race/ethnicity

[liverpoolfc]

"Malaysian Students Network-regardless of race, ethnicity or religion."

race/ethnicity-aren't they the same thing?

seems kinda redundant. unless there is a difference that I don't know of. please enlighten.

[phantom]

of coz there is.

u can be an indian by race and a tamilian by ethinicity.or an indian by race or a malayalee by ethinicity.

[cheongsoon]

Race is strictly speaking a biological definition while ethnicty is socially constructed (although many social scientists will say that race is also socially contrcuted).

So people of the same race can be of different ethnicities. The starkest examples are the Irish, the Hutus and the Tutsis of Rwanda and so on.

But in many cases and countries (like Malaysia), we use it interchangeably.

cheers,
c.s.

[liverpoolfc]

Cheong Soon,

That's great. I am not a social science person, good to know the difference.

I was wondering whether bangsa(ethnicity?)=Malaysia, kaum(race?)= Melayu/Cina/India, but in that case, all our bangsa will be the same, right?

[topdog]

i think bangsa can also mean "nationality". when people say "bangsa malaysia" i think they are really referring to "malaysian citizens", not a malaysian race or ethnicity, since there's no such thing.

disclaimer: not a social scientist

Race is strictly speaking a biological definition while ethnicty is socially constructed (although many social scientists will say that race is also socially contrcuted).


Actually, there is no scientific basis for race. There used to be scientists trying to find genes identifying people of a certain group (aka race), but now that we have sequenced the human DNA, we know that our DNA variation is very small. So small, that the orang utans in Malaysia have a larger DNA variation than the humans around the world. We might think that orang utans look the same, but the orang utans will think we humans all look the same!

Of course, there are certain physical traits that might differentiate people of say black skin versus white skin, but ever wonder why some Malays might look like Chinese, or vice versa.

[theT]

i had to write a paper on race, culture and multiculturalism a while ago. darn, this topic came a li'l late

[theT]

by the way, I think when malaysia tried to use the term bangsa malaysia it's more like implementing the idea of E Plubribus Unum or Out of Many, One.

it's a good move but a bit cliche' for me.

[chenchow]

theT, would you mind share your paper with us, or may be contribute your paper to ReMag? That would broaden our horizon.