Michael Keevak
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691140315
- eISBN:
- 9781400838608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691140315.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter examines how the “yellow race” became an important focus in nineteenth-century anthropology. More specifically, it considers how the whole notion of skin tone had become inextricably ...
More
This chapter examines how the “yellow race” became an important focus in nineteenth-century anthropology. More specifically, it considers how the whole notion of skin tone had become inextricably linked to scientifically validated prejudices and normative claims about higher and lower forms of human culture. The chapter first discusses why the term “Mongolian” was selected to represent the people of the Far East and compares it to “Tartar” before exploring how the new field of anthropology became preoccupied with the idea of anatomical quantification, and especially the measurement of skin color using an instrument known as the color top. It shows that the desire to find yellowness in East Asians was so ingrained in the Western imagination that some anthropologists tried to prove that their skin really was yellow.Less
This chapter examines how the “yellow race” became an important focus in nineteenth-century anthropology. More specifically, it considers how the whole notion of skin tone had become inextricably linked to scientifically validated prejudices and normative claims about higher and lower forms of human culture. The chapter first discusses why the term “Mongolian” was selected to represent the people of the Far East and compares it to “Tartar” before exploring how the new field of anthropology became preoccupied with the idea of anatomical quantification, and especially the measurement of skin color using an instrument known as the color top. It shows that the desire to find yellowness in East Asians was so ingrained in the Western imagination that some anthropologists tried to prove that their skin really was yellow.
Mark A. Changizi and Shinsuke Shimojo
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195333176
- eISBN:
- 9780199864324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333176.003.0017
- Subject:
- Psychology, Vision, Cognitive Neuroscience
This chapter reviews evidence supporting the hypothesis that color vision is a kind of social vision, about the emotional states and moods of others. The argument from the first of the three main ...
More
This chapter reviews evidence supporting the hypothesis that color vision is a kind of social vision, about the emotional states and moods of others. The argument from the first of the three main sections of the chapter centers on evidence that our perception of skin is organized so that we are maximally able to discriminate spectral changes around baseline skin color, akin to the way in which we are maximally able to discriminate temperature changes of skin around baseline skin temperature. The argument from the second section concerns evidence that our primate cone sensitivities have been designed by natural selection to sense the subtle spectrum changes that occur with modulations of hemoglobin oxygenation. Finally, the third section presents evidence that it is the primates with color vision that are bare-skinned; the nontrichromatic primates are furry faced, like a typical mammal. This is just as the hypothesis would predict if color vision is about skin.Less
This chapter reviews evidence supporting the hypothesis that color vision is a kind of social vision, about the emotional states and moods of others. The argument from the first of the three main sections of the chapter centers on evidence that our perception of skin is organized so that we are maximally able to discriminate spectral changes around baseline skin color, akin to the way in which we are maximally able to discriminate temperature changes of skin around baseline skin temperature. The argument from the second section concerns evidence that our primate cone sensitivities have been designed by natural selection to sense the subtle spectrum changes that occur with modulations of hemoglobin oxygenation. Finally, the third section presents evidence that it is the primates with color vision that are bare-skinned; the nontrichromatic primates are furry faced, like a typical mammal. This is just as the hypothesis would predict if color vision is about skin.
Michael Keevak
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691140315
- eISBN:
- 9781400838608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691140315.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter focuses on the emergence of new sorts of human taxonomies as well as new claims about the color of all human groups, including East Asians, during the course of the eighteenth century, ...
More
This chapter focuses on the emergence of new sorts of human taxonomies as well as new claims about the color of all human groups, including East Asians, during the course of the eighteenth century, as well as their racial implications. It first considers the theory advanced in 1684 by the French physician and traveler François Bernier, who proposed a “new division of the Earth, according to the different species or races of man which inhabit it.” One of these races, he suggested, was yellow. Then in 1735, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published Systema naturae, in which he categorized homo sapiens into four different skin colors. Finally, at the end of the eighteenth century, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, also a physician and the founder of comparative anatomy, declared that the people of the Far East were a yellow race, as distinct from the white “Caucasian” one.Less
This chapter focuses on the emergence of new sorts of human taxonomies as well as new claims about the color of all human groups, including East Asians, during the course of the eighteenth century, as well as their racial implications. It first considers the theory advanced in 1684 by the French physician and traveler François Bernier, who proposed a “new division of the Earth, according to the different species or races of man which inhabit it.” One of these races, he suggested, was yellow. Then in 1735, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published Systema naturae, in which he categorized homo sapiens into four different skin colors. Finally, at the end of the eighteenth century, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, also a physician and the founder of comparative anatomy, declared that the people of the Far East were a yellow race, as distinct from the white “Caucasian” one.
