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Cultural Anthropology question: Distinguish between the taxonomic-unit and cultural -construct concepts of rac

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i have a final tomrorow and i don't know what to answer to this is! can someone please help!

Distinguish between the taxonomic-unit and cultural -construct concepts of race.

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  1. I gues you meant race.

    taxonomic unit is something similar to a species, a biologically defined identifiable unit. Species are defined by the fact two species can not interbreed.

    cultural construct is a unit which may be thought to have a biological basis but does not have a biological basis. It is basically a constructed culturally.

    to give a very crude example, the three major races identified by earlier anthropologists - negrito, mongoloid and australoids- were thought be biological units, having significantly distinct stocks from each other.

    Anthropoloigsts have long proved that race as a concept, does not hold much scientific value and has done more harm than good. Race is thought by many to be an essentially cultural construct, with almost none biological basis to it (see for example, Ashley Montague, Boas, and more recently Stephen Jay Gould).

    Yet 'race' continues to hold ground in many anthropology courses, to my utter surprise!!!

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