h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I find it distasteful because it's a way of labelling people - it's a polite way of measuring inclusivity, or its absence. Or so they would claim.

Until we think of people as people, then racial, religous, and cultural differences will continue. (They probably will anyway, but quantifying it is a way of continuing it.)

Possibly medically it's valid, there are differences between races, but we all are able to inter-breed happily, and hopefully the strongest traits will be the ones that survive.

In an effort to get to grips with this issue, I got a book from someone who works with Sheffield council in their housing policy unit. the book is all about race and ethnicity culture etc, and it's been an interesting read in that I've found it both helpful and perpetuating some of the confusions I previously identified. I'm still reading it now, and my conclusions are basically that I are right 'ethnicity' is a very vapourous concept which admits much and excludes very little, hence it is used and abused widely.

This sociology of racism has introduced me to some ideas of what ethnicity is, I'd not previously considered, including ancestry, ethnicity as relationships, ethnicity as socially grounded and culturally constructed ('a changing set of labels and claims and grounded in forms of social organisation, extensions of kinship, regularities of obligation and social bonds') and also that within ethnic groups it is likely that communication is prevalent in a way not implied by people of the same 'race' - which is far broader (and irrelevant.)

It's not that 'ethnic' is meaningless but the definitions have certainly been stretched and the inclusion of what forms an 'ethnic' groups combines lots of different and selective categories.

A few quotes to illustrate my point and followed by my thoughts on each:

A)
"In the instance of two schoolgirls in France who were forbidden to attend a state school wearing headscarfs. The defence of the prohibition was predicated on the principle of secular education. While in the same moment it constituted an anti-islamic ('racist') decision." (p. 51 - p.52)

B)
The construction and validation of cultures coems into play to a greater degree in our understanding of racism. At same time the concept of ethncity, while being grounded in ideas about culture, has come to be critcally viewed within a context of politcal contest. One of the unforeseen conseuqences of the culturalisation of the concept of racism and the politicisation of ethnicity is the convergence of the discourse of racism and discourse on ethnicity The concept of ethnicity can no longer - as so often been the case - be criticised or rejected because of it's anthropological focus on simple cultural difference.(p.51-p. 52)

C)
"Drawing on Erikson's discussion of ethnicity-making situations and types of ethnic group, we suggested a fivefold typology: urban minorities, indigenous peoples, proto-nations, ethnic groups in plural societies and post-slavery minorities. Enforced or voluntary migration of labour is a feature of three of these five types of ethnicity. People from Africa were transported and enslaved in The Americas, the plural societies of The Caribbean or south-east Asia are home to descendants of indiginees and the descendants of 19th century migrants; urban minorities are the ethnic group characteristic of the cities of the advanced and developing capitalist economies. Alongside this typology og ethnic groups, we described three historical trajectories which have been part of the context of ethnicity- making and have been central to the theorisations of contemporary ethnicity: the slavery/post-slavery; the colonial/post-colonial and the capitalism and nation-state complexes [...] in the development of modernity and the ideals of democracy in the modern nation-state, universalism in a central and pervasive principal The idea of common humanity replaces the binary opposite concept of particularisms." (p.58 - p.60)


D)
"Since the term 'race' suffers from its history of mistaken science there are good arguments for making 'ethnic' the generic term of which ideas about 'race' may be taken as a sub-set [...] If it is difficult to give a final meaning to these related terms it is certainly possible to be clear about connotations which are relatively enduring. 'race' with it's association with mistaken science connotes physical difference and, frequently, colour. It is typically seen as malign and racial ideologies have been associated with compulsion and regimes of oppression. By contrast ethnic can be taken as an analytical term used in social science, is often seen in the voluntary identification of peoples and as potentially benign. The malign/benign distinction was most clear transgressed in the use of the term ethnic cleansing' in the Yugoslavian civil war and this term has come into general usage in contexts where racial discrimination or segregation might have been used." (p.68-69)


-------------------------------------

A) I actually struggle to withstand the condescension in that paragraph as if the prohibition was so scurrilous as to be beyond contempt or reason, nevertheless, the example above is used in the book to illustrate the concept of so-called 'particularist' discriminations in capitalist societies but it makes an obvious error, I feel. Notice, how 'race' and 'racism' are used quite freely to describe cultural dominance and discrimination which is not actually racial in character, rather if anything, is essentially religious and certainly cultural (French secularism) so the example I think better illustrates my point that these are terms that are used flexibly with little or no thought given to their actual referent.

B)
I'm not sure I follow the declaration in this paragraph, having read what preceded it. They seem to be against reductionism as a philosophy but crucially the point they make about 'racism being extended' is the dilution of meaning I've been struggling to comprehend. This make it seem not so much deliberate as accepted.


C) I found the idea of common humanity particular cheering, as that is sort of what I've been getting at: that there is less that divides us than that which unites us, the wrong ideas of the past are predicated on false assumptions as much as they are abhorrent notion to modern liberal ideas. The typology they set out is also interesting and useful since it picks up on the themes I set out at the beginning like the proto-nations like the Kurds, European economic immigrants (Poles, Slavs etc.) i t sets out the spread of what ethnicity is supposed to cover which is explains I think why I was finding it so difficult to nail down since under their analysis it comprises ALL OF THAT.

