some advice on how to handle them:
Problem: You didn't get the assignment read.
Advice: Don't assume that you can "ad lib" your way through the material and do not opt out of class for that session. Both are obvious to the professor, making you look even worse! You can still participate in discussion, but by making connections between what students are saying and what the group read earlier. Do not express an opinion about the materials you have not read.
Problem: You looked over the reading assignment, but the jargon, argument, or writing style was confusing or seemingly uninteresting.
Advice: Rather than criticizing the reading on its literary merits, focus on the components of the reading: examining the central example, the theoretical orientation, or argument. Consider how the piece fits the larger course context rather than focusing on its internal components, or ask how it fits the course goals.
Problem: Another student monopolizes the discussion.
Advice: Some students just love to hear themselves talk. You may not see this as a problem because it means you don't have to talk as much in class. But this kind of student does everyone a disservice, because you and other students may not get to have your ideas aired or questions answered. Try to encourage non‑talkers to talk. This "cuts off" the one who talks too much. For example, you might say something like: "Golly, the other day I heard Mark say something about this after class. Would you repeat that for the group, Mark?" Or you might bring up a point raised in another course by one of the class members. For example, "Chelsea presented on interesting points on that topic in Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, can you tell the class about it?"
Problem: You simply don't get along with another member of the group.
Advice: Try to remain professional and respectful at all times. Refrain from negative behaviors. At the same time, don't be afraid to disagree with their ideas, as long as you have sound academic, not just personal, opinions. If you can't resolve the difficulties yourselves, go to the professor for help.
Problem: You always seem to be slow in thinking about things, and someone says what you were going to say before you can get it out.
Advice: Some people use this as an excuse for not talking in class. If you do this, admit it to yourself, and work on trying to find something to say. Usually, if you are prepared, you won't have a problem with finding issues to discuss or opinions to express. If you were truly prepared, and it still is a problem, chat with the professor.
A GUIDE TO READINGS
The reading load for this course in Race and Ethnicity is heavy. As a New College course, the readings provide the essential background and resources for engaging in the study on race and ethnicity around the world and open avenues for further research on future topics. The concerns are not simple so the readings are not. The abundance of materials makes clear that there are many voices, many approaches, and many concerns and examples to draw upon. If you engage the scholarship, you will have to think broadly and deeply about the issues. The effort will allow you to locate authors, theoretical perspectives, and methods that meet the course goals as well as furthering your own academic goals. Some readings will be discussed extensively, others will be illustrative of particular points; in any case, you should explore the implications of the case studies and arguments with your classmates and the professor, in and beyond the classroom.
FINAL WORDS
There are many avenues to the course materials. You could pile up books on race and ethnicity and consume them over the semester in the privacy of your room. Or you can download podcasts from similar courses from other institutions of higher education and listen to them on your own time. Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective is being offered as a class. One of the single most important reasons for meeting as a class is to help people see connections between ideas. That's what really makes them exciting for all of us. But this all takes preparation, concentration, and practice. These skills are not something with which you are born; like most other things in life they take time and practice.
Successful classes are among the most productive ways to learn a subject matter because you have to teach yourself and your classmates. Rather than just absorbing information, you actually have an investment in creating and exchanging information, which is particularly important for a course on race and ethnicity.