Carlos Antonio and Costa Ribeiro
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199732166
- eISBN:
- 9780199866144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732166.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
This chapter presents empirical analyses of inequalities of opportunity for social mobility in Brazil. It conducts three types of analyses. First, it describes the intergenerational mobility between ...
More
This chapter presents empirical analyses of inequalities of opportunity for social mobility in Brazil. It conducts three types of analyses. First, it describes the intergenerational mobility between the parents' class or class of origin and the class of destination of whites, pardos, and blacks. The intent here is to verify what has a greater influence on the inequality of opportunities for ascensional mobility: the class of origin or skin color. Next, it provides a decomposition of such mobility, taking as an intermediary point the educational level achieved. Education is one of the most important factors of social ascension: without educational qualifications, one cannot, for instance, occupy professional positions, and thereby obtain relatively more comfortable life conditions. The inequality of educational opportunities is analyzed to verify the weight of class origin and skin color upon the chances of completing different educational levels. Finally, the chapter analyzes the likelihood that mobility opportunities will favor the more privileged classes, according to an individual's educational level, class origin, and skin color. This three-stage analysis enables the disclosure of the main barriers to social mobility, and also an evaluation of the combination of race and class of origin that inhibit such mobility.Less
This chapter presents empirical analyses of inequalities of opportunity for social mobility in Brazil. It conducts three types of analyses. First, it describes the intergenerational mobility between the parents' class or class of origin and the class of destination of whites, pardos, and blacks. The intent here is to verify what has a greater influence on the inequality of opportunities for ascensional mobility: the class of origin or skin color. Next, it provides a decomposition of such mobility, taking as an intermediary point the educational level achieved. Education is one of the most important factors of social ascension: without educational qualifications, one cannot, for instance, occupy professional positions, and thereby obtain relatively more comfortable life conditions. The inequality of educational opportunities is analyzed to verify the weight of class origin and skin color upon the chances of completing different educational levels. Finally, the chapter analyzes the likelihood that mobility opportunities will favor the more privileged classes, according to an individual's educational level, class origin, and skin color. This three-stage analysis enables the disclosure of the main barriers to social mobility, and also an evaluation of the combination of race and class of origin that inhibit such mobility.
CLAUDIA TATE
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195108576
- eISBN:
- 9780199855094
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195108576.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter augments the cultural grid. Three “legacies” or tracts of dominant cultural conventions of the post-Reconstruction era were intersected by the author. These concern the constructions of ...
More
This chapter augments the cultural grid. Three “legacies” or tracts of dominant cultural conventions of the post-Reconstruction era were intersected by the author. These concern the constructions of gender among black women during the antebellum. These include the interrelationships among skin color, gentility, and social mobility as will be discussed. Among others, this chapter tackles the gender constructions of the black female during the antebellum. Gentility, color, and social mobility of black women are also described. The pedagogy of sentimental literature is expounded. Lastly, this chapter looks at the male and female generic narratives of racial protest. The generic differences between the narratives of the late nineteenth century which dealt with racial protest are also tackled.Less
This chapter augments the cultural grid. Three “legacies” or tracts of dominant cultural conventions of the post-Reconstruction era were intersected by the author. These concern the constructions of gender among black women during the antebellum. These include the interrelationships among skin color, gentility, and social mobility as will be discussed. Among others, this chapter tackles the gender constructions of the black female during the antebellum. Gentility, color, and social mobility of black women are also described. The pedagogy of sentimental literature is expounded. Lastly, this chapter looks at the male and female generic narratives of racial protest. The generic differences between the narratives of the late nineteenth century which dealt with racial protest are also tackled.
Michael Keevak
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691140315
- eISBN:
- 9781400838608
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691140315.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their ...