D) Interesting I thought the stress on the voluntary identification (i.e the self portrayal we've been discussing and the criticism of 'ethnic cleansing' as confusing the issue at hand is illustrative of the 'essential meaninglessness' of thes terms. I don't mena they are without meaning but it's illustrates my own confusion in thinking about this when ethnic cleansing' doesn't mean 'ethnic' but something else entirely.



----------

Qaeda
It's been an interesting foray in sociology again but this has advanced my thinking but hasn't really resolved the question as I see in ths book the same tensions I was uncovering before. Also this book was written in 1997 with the Yugoslavian civil war still in recent memory and hence misses out on the last decade of history which speaks to the issue, not least the Iraq War, and the emergence of Al-in terms of how foreign policy is practised abroad, nor EU expansion etc. Which no doubt inform how ethnicity is perceived today, and not least in the job for which I am applying.(The Interview was delayed until Friday)



The Book, cited under fair use and insubstatial extracts is:

"Ethnicity: racism, class and culture" by Steve Fulton, published by Blackwells, ISBN: 0333662253

The book is wrong too - all religous symbols are banned in schools in France - this includes crucifixes and other religous symbols.

It's to do with the seperation of state in church in France, and so nothing to do with race.

That was seperation of state AND church.

Exactly. So by definition not 'racist'.

I turned to a professional and this was their recommendation, and I do hope I'm not being unnecessarily critical, but having read this and identified passages where I'm like: ...er what? ...

I'm still not convinced.

Anyhow interview is is 6 hours and ten minutes....

Good luck.

Thanks.

Good luck CLive!



FB

Thanks everyone. not terribly confident. Don't think it went too well.

Race and ethnicity didn't come up at all - instead a question about any experience I had in resolving diversity disputes, which thankfully or regrettably, depending on your view, my life to date has relatively conflict free. so struggled to answer that despite having researched diversity management as a concept I didn't have a ready, easy or good example to draw on to back it up.

A classic catch-22: have no experience; can't get the experience; so have no experience.

Other question weren't much better, I'd prepared to discuss elements that weren't mentioned or which required a different focus that I had understood to be the case. Will develop strategies to use media' meaning not "will have strategies to disseminate messages to review successful outcomes of projects", but will have methods to review newspapers and websites for intelligence". I misunderstood media to be the definite article The Media, not examples of media. hence had prepared a completely different strategic focus'

The audacity of hope? I prefer to futility. Bugger. There goes my self esteem again....

Phone call is due on Sodit. if I'm not successful, I shan't be in the least bit surprised.

I thought you were going into teaching ?

What type of school is it ?

The Assassins Colledge ?

(Currently sifting through submissions for a new deputy head. 21 respondees ~ I've got my list down to 6 for interview and 2 maybes.)

I was.

Failed to pass my final practical.

Put pay to my career plan.

Wow - sorry to hear that Clive. Number 3 is currently undergoing her final assessment between now and Christmas. She's had 3 observations from her lecturer and 1 from the teacher she's working with.

Then of course she has her disserations to do.... (Her degree is primary education and Music with QTS)

Number 2 passed her PGSE year and is now employed as a RE teacher at a secondary school.

Yeah. All in all 2008 has been really $h!t year.

I'm sure you'll bounce back mate.

The political situation and the time of year make it all look bleaker too.

Any preferences ?

Harsh... Can you not re-do this?

FB

interesting article on genetic diversity in the human population which touches on what we've been talking about as race/ethnicity.

http://www.scientificblogging.com/adaptive_complexity/what_our_genes_tell_us_about_race

particularly interesting -
"while there are enough genetic differences among human populations to make accurate classifications, those genetic differences make up only 5-15% of the total amount of genetic variation."

There will be issues until we see people as people...but some people don't want to be seen as just people especially religously: Jews ARE Jews, Muslims ARE Muslims before they define themselves by what country they come from(In general).

When one has a group of people defining themselves into a pre-described group then the people as people is doomed to failure until we get rid of religion.

But of course now Muslim is a 'race' it seems as saying some 'derogatory' a bout a Muslim is being racist. Which is absurd of course.

Except of course some people like the BNP have a deliberate policy of using islam as a proxy for race to get around the race hate laws. Making it not totally absurd.

I agree yes.

Both sides of the fence use the phrase for their own means.
Muslims use it to be able to USE the race hate laws.

Thanks for the link Ictoan,

Two things I thought of as I was reading it (and the Lewontin article attached):

1. >> As a biological rather than a social construct, 'race' has ceased to be seen as a fundamental reality characterising the human species. <<

This is what set me of thinking about this. If race is not biologically significant why continue using it socially significant?

2. As we move into an era sure to be marked by regenerative medicine (see the trachea transplant recently installed successfully, and grown in the lab.), when what matters is genetic ancestry and not the ancestry in the linear sense of 'people' and 'race' but the broader sense of which genes you inherit in the variance amongst the population such which may relate to the chance of inheriting the sickle cell, or having bone marrow transfusions, even the effectiveness of medicines' of bodily systems etc., will there be a corresponding shift in attitudes away from the 19th century concepts of race?

My point is will the lexicon of genetic variance (with the obviously implications for categorical racial thinking) affect people's thinking and behaviours as the results of the human genome project and all the attended research start to come into direct contact with people's lives?