Political Classification: Rethinking Ethnicity and Race from the Perspectives of the Colonized

Keywords

ethnicity/race, political classification , critical liberalism

Objectives

During the first ten years of the twenty-first century the global spread of liberalism seems to have promised an emergence of more equitable social relations in many countries; however, also produced are ideas derived from liberalism itself, reproducing in the same locations the structural inequality: political stances based on color-blindness and reverse discrimination often support status quo rather than social change.These ideas would deprive the discriminated of the ground for political contestation. At this current historical conjuncture fraught with contradictions this collaborative project aims, drawing both historical sources and ethnographic data, to think critically through liberalism from the perspectives of the dominated. By turning the gaze of conventional anthropological investigation from the colonial Other to the dominant settlers, it seeks to problematize/visualize “whiteness,” a category of classification previously unproblematized/unseen, as political classification: “whiteness,” in its broadest sense, might include such local terms as “Wajin [Shamo]” of the Aynu, “Naichaa (Yamato’nchu)” of Okinawa, “Haole” of the Kanaka Maori, and “Kaxlan” of the Guatemalan Maya.

Research Results

The history of cultural anthropology is replete with examples of efforts made to lead through interaction with others in fieldwork aimed at reassessing the social and historical inertia that have allowed perspectives from this field to be treated as natural science. The coordinator for this joint study group surmised that the history of this field in the 21st century has been shifting toward the establishment of a stance with potential for more-reflective, open-minded perspectives coupled with an ethical approach to history.
　
This joint study group was conceived with the idea of engaging in an in-depth discussion of several issues to explore the directions that cultural anthropology has followed in the past and will take in the future. For example, the intrinsic historicity of cultural anthropology as an academic field that has not been questioned to date will be brought into focus whenever cultural anthropologists engaged in fieldwork find themselves under scrutiny and accordingly experience discomfort. The concept of historical relativism has without question served as an indispensable ethical foundation for the pursuit of cultural anthropology in the 21st century. A reconsideration of the concepts of race and ethnicity from the perspectives of people that are subject to classification was a subtopic for consideration by our joint study group. That reassessment yielded an idea that may be useful to people subject to classification: namely, that race and ethnicity are political — and hence, flexible — designations rather than the natural scientific or cultural classifications they are widely accepted to be. Among other topics, our study group also deepened its discussion on the future of artifacts collected for museum exhibits and the obligation to aid the resurgence of dying languages.
　
The concept of historical relativism is open to the hope that new possibilities will be explored in the future. However, that hope is inseparable from reflection on the past. The (selectively and critically) “inherited” legacies (both positive and negative) of the 20th century can be expected to provide a starting point for the discovery of new possibilities for cultural anthropology in the 21st century.
　
At times, other members of our study group expressed intense discomfort with the basic views presented by the research coordinator, as outlined above, or sought to have the concept of classification consistently treated as an analytical concept, that is, as a concept lacking historicity. However, it should be pointed out that we will be increasingly unable to ignore the ethical dimension of academic disciplines including cultural anthropology in the 21st century. The reason is that the past demands re-examination. The discussions of our study group repeatedly reaffirmed the obligation to meet this demand.