More
In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their willingness to trade with the West, and their presumed capacity to become Christianized. But by the end of the seventeenth century the category of whiteness was reserved for Europeans only. When and how did Asians become “yellow” in the Western imagination? Looking at the history of racial thinking, this book explores the notion of yellowness and shows that this label originated in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discourses on race. From the walls of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which depicted people of varying skin tones including yellow, to the phrase “yellow peril” at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe and America, the book follows the development of perceptions about race and human difference. It indicates that the conceptual relationship between East Asians and yellow skin did not begin in Chinese culture or Western readings of East Asian cultural symbols, but in anthropological and medical records that described variations in skin color. Eighteenth-century taxonomers such as Carl Linnaeus, as well as Victorian scientists and early anthropologists, assigned colors to all racial groups, and once East Asians were lumped with members of the Mongolian race, they began to be considered yellow. Demonstrating how a racial distinction took root in Europe and traveled internationally, the book weaves together multiple narratives to tell the complex history of a problematic term.Less
In their earliest encounters with Asia, Europeans almost uniformly characterized the people of China and Japan as white. This was a means of describing their wealth and sophistication, their willingness to trade with the West, and their presumed capacity to become Christianized. But by the end of the seventeenth century the category of whiteness was reserved for Europeans only. When and how did Asians become “yellow” in the Western imagination? Looking at the history of racial thinking, this book explores the notion of yellowness and shows that this label originated in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discourses on race. From the walls of an ancient Egyptian tomb, which depicted people of varying skin tones including yellow, to the phrase “yellow peril” at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe and America, the book follows the development of perceptions about race and human difference. It indicates that the conceptual relationship between East Asians and yellow skin did not begin in Chinese culture or Western readings of East Asian cultural symbols, but in anthropological and medical records that described variations in skin color. Eighteenth-century taxonomers such as Carl Linnaeus, as well as Victorian scientists and early anthropologists, assigned colors to all racial groups, and once East Asians were lumped with members of the Mongolian race, they began to be considered yellow. Demonstrating how a racial distinction took root in Europe and traveled internationally, the book weaves together multiple narratives to tell the complex history of a problematic term.
Carlos Pozzi
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195310566
- eISBN:
- 9780199851072
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310566.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
A closer look at Latin American society suggests that race and skin color are significant issues among Latinos in Latin America and in the United States. This chapter explores the ways in which ...
More
A closer look at Latin American society suggests that race and skin color are significant issues among Latinos in Latin America and in the United States. This chapter explores the ways in which Latinos negotiate their race-based categories and some of the historical and social factors that have influenced the definition of those categories. It also reviews the history of race and race relationships in Latin America and among Latinos in the United States and discusses some of the unique ways in which Latinos manage their ethnic and racial differences. Through this discussion, it shows the Latinos as a prime example of a community with a variety of socially constructed ideas of race that are not based only on physical or familial characteristics but are influenced by social and environmental variables. Moreover, it explains the common themes and the current issues faced by Latinos of different nationalities, skin tones, and levels of acculturation related to the issue of skin color, and intend to increase understanding of the Latino population in the United States and to stimulate a discussion of the issues previously mentioned.Less
A closer look at Latin American society suggests that race and skin color are significant issues among Latinos in Latin America and in the United States. This chapter explores the ways in which Latinos negotiate their race-based categories and some of the historical and social factors that have influenced the definition of those categories. It also reviews the history of race and race relationships in Latin America and among Latinos in the United States and discusses some of the unique ways in which Latinos manage their ethnic and racial differences. Through this discussion, it shows the Latinos as a prime example of a community with a variety of socially constructed ideas of race that are not based only on physical or familial characteristics but are influenced by social and environmental variables. Moreover, it explains the common themes and the current issues faced by Latinos of different nationalities, skin tones, and levels of acculturation related to the issue of skin color, and intend to increase understanding of the Latino population in the United States and to stimulate a discussion of the issues previously mentioned.
L. Ayu Saraswati
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824836641
- eISBN:
- 9780824871161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824836641.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines skin whitening practices within a transnational context as well as their political and racial meanings. Drawing on in-depth interviews with forty-six Indonesian women, it asks ...
