Transcript 200Ch07_Ethnicity

An Introduction to Human Geography
James M. Rubenstein
Chapter 7
Ethnicity
(Please read this chapter)
PPT adapted from Abe Goldman
Ethnicity and Race
• Ethnicity: identity with a group who share the same
cultural traditions.
• Ethnicity as being immutable (unchangeable … may
be diluted, added to but is unlikely to be erased)
• Race: identity with a group of people who share the
same biological ancestor (traits that characterize race
can be genetically transmitted, eg lactose intolerance
in Asians, sickle cell disease in African Americans )
• The term race is contentious: people have argued
that race is a social construct
‘Black’ as a social construct
• Legally in America a "black" is any person with a dark
skin, usually of African ancestry
• BUT black is a culture
• From Wikipedia … "Blackness" 1: is the degree to
which an individual is sympathetic to or a part of the
culture of African-Americans. Oftentimes, an AfricanAmerican may be thought of by the African-American
community as being "less black" (e.g. U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas) whereas a nonAfrican-American may be considered "more black"
(e.g. former US President Bill Clinton).
Census: valuable source of
information
• Every 10 years we have a Census
• Major question is one of race
• Arguably important because it allows people to
understand issues such as relationship between
services and race.
Regional differences
• 2010 census
• http://2010.census.gov/2010census/
Geographic aspects involving
ethnicity
• Where ethnicities are distributed across
space
• Relationship between ethnicity and
place (how place builds who you are)
• Ethnicities and conflict
• Globalization and distinct regions of
ethnic identity
Distribution of Ethnicities
• Ethnicities in the United States
– Clustering of ethnicities by state
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African Americans in the SE
Asian Americans in the West,
Hispanics in the Southwest
American Indians in the Southwest and Plains
states
– Clustering of ethnicities within cities, eg LA
Blacks in America: Triangular Slave
Trade and African Source Areas
Fig. 7-7: The British triangular slave trading system operated among Britain, Africa,
and the Caribbean and North America in the 1700s acted as a start to the
long-term practice of slavery in America
Blacks to America
• Blacks as one of the most visible ethnicities
• Unequal and different treatment is a major
reason why the use of the term ‘race’ has
fallen into decline
• Genuine belief by whites prior to the last 50
years, that they were superior to blacks
• Why the assumption that one group of people
is superior to another?
– Cultural differences
– Lack of ‘cargo’ (manufactured goods and
inventions)
• Racism: belief that race is the primary
determinant of human traits and capacities
African American Migration in
the U.S.
Fig. 7-8: Twentieth-century African American migration within the U.S. consisted
mainly of migration from the rural south to cities of the Northeast,
Midwest, and West.
African Americans in the U.S.
Fig. 7-1: The highest percentages of African Americans are in the rural South and in
northern cities.
Race in the United States
• 1863 Emancipation proclamation
• Sharecropping followed (working rented
fields often little better than slavery)
• Separate but equal (travel, education,
restaurants) until the 1950s and 60s
• Segregation laws struck down
• White flight … why the fear?
• Blockbusting … fear-mongering by real
estate agents
“Given the hardship in simply finding
accommodations, travel guides
emerged that listed places where
blacks could be assured they would
not be turned away. The Green Book
for Negro Travelers was for many
years the sole travel guide for blacks
and remained a no-frills alphabetical
listing. A later publication called
Travelguide appeared with the more
racially assertive motto, “Vacation &
Recreation without Humiliation.””
http://news.byu.edu/archive08-feb-blackvacations.aspx
Ethnicities in Los Angeles
• 1992 Rodney King riots
highlighted inequities
• Race is a volatile issue because
of discrimination based on color
• Yet many areas function well
• On a day to day basis people of
many ethnicities interact with
remarkably few problems…
Fig. 7-6: Hispanic, white, African American, and Asian areas in and around Los Angeles
Also see http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157624812674967/with/4982024006/
A closer look at ethnicities
through language
• A large number of ethnicities (not just Hispanic,
Black, White, Asian)
• According to Professor Vyacheslav Ivanov of UCLA,
there are at least 224 identified languages in Los
Angeles County. (not include differing dialects).
• Professor Ivanov estimates that publications are
locally produced in about 180 of these languages
• A new meaning to the term ‘Safety in numbers’?
• Is an area with a large number of ethnicities going to
be more stable that an area with two or three
ethnicities?
Racial harmony
• Possible?
• Defusing tension:
– Familiarity
– Economic well-being
– Equality
– Mutual trust …
• Possible given our (Western) legacy in
eugenics?
Eugenics and racial discrimination
• Belief in ethnic superiority was strengthened by the
‘science of eugenics’ (a pseudoscience, term coined
in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton)
• Galton believed that you could identify types by
appearance (Galton’s other work: statistics,
meteorology, fingerprint characteristics)
• Lead to proposed selective breeding of humans,
popular movement across Europe in the 1920s
• Ethnicity, features, color, diseases
• Worst excesses of this movement seen in Adolf
Hitler’s ‘racial hygiene’
• Echoes today in ‘ethnic cleansing’ which involves
anything from forced migration to massacres based
on seemingly trivial differences
Eugenics logo
Participants in the “fitter families” contest at the Georgia State Fair in 1924. Such
contests were held all over the United States to educate the public about the importance
of eugenics in decisions about reproduction and family-making. They originated in “better
baby” contests during the 1910s.
