In Conversation with Maya Bahl on Different Definitions of Race
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/31
Maya Bahl is an editor and contributor to The Good Men Project with me. She has an interest and background in forensic anthropology. As it turns out, I hear the term race thrown into conversations in both conservative and progressive circles. At the same time, I wanted to know the more scientific definitions used by modern researchers including those in forensic anthropology. Then I asked Bahl about conducting an educational series. Here we are, part one.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You and I work together at The Good Men Project. Both as contributors and editors, we talked about various topics off the record. One arose based on interest in forensic anthropology for you.
The topic was race. However, the idea of “race” in common parlance, in sociological verbiage, and in forensic anthropology, for starters, differ from one another. What seems like the common definition of race?
Maya Bahl: I do firstly appreciate our friendship Scott, that we can have a friendly conversation at a whim and still grow as contributors and editors at The Good Men Project!
In anthropology, race is seen as the groupings of people by physical or social qualities and sociology sees it as a direct difference in biological traits in a group, but in the end the fact would remain that race at a basic level is the distinguishing of groups of people against an observed pre-conceived standard. This standard was a bit stricter, and racist in terminology, at the time when the fields of Anthropology and Sociology began — as the terms “Caucasoid”, “Negroid”, and Mongoloid” were only used in classifying peoples from Europe, Africa, and Asia. Since the 1800s on though, the world has thankfully been a lot more tolerant of its classifications — though we still have much work to do on this end!
Jacobsen: How does the common definition of race differ from the forensic anthropology definition of race?
Bahl: In forensics, certain physical qualities of a group or individual is important and necessary in then identifying them in getting the big picture, whether its immediate in law enforcement/criminal situations or ongoing as a student in the Forensics discipline. The common definition of race as a distinguisher of an individual or group is much more generalized, and as a result in my opinion, could be taken in the wrong way in different scenarios.
Jacobsen: How does this definition, even further, differ from the biological construct of species?
Bahl: Race and the Biological Construct of Species as ideas dovetails with each other, as both reflect on the assumptions that are set about a group or individual. In my opinion however, the biological construct of species is more assumed, so that there’s an expected outcome without any variance, whereas in race, variations could still be made.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Maya.
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