Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction. Controversies and continuities in race and ethnic relations theory
- 1 Intersecting strands in the theorisation of race and ethnic relations
- 2 Epistemological assumptions in the study of racial differentiation
- 3 The role of class analysis in the study of race relations – a Weberian perspective
- 4 Varieties of Marxist conceptions of ‘race’, class and the state: a critical analysis
- 5 Class concepts, class struggle and racism
- 6 A political analysis of local struggles for racial equality
- 7 Ethnicity and Third World development: political and academic contexts
- 8 Social anthropological models of inter-ethnic relations
- 9 Pluralism, race and ethnicity in selected African countries
- 10 Ethnicity and the boundary process in context
- 11 Ethnicity and the sociobiology debate
- 12 Rational choice theory and the study of race and ethnic relations
- 13 The ‘Chicago School’ of American sociology, symbolic interactionism, and race relations theory
- 14 The operationalisation of identity theory in racial and ethnic relations
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Intersecting strands in the theorisation of race and ethnic relations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction. Controversies and continuities in race and ethnic relations theory
- 1 Intersecting strands in the theorisation of race and ethnic relations
- 2 Epistemological assumptions in the study of racial differentiation
- 3 The role of class analysis in the study of race relations – a Weberian perspective
- 4 Varieties of Marxist conceptions of ‘race’, class and the state: a critical analysis
- 5 Class concepts, class struggle and racism
- 6 A political analysis of local struggles for racial equality
- 7 Ethnicity and Third World development: political and academic contexts
- 8 Social anthropological models of inter-ethnic relations
- 9 Pluralism, race and ethnicity in selected African countries
- 10 Ethnicity and the boundary process in context
- 11 Ethnicity and the sociobiology debate
- 12 Rational choice theory and the study of race and ethnic relations
- 13 The ‘Chicago School’ of American sociology, symbolic interactionism, and race relations theory
- 14 The operationalisation of identity theory in racial and ethnic relations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Social science should continue to dream of grand theory – the remote equivalent of Einstein's search for a unified field theory – but should never forget, if I can press the metaphor, that dreams only hint at reality through symbols of hidden and disguised meaning. The complexity of racial and ethnic relations requires that we examine them from several perspectives. Our dream should be to combine those perspectives, studying their mutual contradictions, identifying their gaps, and examining the effects of their interactions. Only in that way can their value for more general theory and their transferability to other sets of problems be tested.
Some scholars, well represented in this volume, are not comfortable with complex, multivariable explanations of the phenomena of racial and ethnic relations. A few have sought one basic reductionist principle. To Marxists, it is the system of command–obey relationships, particularly in capitalist societies, that is fundamental. Some psychologists emphasise the structure of individual attitudes and identities. Recently van den Berghe has developed what he believes to be a parsimonious theory based on sociobiology: ‘ethnic and racial sentiments are extensions of kinship sentiments’ (van den Berghe, 1981, 80). They should therefore express the sociobiological principle of inclusive fitness.
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- Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations , pp. 20 - 41Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986
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