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Rethinking Race and Human Variation

By Joseph Jones, Mary Margaret Overbey, Stacy Lathrop, Yolanda Moses
Race, human variation and racism have long remained central concerns to anthropologists, AAA sections and
the discipline as a whole. Eight years since Carol Mukhopadhyay and Yolanda Moses’ (1997, 99(3): 517–33) call to reestablish anthropology’s role in public debates on race and the Contemporary Issues Forum on Race and Racism in the American Anthropologist (1998, 100(3): 607–715), and publication of articles addressing the theme “Is It ‘Race’? Anthropology on Human Diversity” in the Anthropology Newsletter (1997–98), the need to address and move beyond emerging issues of “race” has become even clearer. Census categories, military and domestic responses to Sept 11, racial and ethnic conflicts across the globe, debates over linguistic diversity and national identity, challenges to affirmative action, the rise of genomics, persistent racial health disparities, and headlines that suggest variously the danger, value or demise of race all reflect and reinforce public confusion and certainty about the salience of race and racism. Anthropology can contribute nuance and some clarity and provide a context and format for public understanding and use of these complex and everchanging ideas and their relation to our everyday lives. These are some of the challenges faced by the association’s interdisciplinary public education project Understanding Race and Human Variation, funded by NSF and the Ford Foundation. Most anthropologists have agreed for some time that race neither describes nor explains the structure of human biological variation. However, as cultural lenses and social ordering mechanisms, race and racism have biological consequences for individuals and groups, and provide an apparent mandate for race-based identities. How does current anthropological discourse lend itself to public explication of complex biocultural interactions that both challenge and reproduce race? How should anthropologists translate their unique insights—including points of agreement and contention—into a creative public anthropology of race, racism and human variation? What can we learn from public engagement with issues of race, ethnicity, human variation and racism?
A conversation focusing on race and racialized issues including, but not limited to, those that follow can help to clarify such questions and point to new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Î Use of “race” is increasingly qualified in anthropology, a trend that challenges but also potentially legitimizes and reifies
the concept. What do anthropologists see as the future of concepts of race, ethnicity and use of the term “race”?

Î Despite official pronouncement from the Human Genome Project that race does not reside in genes, some research suggests existing clusters of genes. Furthermore, the FDA has recently approved NitroMed’s marketing of BiDil—reportedly effective in treating heart failure in African Americans—as the first “ethnic drug.” What can anthropology contribute to the growing debates over race and genetics and race and health?

Î Research indicates that perception of human difference and discrimination are not innate but learned in family, school
and other environments. How can anthropology better inform parents, teachers and students of distinctions between human biological variation and “race” and help shape K–12 curriculum and other learning vehicles in the process?

Î How can anthropology help move us beyond the understanding of the social construction of race to make a difference
in race relations and social justice in the US and abroad? What role should anthropology play in contributing to the goal of racial justice, discussions of colorblindness and debates of affirmative action?

Î What roles do language, perception and cognition play in our understanding of race and human variation? How can
anthropology contribute to the development of a new, non-race-based language of human biological variation in the US and abroad?

Î The 2000 US census and recent explosion of literature on Afro-Latin communities suggests that there are others who
have been rendered academically invisible by race. What role should anthropology play in identifying and addressing the political concerns of such emerging communities?

Î A recent article suggests for the first time, more blacks are coming to the US from Africa than during the slave trade
(“More Africans Enter US Than in Days of Slavery,” New York Times, February 21, 2005). How can cross-cultural research help
us to understand the potential relevance of this and other demographic trends for future racialized diasporic identity formations, especially in light of the growing genetic ancestry identification industry?

Î Responses to Sept 11 suggest race continues to undermine public appreciation of acknowledged (if misunderstood) cultural,
ethnic and self-identifications. How should anthropologists apply their knowledge to reveal how race, racialization and racism influence public conceptions of human variation?

Î Beyond observing that race is “a biological fiction,” how can anthropologists speak directly to the unique questions and
needs of so-called multiracial children?

Î What do international, cross-cultural, historical, economic and political perspectives contribute to our current under-
standing of race and human variation?

Î How do anthropological methods and theories help or hinder interdisciplinary research and education efforts on race and human variation?
AN cordially invites readers, especially emerging scholars, to submit ideas, brief articles and lengthier commentaries for consideration for publication in a special edition of AN, “Rethinking Race and Human Variation,” in February. The special edition assists AAA’s ongoing public education effort Understanding Race and Human Variation, funded by the NSF and the Ford Foundation. Contributors are encouraged to take a comprehensive, integrated approach to the topic similar to the approach of AAA’s interdisciplinary project. Understanding Race is aimed at developing a traveling museum exhibit, website and educational materials based on scholarship within anthropology and related disciplines in the sciences and humanities to help individuals better understand the origins and manifestations of race and racism in everyday life and come to their own conclusion that human variation is a part of nature and that race is not inevitable nor a part of nature but a dynamic and sometimes harmful cultural construct.

Contributors are encouraged to use examples from their own research and experience in submitting their thoughts by
November 15 to Stacy Lathrop, Editor, AN, AAA, 2200 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 600, Arlington, VA 22201-3357;
slathrop@aaanet.org; 703/528-1902, ext 3005; fax 703/ 528-3546.
Contributions will be reviewed by the key advisors of the Understanding Race and Human Variation project: Yolanda Moses,
Michael Blakey, Alan Goodman, Robert Hahn, Faye Harrison, Janis Hutchinson, Carol Mukhopadhyay and Enid Schildkrout.

Selected contributions will be published in the AN and, with authors’ permission, on the project website.