More
This chapter examines skin whitening practices within a transnational context as well as their political and racial meanings. Drawing on in-depth interviews with forty-six Indonesian women, it asks why women use whitening creams and how they make sense of skin-whitening practices. Using the concept of malu (Indonesian word for shyness, embarrassment, shame, or restraint and propriety), it argues that women's decision to use skin-whitening products is driven by the so-called “gendered management of affect.” It discusses the gendered ways in which emotions and affects are managed and links beauty practices such as whitening one's skin to the gendered management of affects. The chapter highlights the centrality of emotions in the ways women experience and negotiate discourses of beauty, race, skin color, and gender in their daily lives.Less
This chapter examines skin whitening practices within a transnational context as well as their political and racial meanings. Drawing on in-depth interviews with forty-six Indonesian women, it asks why women use whitening creams and how they make sense of skin-whitening practices. Using the concept of malu (Indonesian word for shyness, embarrassment, shame, or restraint and propriety), it argues that women's decision to use skin-whitening products is driven by the so-called “gendered management of affect.” It discusses the gendered ways in which emotions and affects are managed and links beauty practices such as whitening one's skin to the gendered management of affects. The chapter highlights the centrality of emotions in the ways women experience and negotiate discourses of beauty, race, skin color, and gender in their daily lives.
Mechthild Fend
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719087967
- eISBN:
- 9781526120724
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087967.003.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
The chapter introduces questions of skin and flesh tones via a discussion of Pedro Almódovar's 2011 film The Skin I live in. The film suggests a number of themes that are pertinent to this book: skin ...
More
The chapter introduces questions of skin and flesh tones via a discussion of Pedro Almódovar's 2011 film The Skin I live in. The film suggests a number of themes that are pertinent to this book: skin and identity; the relations between inside and outside; the nude and its colour; artificial skin and fantasies of the human creation of life; skin, touch and the haptic potential of vision; finally, the relationship between skin's role as a medium and the mediality of the image; issues of the colour of the nude and the longstanding association of skin, flesh and colour.
The introduction also situates the book within the most relevant art historical studies on skin, flesh and the materiality of the image as well as within the scholarly field of the history of the body and of skin.Less
The chapter introduces questions of skin and flesh tones via a discussion of Pedro Almódovar's 2011 film The Skin I live in. The film suggests a number of themes that are pertinent to this book: skin and identity; the relations between inside and outside; the nude and its colour; artificial skin and fantasies of the human creation of life; skin, touch and the haptic potential of vision; finally, the relationship between skin's role as a medium and the mediality of the image; issues of the colour of the nude and the longstanding association of skin, flesh and colour.
The introduction also situates the book within the most relevant art historical studies on skin, flesh and the materiality of the image as well as within the scholarly field of the history of the body and of skin.
Jemima Pierre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226923024
- eISBN:
- 9780226923048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226923048.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores the implications of skin bleaching in Africa and among populations of African descent throughout the diaspora. First, it examines the actual skin-bleaching process within the ...
More
This chapter explores the implications of skin bleaching in Africa and among populations of African descent throughout the diaspora. First, it examines the actual skin-bleaching process within the historical context of its transnational expansion. Second, it focuses on the materiality of the interplay of race and color, by which lightness is the key marker of distinction from Whiteness as well as from Blackness. It suggests that where attaining corporeal Whiteness is impossible for those racially Black (and dark), the desire for lightness is less about becoming White and more about becoming less Black in order to gain “certain aeasthetic and political-economic resources that pertain to being white.” The discussion is placed within the Ghanaian social and cultural field, in which racial aesthetics, while undoubtedly local, are shaped by and respond to transnational racial regimes.Less
This chapter explores the implications of skin bleaching in Africa and among populations of African descent throughout the diaspora. First, it examines the actual skin-bleaching process within the historical context of its transnational expansion. Second, it focuses on the materiality of the interplay of race and color, by which lightness is the key marker of distinction from Whiteness as well as from Blackness. It suggests that where attaining corporeal Whiteness is impossible for those racially Black (and dark), the desire for lightness is less about becoming White and more about becoming less Black in order to gain “certain aeasthetic and political-economic resources that pertain to being white.” The discussion is placed within the Ghanaian social and cultural field, in which racial aesthetics, while undoubtedly local, are shaped by and respond to transnational racial regimes.
