Identity, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality

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Identity, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality

• What is ethnicity?
• The sharing of common cultural tradition(s)
• What traditions? Language, religion, etc.
• Physical characteristics?
• Euphemism for race
• Focus may vary between groups
• Jewish religion
• Amish folk culture and religion
• Germans/Americans language

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Identity

• Identity how we make sense of ourselves
  Rose
• How do we establish identities? - we construct
  our identities through experiences, emotions
  connections, and rejections.
• An identity is a snapshot of who we are at a
  point in time
• Identities are fluid, constantly changing,
  shifting, becoming.
• Identities vary across scales, and affect each
  other across scales.
• Identities are also constructed by identifying
  against (defining the other and then defining
  ourselves as not that.)

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Race a categorization of humans based on skin
color and other physical characteristics. Racial
categories are social and political constructions
because they are based on ideas that some
biological differences are more important than
others.
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Ethnicity

• Race a biological ancestry
• But biologically we are all the same
• What is race and what is ethnicity
• Asian
• Black
• Hispanic
• White
• Genetic transmission of traits
• Skin color, hair type, facial features, shape of
  head/eyes

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Gender

• Gender a cultures assumptions about the
  differences between men and women their
  characters, the roles they play in society,
  what they represent.
• - Domosh and Seager

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• Do we identify more with race or ethnicity?
• Ethnicity is important to a groups (cultures)
  survival
• Universities Ethnic studies not race studies

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What is important to geographers?

• Distribution
• Migration/diffusion
• Ethnicity vs nationalism
• Ethnic conflicts/Power struggles
• Ethnic cleansing

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Distribution of ethnic groups

• From different scales
• World, country, state, urban area
• Different ethnic groups may be represented more
  in urban vs rural areas
• World
• Kurds
• Palestinians
• Country
• Canada (French)
• Former Yugoslavia
• Guest workers
• Palestinians and Israelis
• State
• Florida
• City
• Ethnic mosaic in many large urban areas

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Estimated Percentage of U.S. Population by Race
and Ethnicity until 2050 In 2000, the U.S.
Census Bureau calculated race and Hispanic origin
separately. Estimates are that by 2050, the
White, non-Hispanic population will no longer be
the majority.
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Highest Rate of Residential Segregation for
African Americans

• Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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Migration/Diffusion

• African American experience
• Slave trade
• Support agriculture in the South
• Movements to northern urban areas after labor
  demands reduced
• Look to cities for employment
• Detroit, Chicago
• Diffusion as function of segregation
• Chain migration
• Pull of families and extended families

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Ethnicity/Nationalism

• Ethnicity an attachment to cultural traditions
• Nationalism an attachment to a particular
  country (political entity)
• Which is stronger?
• Why an attachment to a country?
• Self-determination
• Rise of nation-states
• Counties aligned closely with an ethnicity
• Japan, Denmark, Israel
• Nation-States

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Multiethnic Examples

• Belgium
• Dutch Flemish
• French Walloons
• Russia
• European
• Asian
• Former Yugoslavia
• Serbs, Croats, Albanian, Hungarian, Bosnian

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Examples-Continued

• Czechoslovakia
• Velvet revolution
• Czech Republic and Slovakia
• Czech and Slovak
• United Kingdom
• Scots, Welch, N. Ireland
• Kurds in Turkey about 20
• Ukraine- Orange revolution
• Ukrainians and Russians

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Examples - Continued

• Canada
• British and French
• United States
• ?
• African states much the same
• You get the idea Very multiethnic world which
  leads to nationalistic pressures

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Ethnic Conflicts

• Ethiopia/Eritrea
• India/Pakistan (Kashmir)
• Sudan
• West Africa
• Senegal
• Sierra Leone
• Rwanda and Burundi
• Lebanon
• Pakistan
• Kashmir
• Turkey Kurds
• Sri Lanka
• Sinhalese and Tamils
• Indonesia
• From west (Aceh) to east (East Timor)
• Palestinian and Israeli conflict

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Why?

• One group feels oppressed
• Political power
• Minority with few rights
• Ethnicity and religion
• Control of resources
• Territorial disputes
• Loss of a controlling figure (Tito)

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Ethnic conflicts turn to

• Ethnocentrism one ethnic group feels better
  (superior) to another
• Ethnic cleansing
• Nazi Germany
• Former Yugoslavia
• Balkanization breakdown of state due to ethnic
  conflicts
• Kosovo (Albanians inside Yugoslavia)
• Irredentism

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• Africa
• Borders do not match ethnic
• Transition region between Sub-Saharan African and
  the area south of the Sahara
• Legacy of European colonization

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Nationalism

• Tie between state and nation strengthens
• Loyalty and devotion to a state
• Flag
• Sports
• Olympics
• Anthems
• Heroes
• Historical events

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Sense of Place

• We infuse places with meaning and feeling, with
  memories and emotions.
• Our sense of place becomes part of our identity
  and our identity affects the ways we define and
  experience place.

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Sexuality and Space

• Where people with a shared identity cluster, how
  do they create a space for themselves?

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• Power relationships affect identity and mark the
  cultural landscape

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Power Relationships

• Power Relationships
• assumptions and structures about who is in
  control, who has power over others.
• How are power relationships reflected in
  cultural landscapes (the visible human imprint on
  the landscape)?

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Through power relationships, People create
places where they limit the access of other
peoples.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
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How do power relationships factor into how people
are counted?

• The U.S. Census undercounts
• - minority populations
• - the homeless
• The Gross National Income (GNI)
• does not count
• - unpaid work of women in the household
• - work done by rural women in poorer countries

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Women in Subsaharan Africa- populate much of
the rural areas, as men migrate to cities for
work.- produce 70 of the regions food. - only
a small percentage of women have legal title to
their land.
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• Dowry Deaths in India- murders of brides (often
  by burning) when a dispute arises over a dowry.
  Difficult to legislate away the power
  relationships that lead to dowry deaths female
  infanticide is also tied to the disempowerment of
  women

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Terms

• Identity
• Race
• Gender
• Ethnic Cleansing
• Ethnicity
• Multi-ethnic state
• Nationalism