Among the multiple categories of identity, race stands out as one of the clearest examples of how its meaning can vary based on time, location, and political-economic interests, having a clear pliable character, rather than a strict, fixed one. Considering the two main perceptions about identity, Cruz (2000) demonstrates that the primordialist view of identity defines it as a fixed characteristic, tied to markers such as territorial, ethnic, racial and linguistic commonalities (p. 279). In this sense, a primordialist would defend that race is an inherited feature that determines certain attributes that are exclusive to each race and that cannot be changed. In other words, there would be significant and immutable differences between people of different races. One of the main arguments of primordialists is the assumption of genetic differences, which in the past fueled eugenics movements, and in our days promote theories such as the one presented by the political scientist Charles Murray in his 1994-book The Bell Curve. Constructivists, on the other hand, defend that identity only relates to “civic and political commonalities,” and can have its concept changed over place and time (Cruz 2000, p. 279). A constructivist, then, would define race as a concept shaped along history based on cultural, social, economic and political interests. As exposed by Brubaker and Cooper (2000), some historians argue that racial boundaries were frequently redefined in the United States. As an example, they mention the increase in the political inclusion of black slaves motivated by Virginian planter elites’ political interests against the British during the early years of the colonies (p. 29).
There are at least two reasons for questioning the validity of a primordialist view of race: the greater quantity and complexity of problems involving the perspective, and the large amount of evidence to refute it. Although arbitrariness might surround the constructivist approach to race, as exposed by Brubaker and Cooper (2000), such as erroneous “[…] presumptions about what it is that is constructed,” or the misleading representation of societies as a “[…] mosaic of monochrome identity groups,” the implications of such issues are less chaotic (pp. 30-31). One of the problems with the idea of fixed racial identity relates to the inability experienced by most people to track their ancestry. People who were adopted, or families that lost track of their historical documents, for instance, would either face enormous challenges to form their racial identity or would never be able to adapt to the places where they live. Another problem is the impossibility of defining an individual’s self-perception based on a fixed notion of race. An example is the famous case of Homer Plessy, a Louisiana shoemaker who was “classified” as an octoroon – 1/8th African American – and got arrested for riding in a “whites only” railroad car during segregation times (Britannica). By a fixed racial identity Plessy could still be considered “7/8ths white,” but how could the exact separation of his white and black identity ever be determined in terms of his self-perception? In fact, this period was marked by the idea that races were fixed and determined a person’s value. As exposed by Stuart Hall, a primordialist discourse gives margin to beliefs such as racism, which consists in assuming that differences in skin color are directly linked to abilities, values, and outcomes (Race: The Floating Signifier, 1997). Even though not all primordialists defend this idea, racists argue that the unchangeable feature of race implied the superiority of one race over others. However, there is multiple evidence demonstrating how the perception about race is variable. It is not difficult to notice such variances when traveling to different countries. People’s conception of skin color and facial traits are not linearly shared cross-culturally. A person categorized as white in Brazil might not be considered the best representation of the race by someone in Scandinavian countries. In this sense, there seems to be more evidence against a primordialist view of racial identity than otherwise. On top of that, the issues generated by such perspective have been more threatening to pluralism and diversity than those promoted by the constructivist one.
References
Britannica Encyclopaedia. Homer Plessy. [online]. Available at:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Homer-Plessy [Accessed 29 Sept. 2018].
Cruz, C. (2000). Identity and Persuasion. World Politics, 52, pp.275-312.
Race: The Floating Signifier. (1997). [film] Directed by S. Jhally. USA.
Brubaker, R. and Cooper, F. (2000). Beyond "identity." Theory and Society, 29, pp.1-47.