1. Chapter 5: Identity: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality
© Barbara Weightman
Concept Caching: Woman Headload and Baby-Malawi
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Concept Caching: Woman Headload and Baby--Malawi

3. What is identity, and how are identities constructed?
Key Question
What is identity, and how are identities constructed?
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

4. 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. 

5. and How Are Identities Constructed?
What Is Identity,
and How Are Identities Constructed?
Geographer Gillian Rose defines identity as “how we make sense of ourselves.”
We construct our own identities through experiences, emotions, connections, and rejections
Identifying against other people: define the “Other,” and then we define ourselves in opposing terms
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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

7. Race
“Races” are the product of ways of viewing minor genetic differences that developed as modern humans spread around the world
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Figure 5.2
United States. Although biologically there is only one human
race, we are constantly asked to choose race “boxes” for ourselves.
This page of the 2010 United States Census asks the
individual, “What is your race?” and directs the individual to
“Mark one or more races to indicate what you consider yourself to be.” © U.S. Census Bureau

8. 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

9. and How Are Identities Constructed?
What Is Identity,
and How Are Identities Constructed?
Race
Many of societies’ modern assumptions about race grew out of the period of European exploration and colonialism
Racism
What society typically calls a “race” is in fact a combination of physical attributes in a population
Skin color is not a reliable indicator of genetic closeness
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

10. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

11. and How Are Identities Constructed?
What Is Identity,
and How Are Identities Constructed?
Residential Segregation
Geographers Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton: residential segregation is the “degree to which two or more groups live separately from one another, in different parts of the urban environment.”
Five measures of segregation: evenness, exposure, concentrated, centralized, clustered.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

12. INSERT FIGURE 5.5
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13. 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.

14. 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                          

15. 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.

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

17. ETHNIC COMPETITION

18. Example:
LEBANON

19. Lebanon is deeply divided between Christians (Maronite) and Muslims from all branches, though mostly Shia.

20. FIGURE 7-27 ETHNICITIES IN LEBANON Christians dominate in the south and the northwest, Sunni Muslims in the far north, Shiite Muslims in the northeast and south, and Druze in the south-central and southeast.

21. Lebanon’s capital – Beirut – is also deeply divided according to ethnicity.

22. Maronites believe themselves to be descended from the Phoenicians, and ancient group from the region, while Lebanese Muslims identify as Arab.
The Maronites believe this gives them a special claim to the country, seeing Muslims as unwelcome invaders.

23. These groups fought a bloody civil war from 1975 to 1990, with each group forming armed militias. One of these –Hezbollah- is still strong in Lebanon today.

24. DIVIDED ETHNICITIES

25. Example:
The KURDS

26. The Kurds are a Sunni Muslim people who are divided between several countries.
14 million in eastern Turkey
5 million in northern Iraq
4 million in western Iran
2 million in eastern Syria

28. The UN promised the Kurds a state (Kurdistan) after WWI- but later gave the same area to Turkey.

29. Until 1991, the Kurdish language was banned in Turkish mass media.
In order to suppress Kurdish nationalism, Kurdish culture and traditions are attacked regularly by the Turks as backwards.
Until 1991, the Kurdish language was banned in Turkish mass media.

30. To defend their interests, the Kurds have formed an extremely elite fighting force- the Peshmerga.

31. Turkey is, of course, deeply distrustful of this relationship.
Today, the Peshmerga is among the most potent forces fighting against ISIS in Eastern Syria, backed by the U.S.
Turkey is, of course, deeply distrustful of this relationship.

32. ETHNIC CLEANSING is a process where a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful group in order to create a culturally homogeneous state

33. The point in ethnic cleansing is not to subjugate or defeat a perceived ‘enemy,’ but to entirely remove them from an area.

34. Genocide is the mass killing of a group of people in an attempt to eliminate the entire group from existence.

35. Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans

36. The breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s provides some of the best recent examples of ethnic cleansing.
First, we must look at the history of conflict and nation-building in this region.

37. The Balkans

38. Conflict in this region has produced an important term with 2 forms.
Balkanized refers to a multiethnic country where longstanding ethnic divisions and conflicts make the formation of a cohesive state impossible.
Balkanization refers to the breakdown of a formerly stable state along ethnic lines.

39. Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1913
After WWI, the Allied powers created Yugoslavia from part of the fallen Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1913
Yugoslavia

40. It was believed that since the peoples of the region spoke ‘similar’ South Slavic languages, that they would peacefully coexist in a single state.

41. Between WWI and WWII, conflict between ethnic groups quietly simmered.
Despite lingual similarities, major cultural differences divided the various peoples of Yugoslavia- as did shared histories of antagonism.
Between WWI and WWII, conflict between ethnic groups quietly simmered.
Serbs
Croats
Bosnians

42. During WWII, a man named Josip Broz Tito rose to power as head of the military. Tito’s victories over the Nazis won him the adoration of his people.