Mechthild Fend
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719087967
- eISBN:
- 9781526120724
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087967.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
Throughout the history of European painting, skin has been the most significant surface for artistic imitation, and flesh has been a privileged site of lifelikeness. Skin and flesh entertain complex ...
More
Throughout the history of European painting, skin has been the most significant surface for artistic imitation, and flesh has been a privileged site of lifelikeness. Skin and flesh entertain complex metaphorical relationships with artefacts, images, their making and materiality: fabricated surfaces are often described as skins, skin and colour have a longstanding connection, and paint is frequently associated with flesh.
This book considers flesh and skin in art theory, image making and medical discourse and focuses on seventeenth to nineteenth-century France. It describes a gradual shift between the early modern and the modern period and argues that what artists made when imitating human nakedness was not always the same. Initially understood in terms of the body’s substance, of flesh tones and body colour, it became increasingly a matter of skin, skin colour and surfaces. This shift is traced in the terminology of art theory and in the practices of painting, as well as engraving, colour printing and drawing. Each chapter is dedicated to a different notion of skin and its colour, from flesh tones via a membrane imbued with nervous energy to hermetic borderline. Looking in particular at works by Fragonard, David, Girodet, Benoist and Ingres, the focus is on portraits, as facial skin is a special arena for testing and theorising painterly skills and a site where the body and the image made of it become equally expressive.Less
Throughout the history of European painting, skin has been the most significant surface for artistic imitation, and flesh has been a privileged site of lifelikeness. Skin and flesh entertain complex metaphorical relationships with artefacts, images, their making and materiality: fabricated surfaces are often described as skins, skin and colour have a longstanding connection, and paint is frequently associated with flesh.
This book considers flesh and skin in art theory, image making and medical discourse and focuses on seventeenth to nineteenth-century France. It describes a gradual shift between the early modern and the modern period and argues that what artists made when imitating human nakedness was not always the same. Initially understood in terms of the body’s substance, of flesh tones and body colour, it became increasingly a matter of skin, skin colour and surfaces. This shift is traced in the terminology of art theory and in the practices of painting, as well as engraving, colour printing and drawing. Each chapter is dedicated to a different notion of skin and its colour, from flesh tones via a membrane imbued with nervous energy to hermetic borderline. Looking in particular at works by Fragonard, David, Girodet, Benoist and Ingres, the focus is on portraits, as facial skin is a special arena for testing and theorising painterly skills and a site where the body and the image made of it become equally expressive.
L. Ayu Saraswati
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824836641
- eISBN:
- 9780824871161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824836641.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the shifts in beauty ideals in Indonesia during the colonial period by focusing on the emergence of two categories of whiteness: “European whiteness” and “Japanese whiteness.” ...
More
This chapter examines the shifts in beauty ideals in Indonesia during the colonial period by focusing on the emergence of two categories of whiteness: “European whiteness” and “Japanese whiteness.” It explains how circulations of people and ideas from the Netherlands and Japan gave rise to particular beauty ideals in colonial Indonesia and shows that what counted as light skin throughout these periods differed significantly over time. It highlights the complex construction of multiple categories of whiteness that emerged as a result of transnational circulations of people and ideas in Indonesia, along with attempts to conflate skin color with race and to dissociate these two categories of identity. By analyzing the process of representing Caucasian women as the face of beauty, the chapter demonstrates how racial projects of colonialism succeeded in conflating skin color with race.Less
This chapter examines the shifts in beauty ideals in Indonesia during the colonial period by focusing on the emergence of two categories of whiteness: “European whiteness” and “Japanese whiteness.” It explains how circulations of people and ideas from the Netherlands and Japan gave rise to particular beauty ideals in colonial Indonesia and shows that what counted as light skin throughout these periods differed significantly over time. It highlights the complex construction of multiple categories of whiteness that emerged as a result of transnational circulations of people and ideas in Indonesia, along with attempts to conflate skin color with race and to dissociate these two categories of identity. By analyzing the process of representing Caucasian women as the face of beauty, the chapter demonstrates how racial projects of colonialism succeeded in conflating skin color with race.
