Identity: Race, Culture,

Gender, & Sexuality

Review
Ch. 7
What's Your Identity - https://youtu.be/HMq7QkR4fGI
Identity Big Ideas
 Identity
 Ethnicity
 Distribution

 Ethnic Islands, Ethnic neighborhoods, Ethnic Conflict

 Race
 Segregation

 Gender
 Gendered Space
 Power Relationships
 Sexuality
Identity
 How we make sense of ourselves
 We construct our own identities
 Vary across scales, & affect others across scales.
 Are fluid, constantly changing, shifting, & becoming
 We work towards an identity that meshes with who and
where we are at any given point in time.
 We also define others
 Identifyingagainst – we define the “other” and define
ourselves as “not the other”
What is Ethnicity?
 Often confused with culture
 Includes culture, but also encompasses many other ideas
 Based on how people choose to identify themselves
A social group that defines itself based on factors such as
common culture traits or a common history, race, or geographic
region.
Ethnicity
 Groups define what constitutes membership
 Several theories exist why humans organize themselves
into ethnic groups.
 Some believe people are born with an instinctive sense of
ethnic identity.
 Pervasiveness of ethnocentrism – attitude of cultural
superiority
 Ethnicity is socially constructed. Ethnic identity is a result of
the interaction among different groups of people.
Ethnic Neighborhoods
 At the smallest geographic scale, we can identify ethnic
neighborhoods in many towns and cities.
 Areas with concentrated populations of a particular ethnic
group
 Can change their ethnic identity over time
 Ethnic groups can be locked into a distinct geographic
area
 Historically, European Jews were restricted to certain areas –
ghettos
 Reflected the mistrust & ethnic hatred, but can provide a
degree of protection
 Spatial reasons for segregation
 New laws can be passed
 Segregated groups can choose to live together rather than
assimilating or moving
Ethnic distribution - US
 US – every 10 years, Census conducts an enumeration of the
population
 Survey identifies three main ethnicities
 Asian Americans – from countries in Asia
 African Americans – identify as a group with cultural origins in Africa
 Hispanic – from Spanish-speaking countries

 Ethnic groups may live in different regions and particular

communities
 Hispanics – clustered in Southwest
 African-Americans – clustered in Southeast
 Asian Americans – clustered in the West
Ethnic Neighborhoods
 African American & Hispanic are highly clustered
in urban areas
 I.E.Chicago – neighborhoods in the south and west
side have extensive African American clusters
 I.E.Los Angeles – African Americans in south-central;
Hispanics in east; Asian Americans in south and west.
Ethnic Islands
 Larger than ethnic neighborhoods or ethnoburbs
 Areas of ethnic concentration in rural, or non-urban
areas
 Settled after the mid-19th century (US & Canada)
 Cluster migration – the settlement of a whole area en masse
by a particular ethnic group
 Chain migration also assisted in creation of ethnic islands.
Ethnic conflict - competition
 Ethnicity and nationality are similar concepts in that
membership is defined through shared cultural values
 Nationality differs from ethnicity in terms of legal standing.
 Defined specifically through shared experiences derived from
voting, obtaining a passport, and performing civic duties.
 Confusion between the two can lead to violent conflicts
 Lebanon – 60% Muslim & 40% Christian. Christians consider
themselves ethnically descended from the Ancient Phoenicians.
When government system was created Christians controlled a
majority.
 SriLanka – 3 principal ethnicities (Sinhalese, Tamil, and Moors)
dispute between Sinhalese and Tamil date back more than 2000
years. Tamil feel discriminated against by Sinhalese.
Ethnic conflict - division
 South Asia
 Pakistan & India – basis of separation was ethnicity
 India majority Hindu
 Pakistan majority Muslim

 Kurds
 Live in the Caucasus Mountains
 After WWI, created an independent state of Kurdistan
 1923 – became part of Turkey
 Today, the Kurds are split among several countries
 Turkey has tried repeatedly to suppress the Kurdish culture,
including outlawing their language.
Ethnic Conflict – Cleansing & Genocide
 Ethnic cleansing – process where a more powerful ethnic group forcibly
removes a less powerful one to create ethnically homogeneous region
 Removal of all members of less powerful ethnicity – men & women, young &
old.
 In recent years , carried out primarily in Europe and Africa

 Nazi Europe – deportation of Jews, Gypsies, & other undesirable groups

 Bosnia (1993) – ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian Muslims
 Serb & Croats fought to reunite the portions that they inhabited with Serbia and
Croatia, respectively.
 Kosovo (late 1990s)
 Partof Serbia, with ethnic Albanians compromised 90% of the population
 Serbs launched a 4 part campaign of ethnic cleansing
 By 1999, had forced 750,000 pf the 2million Albanians from their homes.
Ethnic Conflict – Cleansing & Genocide
(continued)
 Widespread in Africa because of the colonial
boundaries.
 Northeastern Africa – Sudan
 Arab nomads (Janjaweed) crushed Darfur’s black population
 480,000 killed; 2.8 million forced to live in refugee camps
 Somalia
 Several different ethnic groups vying for control
 Rwanda (1994) – Hutus vs. Tutsi
 Congo (late 1990s) – Hutus & Mayi Mayi vs. Tutsi
Race
 A categorization of humans based on skin color & other physical
characteristics
 Categories are social & political constructions because they are
based on ideas that some biological differences are more
important than others
 An identity that is often assigned.
Segregation
 Residential segregation
 Historically states, cities, & towns passed laws outlining
residential segregation
 Disallowing the migration of certain racial groups into
neighborhoods.
 Douglas Massey & Nancy Denton – defined as a degree to
which two or more groups live separately from one another,
in different parts of the urban environment.
 Most residentially segregated large metropolitan area for
African Americans is Milwaukee Wisconsin
 Second, Detroit Michigan
 Least segregated area is Orange County, California; followed
by San Jose, California.
Gender
 Refers to the societal norms and behaviors that are
expected of males or females.
 Geographers have increasingly looked at gender as a
source of identity.
 Believe that society shapes spaces based on socially
defined gender roles & that gender affects the way we
interact with the world.
 Gendered – places designed for women or for men.
 Gender roles are not the same in all countries.
Power Relationships
 Assumptions and structures about who is in control, who
has power over others.
 Affect identities directly and cultural landscapes
 Can also subjugate entire groups of people.
 Society enforces ideas about the ways people should behave
 Women in Sub-Saharan Africa
 Populate much of the rural areas.
 Society and governments work in conjunction to subjugate women
 Have heavy responsibilities and few rights.
 Produce estimate 70% of the regions food
India – Dowry Deaths
 Murders of brides (often by burning) when a dispute
arises over dowry
 Difficult to “legislate away” the power relationships that
lead to dowry deaths
 Women still remain disempowered in much of Indian
societies
 Female infanticide is also tied to the disempowerment of
women.
 Rescaling issues to the global scale has the potential to
draw attention to the social ills.
Sexuality
 Cultures decide what is “normal” sexually
 Glen Elder, Lawrence Knopp, Heidi Nast – argue that most social
science is written in a heteronormative way
 The default subject in the minds of the academics who write studies is
heterosexual, white, & male.
 Initial forays focused largely on where people with shared “identity”
cluster.
 Today, focusing not only on the distribution but also on the
theories behind the experiences, that explain and inform our
understanding of sexuality and space.