Anthropologists throughout the history of the discipline have utilized race as a mode of inquiry. In early anthropology, racial and ethnic differences became the focal point of anthropological studies due to a perceived inherent or biological dissimilarity between people of separate races. In turn, these interpretations of racial difference were used to justify and explain systemic racialized institutions and practices such as orientalism, colonialism, and imperialism. The aftereffects of anthropology’s preoccupation with race are still apparent even today as many contemporary anthropological studies examine people of color in the global south. Understandings of race have evolved from biologically determined, fundamental truths to a conceptualization of how and why racial …show more content…
Attempts to distinguish based upon racial difference largely failed because racial categories cannot easily boil down to a handful of essentialized traits and terms, because there will always be variation among individuals. Consequently, Boas suggests that a more salient investigation of race would consider the conditions under which racial definitions emerge. Scientific discussion of the nineteenth century, for example, fixated upon the racial determination of superiority and inferiority. Subsequently, anthropologists circulated knowledge that supported hegemonic notions of the day that helped justify colonial and imperial subjugations. Boas further posits that cultural variations—emblematic of racial differences—became a site of racial inquiry in anthropology (29). There exists an unfounded conjecture that dissimilarities in culture among people of differing race are primarily caused by inherent