Irene V. Blair and Charles M. Judd
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195333176
- eISBN:
- 9780199864324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333176.003.0019
- Subject:
- Psychology, Vision, Cognitive Neuroscience
In this line of his landmark speech, Martn Luther King Jr expressed the troubling reality faced by thousands of people who are judged by the “color of their skin” instead of by more valid attributes. ...
More
In this line of his landmark speech, Martn Luther King Jr expressed the troubling reality faced by thousands of people who are judged by the “color of their skin” instead of by more valid attributes. His reference to a specific, seemingly innocuous physical feature makes the injustice of the situation all the more apparent. Why would anyone use skin color as a basis for serious judgment? What, if anything, makes this specific feature so special? This chapter considers two, non-opposing perspectives on these questions: category-based stereotyping and feature-based stereotyping.Less
In this line of his landmark speech, Martn Luther King Jr expressed the troubling reality faced by thousands of people who are judged by the “color of their skin” instead of by more valid attributes. His reference to a specific, seemingly innocuous physical feature makes the injustice of the situation all the more apparent. Why would anyone use skin color as a basis for serious judgment? What, if anything, makes this specific feature so special? This chapter considers two, non-opposing perspectives on these questions: category-based stereotyping and feature-based stereotyping.
L. Ayu Saraswati
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824836641
- eISBN:
- 9780824871161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824836641.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter investigates what kind of whiteness is being marketed in transnational women's magazines in post-Soeharto (post-1998) Indonesia. Using discourse and semiotic analyses, it decodes the ...
More
This chapter investigates what kind of whiteness is being marketed in transnational women's magazines in post-Soeharto (post-1998) Indonesia. Using discourse and semiotic analyses, it decodes the meanings of various “signs” in whitening advertisements published in the Indonesian edition of Cosmopolitan magazine and tanning advertisements in the U.S. edition during the years 2006–2008. It argues that desire for “whiteness” is not the same as desire for “Caucasian whiteness” and cites a shift from Indonesian white beauty toward what it calls “cosmopolitan whiteness.” It considers how “cosmopolitan whiteness” is being marketed through Cosmopolitan's ads for skin-whitening products and highlights the “affective” construction of gender, race, and skin color.Less
This chapter investigates what kind of whiteness is being marketed in transnational women's magazines in post-Soeharto (post-1998) Indonesia. Using discourse and semiotic analyses, it decodes the meanings of various “signs” in whitening advertisements published in the Indonesian edition of Cosmopolitan magazine and tanning advertisements in the U.S. edition during the years 2006–2008. It argues that desire for “whiteness” is not the same as desire for “Caucasian whiteness” and cites a shift from Indonesian white beauty toward what it calls “cosmopolitan whiteness.” It considers how “cosmopolitan whiteness” is being marketed through Cosmopolitan's ads for skin-whitening products and highlights the “affective” construction of gender, race, and skin color.
Daisy Deomampo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479804214
- eISBN:
- 9781479849574
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479804214.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Chapter 3 analyzes constructions of skin color and race in intended parents’ narratives about the experience of selecting an egg donor. This chapter shows how egg donors of different backgrounds are ...
More
Chapter 3 analyzes constructions of skin color and race in intended parents’ narratives about the experience of selecting an egg donor. This chapter shows how egg donors of different backgrounds are differently valued, bolstering social hierarchies. At the same time, the chapter describes the diversity of ways that intended parents approach race and skin tone when choosing an egg donor. In contrast to dominant assumptions that intended parents seek donors who match their own ethnic backgrounds in order to reproduce whiteness, the process of egg donation represented an opportunity for many intended parents to subvert racial hierarchies by selecting Indian donors with darker skin tones. The chapter argues that such narratives, however, misrecognize donor egg selection as an opening to challenge racial hierarchies; instead, such decisions rely on essentialized notions of race and beauty that exoticize Indian women and reflect new articulations of biological race.Less
Chapter 3 analyzes constructions of skin color and race in intended parents’ narratives about the experience of selecting an egg donor. This chapter shows how egg donors of different backgrounds are differently valued, bolstering social hierarchies. At the same time, the chapter describes the diversity of ways that intended parents approach race and skin tone when choosing an egg donor. In contrast to dominant assumptions that intended parents seek donors who match their own ethnic backgrounds in order to reproduce whiteness, the process of egg donation represented an opportunity for many intended parents to subvert racial hierarchies by selecting Indian donors with darker skin tones. The chapter argues that such narratives, however, misrecognize donor egg selection as an opening to challenge racial hierarchies; instead, such decisions rely on essentialized notions of race and beauty that exoticize Indian women and reflect new articulations of biological race.
