Page 176 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Unit 8: Race and Ethnicity

attitudes towards multiculturalism and nationhood should contain more elaborate Notes
identification measures and use ethno-cultural group membership as a stratification criterion
in order to sample an appropriate number of resident non-majority members in each country.
• Finally, it should not be forgotten that nationhood and ethno-cultural attachment are historical
processes that evolve and take on different forms and meanings over time (Brubaker, 1996).
Only continued survey research under a range of systematically different circumstances will
allow us to disentangle the historical, structural and psychological factors underlying the
attitudes towards one’s national and ethnic group on the one hand and immigrant groups on
the other.
• Most modern societies have numerous ethnic and racial groups. India, the USA, the UK,
Canada, etc., are plural societies. Economically and politically, ethnic and racial groups may
perform the same functions in a particular society, though culturally they are generally
distinct from each other.
• In India, some ethnic groups are minorities, but economically they are far more ahead of the
majority groups. Parsis, Christians, Sikhs are generally better off than other groups in their
respective regions.
• Anthropologist A.L. Kroeber believes : “Race is a valid biological concept. It is a group
united by heredity : a breed or genetic strain or subspecies.”
• 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. Race can be regarded as
one of broader class of social phenomena that we might term as essentialist identifications.
• 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.
• Racial hierarchy and individualist egalitarianism represent two poles of a single socio-cultural
system, characterized with capitalist production. In a secular political order, perpetuation of
racism indicates a paradoxical situation in the modern world.
• “Racist mentality” aroused in Europe around 1800-1815. Hostile attitudes towards the Jews
gave birth to new belief. Theological dogmatism was opposed by way of belief in Science
and Logic. Jews were addressed as a “race”, having characteristics such as bad smell,
hereditary diseases, hidden illnesses, and other loathsome defects. German patriotism and
pride in Nazism resulted into framing of racial laws. Racial conceptions and stereotypes
have found their way into philosophical and theological thought in the 19th century Germany,
France and other countries of Europe.
• Varna hierarchy reflected considerably racism. But it is difficult to say that these categories
were wholly or clearly biological. The mleccha was racially stigmatized. “Untouchability” too
reflected racial elements through exclusion of certain groups from the community. The Hindu
idea of dharma as inherited roles also reflected racism. Thus, in some way; the terms such as
“lineage”, “blood”, “breeding”, jati, varna, though quite distinct from “race”, reflected some
elements of the concepts of “race” and “racism”. Religious identities too in a sense reflected
racial elements.
• identification and description of various racial elements in India has been a difficult task.
India has always been a place of attraction for a variety of immigrants from various parts of
the world. Whether it was religious persecution or harassment on other grounds or mere
attraction towards India because of economic factors, waves after waves of people have been
coming into the subcontinent.

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