43. Tito would go on to rule Yugoslavia for over 40 years with an iron fist, brutally suppressing ethnic conflict with military power- but bringing stability.
As a strongman, Tito brought relative peace to the region; over time, many began to identify as ‘Yugoslav’ by nationality.

44. A Communist, Tito modeled the country on the Soviet Union, with semi-autonomous ‘republics’ dividing its territory and peoples.

45. The federation worked because in reality the voice of only one man counted - that of Tito himself.

46. When Tito died in 1982, the system he had created unraveled.
Ethnic divisions fractured Yugoslavia as its republics each clamored for independence, fighting for resources and territory perceived as ‘theirs.’

47. and How Are Identities Constructed?
What Is Identity,
and How Are Identities Constructed?
Identities across Scales
Different identities at different scales:
Individual: brother, sister, student
Local: residents of a neighborhood
Regional: Southerners
National: American
Global: Western, free
Appropriate identity is revealed at the appropriate scale.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

48. and How Are Identities Constructed?
What Is Identity,
and How Are Identities Constructed?
The Scale of New York
New York has a greater number and more diversity of immigrants than any other city in the United States.
Succession: New immigrants to a city often move to low-income areas being slowly abandoned by older immigrant groups.
Many new immigrants focus on the streetscapes, creating businesses to serve their community and reflect their culture.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

49. Recall the last time you were asked to check a box for your race
Recall the last time you were asked to check a box for your race. Does that box factor into how you make sense of yourself
individually, locally, regionally, nationally, and globally? What impact might it have on how other people view you?
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

51. Key Question
How do places affect identity, and how can we see identities in places?
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

52. How Do Places Affect Identity, and How Can We See Identities in Places?
Figure 5.8
New Glarus, Wisconsin. The town of New Glarus was
established by immigrants from Switzerland in The Swiss American town takes pride in its history and culture, as the flags at the New Glarus Hotel Restaurant demonstrate. © Don Smetzer/Alamy
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

53. How Do Places Affect Identity, and How Can We See Identities in Places?
Geographer Gillian Rose: “Developing a sense of place”
Ethnicity and Place
Ethnicity: people are bounded in a certain place over time.
ethnos = “people”
Ethnic identity is greatly affected by scale and place.

54. 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

55. 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. 

56. 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.

57. 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. 

58. 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.

59. Nationality is identity with a group of people who share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular country

60. Nationality shares similar concepts with ethnicity.
Both are defined through shared cultural values derived from religion, language, and material culture.

61. Nationality differs with ethnicity in terms of legal standing
Nationality differs with ethnicity in terms of legal standing. It involves legal behaviors like voting, obtaining a passport, and performing civic duties.

62. American by NATIONALITY
In the U.S., ethnicity, race, and nationality are clearly distinct. A person may be:
American by NATIONALITY
Jamaican by ETHNICITY
And ‘black’ by RACE

63. Nationality identifies citizens of the United States
Ethnicity identifies groups with shared cultural traditions and origins.
Race distinguishes people according to physical traits.

64. How Do Places Affect Identity, and How Can We See Identities in Places?
Chinatown in Mexicali
Mexicali Chinatown was crucible of Chinese ethnicity in the Mexicali Valley throughout much of the twentieth century.
Now plays an important symbolic and functional role in preserving group identity and consciousness.

65. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

66. How Do Places Affect Identity, and How Can We See Identities in Places?
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.”
Gendered places
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

67. How Do Places Affect Identity, and How Can We See Identities in Places?
Sexuality and Space
Glen Elder, Lawrence Knopp, and Heidi Nast: queer theory
Gary Gates and Jason Ost: The Gay and Lesbian Atlas
Concentrations of same-sex households in the United States are in cities with well- established gay and lesbian neighborhoods.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

68. In the 2010 census, the government tallied the number of households where a same-sex couple (with or without children) lived. Study the map of same-sex households in New York by census tract in Figure How would the map change if sexuality were one of the “boxes” every person filled out on the census?
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

69. Field Note
“It’s July 26, 2011, and I happen to be in New York City the weekend just after the State of New York legalized same-sex marriages. I cut it close getting to the airport so I could catch the first part of the annual Gay Pride parade. The parade, which started on the edge of the Chelsea neighborhood at 36th Street, traveled down 5th Avenue toward where I took this photograph near Union Square and ended in the West Village. Always a boisterous, celebratory event, the parade has a special feel this year as celebrants cheer what many describe as one of the great civil rights victories of the current era.”
*Could be an audio file.
Figure 5.11
New York, New York. © Alexander B. Murphy.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