L. Ayu Saraswati
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824836641
- eISBN:
- 9780824871161
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824836641.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter introduces the theoretical concept of rasa and uses it to construct a historical account of skin color and gender hierarchies in Java prior to European colonization (late ninth and early ...
More
This chapter introduces the theoretical concept of rasa and uses it to construct a historical account of skin color and gender hierarchies in Java prior to European colonization (late ninth and early tenth centuries). Through a reading of the Old Javanese adaptation of the Indian epic poem Ramayana, the chapter stresses the importance of color hierarchy even before European colonization and explains how it was articulated through affective vocabularies attached to notions of beauty. It argues that the conflation between lightness and light skin as desirable and darkness and dark skin as undesirable is registered through rasa. It shows that in Ramayana, women with light skin color are represented with positive rasa as beautiful and desirable, whereas people with dark skin color are depicted with negative rasa as undesirable and often terrifying. The chapter concludes by distinguishing rasa from affect and emotion.Less
This chapter introduces the theoretical concept of rasa and uses it to construct a historical account of skin color and gender hierarchies in Java prior to European colonization (late ninth and early tenth centuries). Through a reading of the Old Javanese adaptation of the Indian epic poem Ramayana, the chapter stresses the importance of color hierarchy even before European colonization and explains how it was articulated through affective vocabularies attached to notions of beauty. It argues that the conflation between lightness and light skin as desirable and darkness and dark skin as undesirable is registered through rasa. It shows that in Ramayana, women with light skin color are represented with positive rasa as beautiful and desirable, whereas people with dark skin color are depicted with negative rasa as undesirable and often terrifying. The chapter concludes by distinguishing rasa from affect and emotion.
Radhika Parameswaran
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814737309
- eISBN:
- 9780814744680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814737309.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter provides a critical treatment of whiteness against a transnational web of visual technologies as they permeate the fabric of everyday life in India. The tide in the semiotics of skin ...
More
This chapter provides a critical treatment of whiteness against a transnational web of visual technologies as they permeate the fabric of everyday life in India. The tide in the semiotics of skin color in India's visual economy of mobile and cross-cutting magazine, television, Internet, and film images oscillate between the binaristic opposing poles of “whiteness/lightness/fairness is generally positive” and “blackness/darkness/brownness is generally negative.” In globalizing India's shifting ethnoscapes, fluctuations in skin color are also tied to the greater rate of traffic in white and Indian female bodies that are moving across borders through new channels of mediated culture. Finally, the cultural politics of the epidermis in India also haunts the visual field of postcolonial national state politics, an arena that presents opportunities for future work.Less
This chapter provides a critical treatment of whiteness against a transnational web of visual technologies as they permeate the fabric of everyday life in India. The tide in the semiotics of skin color in India's visual economy of mobile and cross-cutting magazine, television, Internet, and film images oscillate between the binaristic opposing poles of “whiteness/lightness/fairness is generally positive” and “blackness/darkness/brownness is generally negative.” In globalizing India's shifting ethnoscapes, fluctuations in skin color are also tied to the greater rate of traffic in white and Indian female bodies that are moving across borders through new channels of mediated culture. Finally, the cultural politics of the epidermis in India also haunts the visual field of postcolonial national state politics, an arena that presents opportunities for future work.
Robert J. Sternberg, Elena L. Grigorenko, Kenneth K. Kidd, and Steven E. Stemler
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231156974
- eISBN:
- 9780231527699
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231156974.003.0010
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on intelligence, race, and genetics. It evaluates the claims made about the alleged relationships between race and ...
