Читать книгу Introducing Anthropology - Laura Pountney - Страница 58

It is now widely accepted that there are minor biological variations between humans. However, it is the social and political interpretations of the real or imagined differences between people on which cultural anthropologists now focus: the culturally constructed concepts of race.

culturally constructed Something which is created by society

Varying skin colour provides a useful example for considering the differences between biological and sociopolitical approaches to the concept of race. Skin colour in humans correlates quite closely with the ancestral location of the people concerned because it has largely been determined by the ultraviolet radiation level in that particular ancestral homeland. As such, it is a reasonable indication of genetic origins, although it does not take into account population movement. Cultural anthropologists are interested in the ways that skin colour has been assigned particular political and social status, both historically and in contemporary society, as the basis of forms of discrimination. They study the reasons why and how the socially constructed concept of race becomes assigned with greater significance at certain times and in certain places.

A useful example is in the naming of groups. It is very unusual for people to use outsiders’ terms of discrimination to describe themselves. One of the few examples in which they do is the term ‘Welsh’, which is a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘slave’ (wealish), as opposed to the word Cymraeg, which is the correct Welsh word. The word ‘Welsh’ has stuck and has even eventually been adopted by the Welsh themselves.