Anthro Midterm 1

According to Langhe and Fernbach, what two qualities must a category have to be valuable?

Be Valid and Useful - categories help us simplify reality

List and Define the Four Dangers of Categorical Thinking

Compress (treat all members alike), Amplify (exaggerate group differences), Discriminate (favor one over the other), Fossilize (see categories as unchangeable) 

What illusion do categories create about human differences?

They make differences seem natural, fixed and separate, hiding how categories are socially constructed to justify inequality.

How does categorical thinking connect to the colonial Casta System?

Casta System: 

• a rigid social hierarchy based on hereditary status, where an individual's birth determines their social class, occupation, and other life aspects 

Divided people by ancestry and appearance, creating rigid racial hierarchies that determined rights and power - a clear example of categorical thinking. 

What is Emic Language? Why is it important in Anthropology?

Emic Language: insiders perspective (viewpoint)

Studying it reveals how cultures define and reinforce categories internally, showing worldview and meaning

What was the purpose of Scientific Racism, and when did it emerge?

Scientific Racism: Using science to validate racism and “prove” the claim that races were biologically distinct, justifying slavery, segregation, and colonization. 

It emerged during the 18th-19th century.

Who was Blumenbach, and how did his racial classification matter?

Divided humans into 5 races.

• Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay.

It would later inspire racial hierarchies that linked race to intelligence.

Polygenist

Races were Separate divine creations - meaning different groups were different

Monogenist

Humans came from a single origin, but diverged naturally over time.

What did Samuel George Morton argue using skull measurements?

Measured Skulls - done to prove that races were valid and to show that white people were more intelligent.

Claimed Europeans had the largest brains and were most intelligent: supporting white supremacy 

How did Franz Boas challenge scientific racism?

He proved that traits, culture, and language are fluid, not biologically fixed, and promoted cultural relativism—the foundation of modern anthropology.

How were race and religion linked after 1400?

Europeans used Christianity to rank non-Christians as inferior; racial difference became moralized, merging faith and biology to justify empire.

Anthropology and Race. 

1960s:

1970s: 

1960s: Main focus was race - rejecting the idea of biological race as a valid category 

1970s: Main focus was ethnicity - studying more internal things

Ethnicity

a group of people who share a common cultural identity, such as language, religion, traditions, and history

What is Inclusion vs Exclusion? In relations to Ethnicity

Inclusion: Integrating and valuing all ethnic groups within society

Exclusion: Marginalizing or denying certain ethnic groups equal participation

What did Mendez v Westminster reveal about racial categories in Law? 

It showed that Mexican-Americans were legally “white”, exposing how racial categories are inconsistent and socially constructed.

What issue did Mulkey v Reitman (1967) address?

Racial discrimination in housing — the ruling struck down legalized segregation, showing how race shapes access to land and property.

What is Roger Sanjek’s critique of anthropology’s 1970s focus on ethnicity?

It ignored historical and structural inequality tied to race and power; focusing on “culture” alone erased politics and economics.

Summarize the AAA Statement on Race.

Race is not biological but socially real—genetic variation doesn’t match racial categories, yet race continues to shape institutions and lived experience.

What does Omi & Winant’s theory of racial formation argue?

Race is made and remade through social, political, and institutional processes — it’s dynamic, not fixed or natural.

Define racialization

Assigning racial meaning to something nonracial.

Define racial project

Defining & distributing power/resources by race.

Define othering.

Defining a group as inferior or “outside” the norm.

What is intersectionality, and why is it important?

The idea that race, gender, class, and sexuality intersect—they shape one another and produce overlapping systems of oppression or privilege.

What is an Indigenous reading of the archive (Miranda)?

Reading colonial records through Indigenous perspectives to recover erased voices; necessary because archives were written by colonizers, not Native people.

Why does Miranda describe Spanish attacks on Joyas as gendercide?

Joyas—third-gender people—were targeted for extermination for defying binary gender norms. The Spanish imposed Catholic patriarchal control over Indigenous identities.

What does Lisa Nakamura’s “Indigenous Circuits” reveal about race, gender, and labor?

Navajo women’s labor in electronics was racialized and feminized as “naturally delicate,” justifying low wages and exploitation—showing how capitalism uses racial and gender categories.