More
This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on intelligence, race, and genetics. It evaluates the claims made about the alleged relationships between race and intelligence through the lens of genetics, arguing that race and intelligence does not fit into the genetic pattern. Race is a social construct that not based on biology and only emerges as a result of a person's desire to classify and categorize, while intelligence is too difficult to define and measure. However, there are studies that correlate race and intelligence using proxies intended to intimate a biological basis for each construct. One set of studies attempts to give biological credence to the concept of race by equating it with skin color. Another set attempts to justify the reification of race by arguing that race is an important factor in customizing medical diagnoses and treatments.Less
This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on intelligence, race, and genetics. It evaluates the claims made about the alleged relationships between race and intelligence through the lens of genetics, arguing that race and intelligence does not fit into the genetic pattern. Race is a social construct that not based on biology and only emerges as a result of a person's desire to classify and categorize, while intelligence is too difficult to define and measure. However, there are studies that correlate race and intelligence using proxies intended to intimate a biological basis for each construct. One set of studies attempts to give biological credence to the concept of race by equating it with skin color. Another set attempts to justify the reification of race by arguing that race is an important factor in customizing medical diagnoses and treatments.
Elizabeth M. Smith-Pryor
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832684
- eISBN:
- 9781469605906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807894170_smith-pryor.12
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter focuses on the determination of racial ancestry in the 1920s. Popular notions about how one could determine racial ancestry began to shift away from an explanatory language based on ...
More
This chapter focuses on the determination of racial ancestry in the 1920s. Popular notions about how one could determine racial ancestry began to shift away from an explanatory language based on blood to a system that understood race based on vision. The greater use of vision to ascertain race reflected the growing fears of the white population at a time when distinctions between the black and white races began to decline. The varying strategies adopted to determine Alice's skin color and ancestry speak to the uncertainties about both the source and the meaning of race in this era.Less
This chapter focuses on the determination of racial ancestry in the 1920s. Popular notions about how one could determine racial ancestry began to shift away from an explanatory language based on blood to a system that understood race based on vision. The greater use of vision to ascertain race reflected the growing fears of the white population at a time when distinctions between the black and white races began to decline. The varying strategies adopted to determine Alice's skin color and ancestry speak to the uncertainties about both the source and the meaning of race in this era.
Mechthild Fend
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719087967
- eISBN:
- 9781526120724
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087967.003.0008
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
The epilogue focuses on Charles Blanc's 1867 Grammaire des arts du dessin, a normative theory of the visual arts. The author takes the traditional view that drawing unites all art forms and is ...
More
The epilogue focuses on Charles Blanc's 1867 Grammaire des arts du dessin, a normative theory of the visual arts. The author takes the traditional view that drawing unites all art forms and is superior to colour, but the way he establishes this point is very much a product of his time as many of his arguments are biologically grounded. He argues for the supremacy of drawing by associating it with the allegedly natural hierarchy between the genders, and for the supremacy of white skin by linking it to drawing. What is more, discussing the then newly theorised principles of optical mixture he connects the non-mixing of colours in divisionist painterly practices with the segregation of humans of different colours and makes a biologist plea for political segregationism. Arguing that the superiority of humans is expressed in the nakedness and monochromy of their skin, Blanc divides between skin and the colourful materiality of flesh which he confines to the inner body. Summarising the argument of the book, the epilogue concludes that early modern notions of flesh tones do not draw such a line between skin and flesh, and open up the possibility of seeing any body as being fluid and multicoloured.Less
The epilogue focuses on Charles Blanc's 1867 Grammaire des arts du dessin, a normative theory of the visual arts. The author takes the traditional view that drawing unites all art forms and is superior to colour, but the way he establishes this point is very much a product of his time as many of his arguments are biologically grounded. He argues for the supremacy of drawing by associating it with the allegedly natural hierarchy between the genders, and for the supremacy of white skin by linking it to drawing. What is more, discussing the then newly theorised principles of optical mixture he connects the non-mixing of colours in divisionist painterly practices with the segregation of humans of different colours and makes a biologist plea for political segregationism. Arguing that the superiority of humans is expressed in the nakedness and monochromy of their skin, Blanc divides between skin and the colourful materiality of flesh which he confines to the inner body. Summarising the argument of the book, the epilogue concludes that early modern notions of flesh tones do not draw such a line between skin and flesh, and open up the possibility of seeing any body as being fluid and multicoloured.
