Overvalued and Under Defined; The Essentialism of Race in Regards to Identity

Abstract

This project is about the importance attributed to social concepts that are used as identifiers; specifically race, ethnicity, and nationality, and the fluidity of these concepts. This paper explores the usage of these concepts in multiple communities in order to compare and contrast the value given to these identifiers, as well as how they are used within each community. Through this exploration it is shown that every community values these concepts at varying levels, the meaning and applications of these concepts are easily given, changed, or stripped away proving they are social concepts that fluidly change to suit their environment, and are not essential.