Colonial Anthropology and Classifications of Race
You can focus here on the history of the pseudo-sciences defining Race, which have had a huge impact on our societies today. How has Race promoted exclusion, and spurred the fight for participation in all areas of life? How has Race been show in media and visual culture? We know that Blumenbach and others categorized people arbitrarily and even ranked head shapes in terms of beauty. You can select an item from anthropology to examine if you like (as we did with Sarah Baartman) that concerns Race and perhaps the Western gaze. Anthropologists or merely curious Western explorers such as David Attenborough have solidified ideas about race going back to the 1700s. The Western fascination with height and size fostered many assumptions about people from New Guinea, Asia, the Americas and Africa. You may choose a historical case, item of art, visual culture, or conflict, or focus on a more recent one based upon assumptions around Race.
Colonial Anthropology and Classifications of Race
Step 2: Choose a Case Study from Visual Culture (a photo, film, documentary, TV program, video game), Culture (a memoir, book, artwork), or Historical Moment (protest, speech, war):
Once you have chosen your Topic select a media Case Study. For example, we addressed the racism surrounding the “living museum display” Sarah Baartman, the African woman taken to Europe and shown nude. You may select a single Case Study, or up to 3 smaller Case Studies, ie. 3 photos, memorials, works of art, television episodes . Selecting 3 major works (ie, entire novels or entire films) is not advisable since it may create too much work. For major works like movies or novels or biographies, selecting 3 scenes would be wise.
Develop a Thesis by thinking about your Case Study in conjunction with your Topic.
Thesis statements often take some work and time to develop.
Example Titles:
Arrange your Title in this way:
“Race, Brutality and Protest : American News Reporting on the 1992 Los Angeles Riots”
“Origins of Exclusion: The Invention of the Caucasian”
Step 3: Write an organized essay of at least 1500 words using the concepts covered in class as frameworks for analysis.
*Integrate ALL quotes (quotes cannot stand alone in your essay):
As Smith (2000) says, “representations of history are biased…” (Smith 10).
Quoting is preferable to Paraphrasing. Be clear when you borrow someone
else’s words by “quoting” and citing (Smith 2019 p. 15).
Colonial Anthropology and Classifications of Race