How Anthropology Define Race

The Issue of Race
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The Issue of Race
From the anthropological perspective, race entails a social construct or taxonomic unit that categorizes individuals into distinct groups based on their behavioral and physical differences (Ifekwunigwe et al., 2017). In that light, people who belong to a specific race have common ancestry and share characteristics that develop over time. Anthropologists believe that racial categories are usually culturally and socially defined concepts. That is why nations have distinct ways in which they classify their citizens. For instance, in the United States of America (USA), race is used to mean a group of individuals with common physical characteristics that are associated with geographical locations. That is why some people are identified as Asian Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans.
Notably, it is difficult to use biological characteristics to categorize individuals into races due to their genetic variations. Anthropologists revealed that humans have unique genetic and physical characteristics, including the shape of their eyes, hair texture, and skin color. These i...