Alex Kassianides Due Date: 16th May SOC1001F: Tutorial Group #30 Tutorial 4

Word Count: 300

4a) Your Sociology Study Group has asked you to open its next meeting with an explanation of what sociologists mean when they say race is socially constructed. What are the key points you would tell the group?

In order to understand race as a social construction one must go back in history to the emergence of the mdern idea of race. Race was primarilly based on the scientific discourses of lineage, evolution and origin. However it is extremely important to understand that race became precisely connected to hierarchichically structured models of humanity and culture. Examples of these lie in the study and works of the eighteenth century taxonomists whereby a Khoi San women from africa, ma,ed Saartjie Baartman was transported to England because of her bodily, ethnic and culutural differences where she was subject to much jeering and study. She was displayed as if an animal and eventually dissected, and her body was used to pove the idea of race as a natural type or kind. This study assumed that European superiority and domiance and in doing so classified Baartmans race as inferior due to her physical and cultural differences. This idea reinforced the idea that visible and invisible differences amongst different groups of people reflected typological differences that were unchanging and natural. Another example of how race is socially constructed is made clear in the prejudicial ways in which people of colour were treated in South Africa under Apartheid merely based on their colour. Afrikaans citizens were fearful and felt threatened by African jobseekers in the cities and created a policy of apartness which classified South Africans into general hierarchy of types according to their race.

4b) Your Sociology Study Group has asked you to open its next meeting with an explanation of what sociologists mean when they say that as consumers we are neither dopes nor creative heroes. What are the key points you would tell the group?
With the emergence of the age of consumerism, two contradictory viewpoints are dopted by differing sociologists when regarding consumption. One claims that consumers are innocent bystanders in the face of the constant onslaught of producers, advertisers and marketing companies whilst the other more optomisitc approach adopts the thought process that consumers have the ability to fight this onslaught and strike back to some extent by resisiting conformity and promoting innovativeness and individuality. With the age of consumerism came the inability for individuals to achieve selfrealization due to the bombardment of the media and the effect that the mass-media culture has had on society. We are constantly enticed into buying new products, not out of necessity, but rather the urge to keep up with specific trend in fashion and consumerism. We often fall into the trap of wanting to be associated with a new popular product because of the effect advertising has on the public, however, a more positive approach suggests how it could be made possible to resist this urge and not race down the pathway of consumerism in a frenzied hurry. If this is achieved, consumers will be able to escape the trap set by advertizing and only purchase products out of necessity.