Racialism

Abstract

A category for differentiating the human species, race has gradually become a categorization for classifying and hierarchizing this increasingly diverse humanity. For a long time, race was conceived as a question of phenotype. More recently, and in social science literature in particular, indicators of racial identity and identification have been extended from the physiological to the social register. This mutation essentially reflects the evolution of the social sciences' view of race. Researchers realize that race cannot be seen. It is the product of the action and discourse of social actors. This process is reflected in sociological thinking, which emphasizes that race is a social construct.