IDENTITY: RACE, ETHNICITY, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY Chapter 5

As we study geography, an objective analysis of race, ethnicity, and world wide patterns of discrimination is required: It’s important to suspend our own biases as much as possible. We must not let our own cultural biases get in the way of understanding the lives of other people. 

What Is Identity, and How Are Identities Constructed? Identity: “How we make sense of ourselves” – Ross How identities are established Through experiences, emotions , connections, and rejections A snapshot of who we are at a point in time Fluid, constantly changing, shifting, becoming Vary across scales, and affect each other across scales Identifying against (defining the other and then defining ourselves as “not that”)

What are some ways you identify against the “other”? Generation Gender Ethnically Sexuality Politically

U.S. Population by Race 2000. Census option of one or more than one race 2050. White, non-Hispanic population no longer the majority

The biology of race A race is a biological subspecies, or variety of a species.  All humans today are 99.9% genetically identical. Attempts to scientifically divide humanity into biological races have proven fruitless. Human "races" are primarily man made creations, not biological realities.

Race A categorization of humans based on skin color and other physical characteristics Social and political constructions Based on ideas that some biological differences are more important than others Major element in colonialism and imperialism Typically imposed on people through Residential segregation Racialized divisions of labor Racial categories defined by governments

Skin Color Is a result in increased melanin to protect from intense ultraviolet rays.  The dark brown skin color is found amongst unrelated populations. Sub-Saharan Africans India Australia New Guinea, and elsewhere in the Southwest Pacific. Fijian Sub-Saharan Africa South Indian

Skin Color Variations Ethnicity is more about shared experience and dialect, than about skin color. Skin coloration is quite broad among African Americans today due to centuries of interbreeding with Europeans, Native Americans, and, more recently, Asians.

Why not use blood type instead of Skin Color?                                                                                                                         Distribution of the B blood type allele among humans        Using the B blood type for defining races, Australian Aborigines would be lumped together with most Native Americans.  Some Africans would be in the same race as Europeans while others would be categorized with Asians.

Ethnicity A constructed identity that is tied to a place Comes from idea that people are closely bounded, even related, in a place over time Often result of migration May change in meaning with migration

Ethnic Identification Check only one box Many Americans of mixed ancestry do not fully identify with the single racial/ethnic category that they have been assigned to and do not feel comfortable with it. 

Ethnicity is not biological Both women are genetically African Do not speak the same language. Do not share cultural patterns due to the fact that they were brought up in very different societies.  The African American woman is far more similar culturally to her European American neighbors than to the West African woman from Senegal.

Which one of these people do you think is Hispanic? People, not nature, create our identities.  Ethnicity is primarily from culture and social interaction rather than a biological phenomena. 

Ethnic Identification May result from self-identification or others.  Identifying other people's ethnicity for them has always been a powerful political tool for controlling, marginalizing, and even getting rid of them.  Nazi’s- labeled people as being Jews.     Japanese or Korean?   In Japan today, 2nd and 3rd generation resident Koreans are given only limited citizenship rights--they are not allowed to be fully Japanese.

How Do Places Affect Identity, and How Can We See Identities in Places? Sense of place: Infusion of places with meaning and feeling, with memories and emotions Becomes part of our identity Effect of identity on ways we define and experience place

http://nationalatlas.gov/natlas/Natlasstart.asp

Ethnic Groups in Los Angeles Barrioization: When the population of a neighborhood changes over largely to Hispanics. Changes in cultural landscapes to reflect changing populations. Strife usually tied to economic change

Changes in Ethnic Space Few Chinese residents in Mexicali’s Chinatown Continued important place for the region’s Chinese population

Residential Segregation The “degree to which two or more groups live separately from one another, in different parts of the urban environment.” – Massey and Denton Highest rate of residential segregation for African Americans: Milwaukee, WI

Residential Segregation Lowest rate of residential segregation  For Hispanics/Latinos: Baltimore  For Asians/Pacific Islanders: Baltimore

Apartheid in South Africa Different levels of separation Four officially enforced "races"– European (100% European), Asian (100% East Indian) African (100% African), Colored (mixture of European and African).  Siblings of mixed ancestry were placed into different "racial" groups based solely on skin color.  As a result, some brothers and sisters were legally prohibited from socializing together.  As a further indication of the arbitrariness of the South African system, business travelers from Japan were considered to be European.  This allowed Japanese visitors to interact socially with the European minority that controlled the government and economy in South Africa.

Atrocities carried out in the name of ethnic/racial purification. In all of these countries, ethnic identities have been strongly emphasized as a government policy.  The result has been the rise of tribalism and even genocide. Recent hotspots of severe racism                          

Ethnic Cleansing Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990's, after the breakup of Yugoslavia.  Previously peaceful and overtly friendly Muslims, Croats, and Serbs living there brutally slaughtered each other to repay perceived past wrongs and to "ethnically cleanse" the land. Ethnic differences are strongly polarized. People easily fall into the trap of justifying an interpretation of history that favors their own group and demonizes others.

Genocide in Rwanda 1994 massacre of an estimated 800,000 to 1,071,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Power Relationships and How People Are Counted The U.S. Census undercounts Minority populations The homeless Gross National Income (GNI) does not count Unpaid work of women in the household Work done by rural women in poorer countries The informal economy: Private, often home-based activities such as tailoring, beer brewing, food preparation

Gender “A culture’s assumptions about the differences between men and women: their ‘characters,’ the roles they play in society, what they represent.” – Domosh and Seager

Women in Subsaharan Africa Populate much of the rural areas, as men migrate to cities for work Produce 70% of the region’s food Small percentage of women have legal title to their land

Dowry Deaths in India Murders of brides (often by burning) when a dispute arises over a dowry Difficult to “legislate away” the power relationships that lead to dowry deaths Female infanticide also tied to the disempowerment of women

Identity and Space Space: “Social relations stretched out” Place: “Particular articulations of those social relations as they have come together, over time, in that particular location” Massey and Jess Place making in the context of surrounding social relationships

Gender Empowerment Measure

Sexuality and Space Heteronormative: Viewpoint that white, heterosexual, male is “normal” Identity cluster How spaces are created What problems they have Queer theory: Focuses on political engagement of “queers” with the “heteronormative”

Sexuality and Space