The multiple dimensions of race

Abstract

Increasing numbers of people in the United States and beyond experience "race" not as a single, consistent identity but as a number of conflicting dimensions. This article distinguishes the multiple dimensions of the concept of race, including racial identity, selfclassification, observed race, reflected race, phenotype, and racial ancestry. With the word "race" used as a proxy for each of these dimensions, much of our scholarship and public discourse is actually comparing across several distinct, albeit correlated, variables. Yet which dimension of race is used can significantly influence findings of racial inequality. I synthesize scholarship on the multiple dimensions of race, and situate in this framework distinctive literatures on colorism and genetic ancestry inference. I also map the relationship between the multidimensionality of race and processes of racial fluidity and racial boundary change. KEYWORDS Self-classification; interviewer-classification; skin color; phenotype; ancestry; race components This article synthesizes a growing body of scholarship that distinguishes and analyzes the multiple dimensions of the concept of race as experienced by individuals and as measured in research. Increasing numbers of people in the United States and beyond experience "race" not as a single, consistent identity but as a number of conflicting dimensions. These may include, for instance, how an individual self-identifies her race, how she is perceived by others, how she believes she is perceived by others, what she checks among the limited options on the census or other surveys, her skin color and other aspects of her racial appearance, and her racial ancestry. These dimensions influence one another, but are not necessarily the same.

Características sociodemográficas de indígenas nos censos brasileiros de 2000 e 2010: uma abordagem comparativa

“…The interrelations between demographic factors and sociopolitical dimensions influencing the color or race profile are a broader issue in Brazil and in other countries, and are not limited to indigenous minorities 18,19 . Miranda 20 argues that recent variations in the proportions of black and brown individuals in Brazil, with an upward trend from 2000 to 2010, may be due to the implementation of affirmative action policies with a racial focus in recent years (see also Telles 19 and Francis & TannuriPianto 21,22 ).…”

Social Influence on Observed Race

“…This is because individuals classify others' race partly based on contextual, social, and interactional cues (Roth 2016). The attraction-similarity hypothesis (Morry 2005) suggests that people often perceive their friends as similar to themselves.…”

“…At the same time, racial classification by others-or observed race-is the race others believe the individual belongs to. Roth (2016) provides a more detailed overview of these and other dimensions, including previous research on multidimensionality. In our article, we will mostly focus on theories and empirical studies explicitly addressing relationships and discrepancies between racial self-identifications (both identities and self-classifications) and observed race.…”

“…Following the topology of Roth (2016), racial selfclassification is the category (or categories) one publicly identifies with in a given context (e.g., ticks it in a questionnaire), whereas racial identity is a more complex psychological concept, expressing how individuals think of themselves in relation to race. Altogether, racial self-classification and racial identity constitute the private and public side of racial self-identification.…”

“…Focusing on multidimensionality, observed race (one's race as classified by others) and its differences from racial self-classification have received significant attention (see Roth 2016).…”