Cultural Anthropology: How Race Becomes Biology: Embodiment of Social Inequality

race and epidemiology

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refining critique of race

1. it is important to clarify why recent findings in population genetics do not refute the claim that race is inadequate to describe global human genetic diversity 2. it is critical to refocus attention on the complex, environmental influences on human biology 3. it is necessary to revise the conventional view of race as a cultural construct to stimulate new research on sociocultural dimensions of race and racism

defining race relief on...

1. race was originally perceived as discrete, exclusive, permanent, and relatively homogenous 2. it implied that the superficial traits used to distinguish races reflect more fundamental, innate biological differences

racial-genetic determinism

1. racial-genetic determinism persists in part because of the uncritical use of race in biomedical sciences and public health 2. systematic reviews in health-related disciplines show that race is widely used—appearing in 80% of recent articles—but that it is seldom defined 3. in lieu of explicit definitions, researchers typically use race as a proxy for some unspecified combination of environmental, behavioral, and genetic factors 4. such usage not only obscures the causes of racial inequalities in health; it also favors the default assumption that racial differences are genetic in origin

race in health

1. the magnitude of racial inequality in health demands attention 2. the debate over race and health provides an important opportunity to advance scientific and public understanding of race, racism, and human variation 3. the association between race and health exposes the inadequacy of the conventional critique of race in anthropology and other social sciences; social scientists often dismiss race as a cultural construct, not a biological reality 4. however, this position requires more nuance; if race is not biology, some may ask why are there such clear differences among racially defined groups in a range of biological phenomena? this question highlights the need to move beyond "race-as-bad-biology" to explain how race becomes biology

clarifying and redefining the critique of race

1. to reiterate why race is insufficient for describing human genetic diversity 2. to promote a more complex, bicultural view of human biology 3. to take seriously the claim that race is a cultural construct that profoundly shapes life chances

does race exist?

biologically, no

race does not equal human genetic variation

classic critiques of race: 1. most human genetic variation is clinal, such that there are seldom clear genetic boundaries between populations 2. most human genetic variation is nonconcordant, such that the traits we use to distinguish races may have no value for predicting other aspects of biology 3. human genetic variation is widely shared across our species, with relatively little variation occurring between racially defined groups 4. the challenge is to move beyond the pat assertion that race is not biology to explain how race becomes biology 5. recent research on racial inequalities in health provides a counterweight to reductionism and lends support for renewed attention to phenotypic plasticity and a complex view of human biology as bicultural

how does race become biology?

rei1. the sociocultural reality of race and racism has biological consequences for racially defined groups; thus, ironically, biology may provide some of the strongest evidence for the persistence of race and racism as socio-cultural phenomena 2. epidemiological evidence for racial inequalities in health reinforces public understanding of race as biology; this shared understanding, in turn, shapes the questions researchers ask and the ways they interpret their data—reinforcing a racial view of biology 3. it is a vicious cycle: social inequalities shape the biology of racialize groups and embodied inequalities perpetuate a racialized view of human biology

how race becomes biology

systemic racism becomes embodied in the biology of racialized groups and individuals and embodied inequalities reinforce a racialized understanding of human biology 1. to clarify why recent genetic findings do not warrant a return to racial thinking 2. to promote a more complex, bicultural view of human biology 3. to revise the conceptualization of race so that is becomes more than a mantra

race does not equal myth

the counterpart to the assertion that "race is not biology" is the mantra that "race is a cultural construct" conceptualization of race as a cultural construct: 1. it cannot be—or appear to be—a wholesale dismissal of human biological diversity 2. the view of race as a cultural construct needs to become a starting point for empirical research, rather than an end point in the dismissal of race 3. to say that race is a cultural construct is not to say it does not exist; cultural constructs have an objective reality despite their reliance on human thought 4. examines the cultural construction of race in biomedical research and clinical practice 5. an anthropology in medicine—is to contribute to explaining the origin and persistence of racial inequalities in health 6. in addition, cultural anthropologists can contribute to interdisciplinary research by developing measurement strategies that take seriously the view of race as a cultural construct 7. the distinction between cultural and biological dimensions of skin color requires a measurement strategy that incorporates the cultural meaning of skin color