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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 6 page research paper/essay that explores the debates between essentialist and instrumentalist conceptualizations in regards to classes and nations and race (Dufour). Basically, essentialism is the belief that specific categories of entities will share a specific set of characteristics, which can be viewed as their “essence.” Contemporary proponents of identity politics oppose essentialism and consider that ethnicity, rather than consisting of fixed traits is a social construct. This examination of literature explores the various ways in which race is articulated, specifically focusing on the differences between those perspectives that are essentialist in nature and those that are instrumentalist, i.e. constructivist, in nature. Bibliography lists 12 sources.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khartrac.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
share a specific set of characteristics, which can be viewed as their "essence." Within society, essentialist positions on race, gender, and towards other categories of people have viewed these groups
as having fixed traits, which have served to support the social status quo in regards to these groups, i.e., blacks as racially inferior to whites; women as intellectually inferior to
men; etc. While these extreme views have been discarded, there are essentialist aspects of thinking that continue in the present era. Contemporary proponents of identity politics oppose essentialism and
consider that ethnicity, rather than consisting of fixed traits is a social construct. The following examination of literature explores the various ways in which race is articulated, specifically focusing on
the differences between those perspectives that are essentialist in nature and those that are instrumentalist, i.e. constructivist, in nature. The debate between these views essentially involves whether or not subjective
claims to ethnic identity derive from the "affective potency of primordial attachments" or from the "instrumental manipulation of culture in service of collective political and economic interests" (Bentley 25). While
Bentley uses the term "primordial," his text clearly indicates a concept that is synonymous with the essentialist position. Both positions endeavor to find an objective criteria for evaluating subjective identity
claims; both accept that "cultural features and identity claims" fail to adhere to any standard of predictability (Bentley 25). Where the positions differ is in regards to the characteristics of
change that each position identifies as being critical to ethnicity. Instrumentalist models of race generally maintain that changing political and economic factors disrupt "traditional material orders" and, in doing so,
create new groupings of people who share material interests (Bentley 25). In other words, people with shared interests will coalesce into groups that will pursue these common interests (Bentley 25).
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