Chapter 5.doc

Chapter 5 ? Identity: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, ad Sexuality The vast majority of brick-makers are me, aided by machines (98% in one company) Gender (defined by geographers Mona Domosh and Joni Seager): A culture?s assumptions about the difference between men and women; their characters and roles they play in society, and what they represent. In many societies in peripheral countries, families see the role of young women as one of financial support for their families. Thus, many women migrate from rural areas and travel to central industrial locales. Wages are sent home for schooling. Social relations create boxes, and rarely do the social relations that create gendered divisions of labor focus only on gender. What is identity, and how are identities constructed? Identities are marketed through cars, clothing, memberships, jewelry, and houses, but our identity is much more personal. Identity (defined by Gillian Rose): how we make sense of ourselves. We construct our identities through experiences, emotions, connections, and rejections. Identities are fluid, constantly changing, shifting, becoming. The strategy of Identify against, we first define the ?other? and then we define ourselves as ?not the other? Race: how identities are built. Biologically, all people are part of the same race, the human race. Humans fall into different categories of race. Racism (in Benedict Anderson?s argument): differences in socioeconomic classes fueled the concept of superiority attached to race. (Ex. color of skin, classification) Differences likely result from a long history of adaptation to different environments. Unlike a local culture or ethnicity to which we may choose to belong, ?race? is an identity that is more often assigned. B. F. explains ?in many respects, racial identity is not a self-consciously constructed collection of characteristics, but a condition which is imposed by a set of external social and historical constraints.? Definitions of races in the U.S. have historically focused on dividing the country into ?white? and ?non-white.? Residential Segregation: Degree to which two or more groups live separately from one another, in different parts of the urban environment. Four least residentially segregated metropolis areas were all in Oklahoma. The least residentially segregated cities for Asians/Pacific Islanders are Naussau-Suffolk (New York) and Baltimore, Maryland (also the least residentially segregated city for Hispanics/Latinos). Invasion and succession: New immigrants to a city often move to areas occupied by older immigrant groups. How do places affect identity, and how can we see identities in places? Sense of place: developing a sense of place is infusing a place ?with meaning and feeling? Ethnicity: Identity stems from the notion that people are closely bounded, even related, in a certain place over time. Ethnic comes from the ancient Greek word ethnos, meaning ?people? or ?nation? Space: social relations stretched out Place: particular articulations of those social relations as they have come together, over time, in that particular location. Gendered: places designed for women or for men. Queer theory: Theories that explain and inform our understanding of sexuality and space. How do power relationships subjugate certain groups of people? Power relationships (assumptions and structures about who is in control, who has power over others) affect identities directly, and power relationships also affect cultural landscapes?determining what is seen and what is not. Dowry deaths: Thousands of girls in India are still betrothed through arranged marriages and that in some extreme cases, disputes over the price to be paid by the bride?s family to the groom?s father (the dowry) have led to the death of the bride. Barrioization [barrio, meaning neighborhood]: What Curtis calls the change in the neighborhoods whereby the Hispanic population jumped from 4 percent in 1960 to over 90 percent Hispanic in 2008 ethnic succession of the neighbourhood from white to Hispanic Migration flows, birth rates, and child mortality rates affect the gender composition of cities, states, and regions. In some areas, one sex is dominant over the other.