Anthropology 227 - Othering: Race and Racisms

If othering is intrinsic to human constitutions of self/identity, are othering discourses and practices universal across different human groups in different time periods? Does othering have the same political, economic, and social consequences for all those othered by a particular group? These questions will be examined through a focus on one set of othering discourses and practices—race. In what ways have constructions of racial hierarchies in different parts of the world intersected with other global political, economic, and social processes: capitalism, slavery, nationalism, colonization, imperialism, neoliberalism? Readings will draw on anthropological, historical, and philosophical scholarship.