70.
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71. Key Question
How Does Geography Reflect and Shape Power Relationships Among Groups of People?
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72. How Does Geography Reflect and Shape Power Relationships Among Groups of People?
Power relationships can subjugate entire groups of people, enabling society to enforce ideas about the ways people should behave or where people should be welcomed or turned away
Jim Crow Laws
Belfast, Northern Ireland

73. How Does Geography Reflect and Shape Power Relationships Among Groups of People?
Figure 5.12
Belfast, Northern Ireland. Signs of the conflict in Northern Ireland mark the cultural landscape throughout Belfast. In the Ballymurphy area of Belfast, where Catholics are the majority population, a woman and her children walk past a mural in support of the Irish Republican Army. The mural features images of women who lost their lives in the conflict, including Maureen Meehan, who was shot by the British Army and Anne Parker, who died when the bomb she planned to detonate exploded prematurely. © AP/Wide World Photos.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

74. How Does Geography Reflect and Shape Power Relationships Among Groups of People?
Just Who Counts?
Women continue to be paid less than men
The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics
Regional variations in agriculture employment
Figure 5.13
South Korea. The women in this photo sat near one of the ancient temples in southern Korea, selling the modest output from their own market
gardens. This activity is one part of the informal economy, the “uncounted” economy in which women play a large role. © Alexander B. Murphy.

75. Vulnerable Populations
Geographers use mapping and spatial analysis to predict and explain what populations or people will be affected most by natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and tsunamis or by environmental policies.
Vulnerability is fundamentally influenced by geographically specific social and environmental circumstances.
Through fieldwork and interviews, geographers can see differences in vulnerability within groups of people

76. Women in Subsaharan Africa
Much of Subsaharan Africa, especially rural areas, is dominated numerically by women.
Women produce an estimated 70 percent of the region’s food, almost all of it without the aid of modern technology.
In East Africa, cash crops such as tea are sometimes called “men’s crops” because the men trade in what the women produce.
Uganda was a leader in affirmative action for women.
Rwanda is the first country in the world where women hold more than 50 percent of the legislative seats.

77. Concept Caching: Kanye, Botswana
© Harm de Blij
Concept Caching: Kanye, Botswana
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78. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

79. Field Note
“I am filled with admiration for the women carrying water on their heads up the bank from the Niger River. Other women are at the water’s edge, filling their buckets. These women are performing a daily ritual requiring incredible endurance and strength. Once they carry their buckets to their dwellings, they will likely turn to preparing the evening meal.”
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Figure 5.16
Along the banks of the Niger River just outside Mopti, Mali. © Alexander B. Murphy

80. How Does Geography Reflect and Shape Power Relationships Among Groups of People?
Dowry Deaths in India
In an arranged marriage, the dowry is the price to be paid by the bride’s family to the groom’s father.
In extreme cases, disputes over the dowry have led to the death of the bride.
Power relationships place women below men in India.
Family Courts Act passed in 1984 to provide support for women who feared dowry death.
© 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

81. Dowry Deaths in India
The practice of dowry deaths is not declining in India.
The number of love marriages is on the rise and many couples in love marriages are meeting online.
The number of divorces is also on the rise, with 1 in 1,000 marriages ending in divorce in India today.
Just as some statistics point to an improving place of women in Indian society, other statistics confirm India still has a preference for males overall.

82. Shifting Power Relations among Ethnic Groups
Urban geographers, John Frazier, Florence Margai, and Eugene Tettey-Fio: Race and Place: Equity Issues in Urban America
Areas with multiple ethnicities often experience an ebb and flow of acceptance over time.
In California and in much of the rest of the United States, the “Asian” box is drawn around a stereotype of what some call the “model minority.”
The myth of the model minority: “paints Asians as good, hardworking people who, despite their suffering through discrimination, harassment, and exclusion, have found ways to prosper through peaceful means.”

83. Power Relations in Los Angeles
Shifting Power Relations among Ethnic Groups
Power Relations in Los Angeles
Geographer James Curtis: southeastern Los Angeles County is today “home to one of the largest and highest concentrations of Latinos in Southern California.”
Barrioization: describes a change that saw the Hispanic population of a neighborhood jump from 4 percent in 1960 to over 90 percent in 2000.
April 29–30, 1992: Riots in Los Angeles after the verdict in the Rodney King case led to deaths, injuries, and about $1 billion in property loss.

84. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
*Could be an audio file.

85. Geographers who study race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality are interested in the power relations embedded in a place from which assumptions about “others” are formed or reinforced. Consider your own place, your campus, or your locality. What power relations are embedded in this place?

86. Additional Resources
Gay and Lesbian Atlas
Racial and Ethnic Segregation in the United States, 1980– resseg/papertoc.html
Murals in Northern Ireland