Tag: racism

I saw the following statements posted on Sauvons l’Université. I have, of course, no personal knowledge of the facts of the situation, but it’s a culturally interesting scenario:

Academics solicited for participation in a “debate” about “national identity” (nov-dec. 2009)

Mail addressed to a teacher-researcher at a university in Nantes

Monsieur,
[…]
In the framework of the debate over national identity, on Friday December 11th, 2009, at 6:30pm, the prefect plans to welcome Monsieur Jean-François SIRINELLI, professor of contemporary history at SciencesPo and director of the SciencesPo history center.

The prefect, Jean DAUBIGNY, will preside at the meeting. Monsieur SIRINELLI will speak on the theme of “National and Republican Identity.” His comments will be followed by those of Monsieur MENARD, regional delegate for research. The debate will then be opened to all.

The prefect would like to see the audience composed of high school and university students. He would deeply like to see university students and teachers in letters and languages participating in the event.

He would be grateful if you could please distribute this invitation to students and teachers. You will find the invitation attached.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me at …

very best wishes, […]
Continue reading “Race, French national identity, and disciplinary politics” →

anthro phd production by race

In demographic terms, anthropology in the United States continues to be dominated by white Americans. Consider this graph of the racial distribution of anthropology doctorates over the last twelve years (incidentally, the NSF had no data for 1999, so there should really be a gap year inserted here, but I trust you can all manage without one). The enormous top segment of this graph shows the very large fraction of new U.S. anthropology doctorates that go to white Americans. This decade, on average, 65.7% of new anthro phds were white. And yet we also observe that this dominance is falling, slowly, over the years; you can see that here visually. 75% of new anthropology doctorates went to whites in 1995 but only 63.6% in 2007. And other minority groups have grown, slightly, as demonstrated by the widening of those bands that indicate black Americans, Hispanics, and Asians (which includes Pacific Islanders in the NSF-supplied data I use). But racial equity is far from attained.

Continue reading “Race and white dominance in American anthropology” →