Page 154 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 8: Race and Ethnicity

After discussing various classifications of races based on some specific physiological traits, Kroeber Notes
reiterates his view that “the term ‘race’ has here been used in its biological sense, for a group
united in blood or heredity.
Popularly, the word is used in a different sense; namely, that of population having any traits in
common, be they hereditary or nonhereditary, biological or socio-cultural, organic or superorganic”.
Thus, Kroeber also enlarges the initial definition of race by way of incorporation of socio-cultural
traits. Scientifically speaking, to say that there is the French race, the Anglo-Saxon race, the Gypsy
race, the Jewish race, etc., is not correct.

A race is a subdivision of species and corresponds to a breed in domestic animals.

Caste and Race Compared
In a recent study, Chris Smaje considers both “race” and “caste” as natural hierarchies, that is,
people can be divided into ordered collectivities as sui generis. However, caste and race are not the
same thing, the two have some differences and similarities as well. Three common points as under
are discerned in the two institutions :
1. the separation or identity between persons and things;
2. conceptions of cosmic order and its relation to worldly diversity, particularly with respect to
political boundaries; and
3. the character of the persons and the “substance” that they embody.
Both create certain tensions and conflicts vis-a-vis social processes. The very essence of the two
institutions is against egalitarianism. Social science theories and conceptualizations are also free
from the socio-cultural limitations of caste race. In case of race, the physical traits are socially
consequential. Smaje does not understand “race” principally in terms of somatic traits, but in
terms of a specific engagement between political ideology and the colonial expansion of Europe.
Smaje is opposed to the idea that some actual, substantive quality or qualities exist which
unambiguously and unfailingly differentiate some kinds of people from others. In other words, it
opposes the idea that involves natural properties which define groups of people. Race inheres
relations of a particular kind between persons - relations which are symbolized or denoted by the
concept of “race”. Race denotes categories or devices through which particular ideas of groupness
are constituted. Thus, according to Smaje, race is not a given “natural” property, it is the idea of
a relation, which is created in specific historical or social contexts, usually involving exclusion or
discrimination of some kind. In reality, many societies practise “racism”, without knowing fully
connotations of the idea of race.

Race can be regarded as one of broader class of social phenomena that we might term as
essentialist identifications.

Kenan Malik observes that “the concept of race ... is not an expression of a single phenomenon or
relationship. Rather it is a medium through which the changing relationship between humanity,
society and nature has been understood in a variety of ways”. Smaje questions this definition of
race as unchanging medium or context of social relations, which are constantly changing. It seems

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