Gypsies (Romani people )
Somewhere between 220,000 and
500,000 thought to have been killed
as part of the Holocaust
Various supremacist groups still active
today
Ethnicities and Nationalities
• Nationality
– identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal
allegiance to a particular place usually as a result of being born there
• Rise of Nationalities
– Nation-states: state (area of land/country) occupied by one nationality
(people who have allegiance to an area usually because they are born in
that area)
– Nationalism: ‘loyalty and devotion to a nation’
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Loyalty expressed through symbols: flags, anthems, oaths
Exalts one nation above all others
Emphasis on being a ‘special group’, perhaps favored by God
Usually Others outside the group are regarded as being less favored
• Multinational states: traditions of self-determination that agree to
coexist peacefully
– Belgium, Canada, Switzerland
• Revival of ethnic identity
– Ethnicity and communism
– Rebirth of nationalism in former members of the USSR, Basques in Spain
Republics of the Soviet Union
The former Soviet Union consisted of 15
republics that included the country’s
largest ethnic groups. These all became
independent countries in the early 1990s
after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.
Continuing conflict over regions as in the
case of Georgia
Ethnic Groups in Russia
Fig. 7-12: Russia officially recognizes 39 ethnic groups, or nationalities, which
are concentrated in western and southern portions of the country.
Horseman 2005
Yakuts
1935 stamp
Ethnicities in the Caucasus
The Caucasus Mountains are commonly
understood to divide line Asia from Europe
Caucasus are between the Black Sea and
the Caspian Sea, and between Turkey &
Iran and Russia.
Fig. 7-13: The Caucasus region is extremely diverse ethnically. Ethnic groups are
spread across several national boundaries.
Clashes of Ethnicities
• Late twentieth century identity and
ethnicity became a source of conflict;
not just a thing of the past
• Rebirth of nationalism in Eastern
Europe
• Competition to determine national
identity
• Reduced resources in African countries
Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka
Dispute for over 2000 years
Tamils from S. India arrived 3rd C
BC
Sinhalese from N. India in 5th C BC
Sinhalese majority attempted to
remodel Sri Lanka as a Sinhalese
nation-state following
independence from Britian
Civil war officially ended in May
2009 after all-out warfare which
killed the leader and many top
officials of the separatist militant
organization Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers)
The Sinhalese are mainly Buddhist and speak an Indo-European language, while the
Tamils are mainly Hindu and speak a Dravidian language.
Sri Lanka
IRELAND
Distrust and hatred as a way of life
passed down through generations
(situation in Ireland between two
Christian denominations: Catholics and
Protestants)
Northern Ireland part of the UK
South as the ‘Republic of Ireland”
Partition of Ireland in 1920 but
protestant/catholic divisions go back
to the 1100s
Sectarian violence from 1500s
onwards when British became a
majority
Progress: The agreement in 1998:
Commitment by all parties to use
"exclusively peaceful and
democratic means"
Orange Day Parades (12 July) in
Belfast, N. Ireland (Protestant fraternal
organization)
IRA (Irish Republican Army) murals
Belfast 2004
IRA in action
Ethnic Cleansing
• Ethnic cleansing: removal of a minority involving
human-rights abuses
• Genocide: killing of people, in some cases transferring
children to homes of the dominant ethnicity/nationality
• Human rights: refers to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights established in 1948.
– The right to life, liberty and security of person.
– The right to an education.
– The right to employment, paid holidays, protection against
unemployment, and social security.
– The right to participate fully in cultural life.
– Freedom from torture or cruel, inhumane treatment or
punishment.
– Freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
– Freedom of expression and opinion.
Ethnic Regions in Yugoslavia
Fig. 7-22: Yugoslavia’s six republics until 1992 included much ethnic diversity.
Brutal ethnic cleansing occurred in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo
during the civil wars of the 1990s.
Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo
Aerial photography helped document the stages of ethnic cleansing in western
Kosovo in 1999.
Darfur region of Sudan
“A pioneering AAAS program that provides technical expertise to human rights groups is helping
Amnesty International USA with a new online effort to monitor threatened settlements in the wartorn Darfur region of Sudan and provide evidence of destroyed” villages.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-06/aaft-sis053007.php
Conflict
• What creates conflict between 2 groups
of people?
– Differences in ethnicity
– Differences in culture and religion
– Nationalism that results in concept of land
ownership that excludes others
– Shortage of resources
– Differing ideas of how land should be used
– Two groups (an ‘us and a ‘them’)
Surmounting conflict
• TWO VIEWS
– Conflict is considered by many as ‘natural’, part of
human nature and not much can be done to prevent
conflict. Hence inevitable and un-resolvable
– Conflict can be considered as a problem that can be
solved with a suite of knowledge and skills just as we
solve technological problems
• Center for International development and Conflict
management (University of Maryland )
• Center for Peace Studies, University of TromsØ.
• School for International Training, Vermont.
• Efforts within contemporary military forces