POL111H5 Lecture Notes - Cultural Relativism, Social Darwinism, Ethnography
Document Summary
Race and ethnicity: race is biology, race" history of concept (audrey smedley, early anthropology and race", 20th century anthropology and race" (f. boas, race" and ethnicity today (p. wade, race is social, conclusions. People see that race is a simple fact of life or given. Between the 16-18th century race was used interchangeably with nation, type, variety, stock. The irish were seen as lazy, superstitious, criminals (stealing) Ireland was an english colony for 800 years. So they dehumanized them by putting them in a race. Irish were seen as a morally failures, but with african americans were seen as scientifically inferior. Science had begun to emerge and it challenged theology/religion (science called enlightenment) In the 1900s europeans wanted to classify everything, including humans. Social evolutionary theory (social darwinism): people started ranking races. (black was lowest and closest to apes and europeans were at the top) Cultural relativism: he said all races were equal.
