ABSTRACT
Within the social sciences and humanities, race and ethnicity have been major objects of study, refl ecting the profound ways that they have shaped social life. Historically, the study of race by natural and social scientists involved categorizing different groups of people, and arranging them hierarchically. Such classifi cation gave ideological support to slavery, colonialism and other forms of racial domination. It was assumed that biological race was associated with character, behaviour, disposition (for example, on a continuum from emotional to rational) and intelligence. For early race theorists, race helped explain the differences between civilization and savagery, the rise and fall of nations and the broader course of history. In the twentieth century, coinciding with the undermining of scientifi c racism from the 1930s onward, the study of race was often aligned with social movements that vigorously challenged racism and discrimination. Intellectuals and activists from those previously referred to as the ‘inferior races’ started to write and speak back to power and against racist oppression, stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. More broadly, social science increasingly came to emphasize the role of culture, and social construction, rather than biology (e.g. race, sex) in the ways that people thought, felt, behaved and acted, and this also contributed to a shift of emphasis from race (‘biology’) to ethnicity (‘culture’). ‘Race’ was reconfi gured as the forms of cultural assumptions, and the social constructions, that attach themselves to physical differences between people, and which affect the opportunity structures of societies.
