Race and Racism

Race is a marker of difference among humans based on physical features such as skin color or hair color/texture. Historically, race was treated as a biological or “scientific” method of human classification, in which racial “groups” were defined by the presence or absence of particular inheritable traits. This argument was tied to failed theories such as social Darwinism—which applied Darwinian notions of competition among species to competition within the human population—and environmental determinism, which argued that particular social traits were inherent to people living in particular places due to the environmental and climactic characteristics of each place. These theories were developed during the colonial era and were used by those in [Page 2341]power to rationalize the exploitation or extermination of particular “racial” groups. The scientific basis for race has since been refuted, as multiple studies have shown that there is greater genetic diversity within racially defined groups than exists among those groups.

Simply put, there is no biological basis for race. Yet, despite its failings as a scientific concept, race today exists as an extremely important socially constructed conceptualization of differences among humans. That race is such an important concept is the result of racism. Racism is the ideology of difference, which takes as its foundation the idea that particular (usually negative) attributes regarding behavior, intelligence, or culture are inherent within particular racial groups. This ideology is then used to justify arguments for the superiority of one racial group relative to another, which leads to the production of inequality between racial groups.

The normative understanding of racism is often limited to acts of violence, malice, or economic exploitation that are motivated by racial prejudice. Examples of these types of racism are hate-based crimes, or decisions by employers not to hire workers on the basis of their race. This narrow definition of racism does not acknowledge the informal ways in which racist ideology has been incorporated into economic, legal, educational, and other societal structures. The following sections discuss the dominant theoretical engagements with race and racism in geography, as well as some of the methodological challenges inherent to research on race/racism issues.