Contemporary Interpretations of the Concept of Race

Abstract

In my paper, I examine the changes that have taken place in different approaches to race through an analysis of race-related concepts in the international literature. I therefore set out to describe the definitions of race that have emerged in the academic world and the debate surrounding the concept. A deeper study of this problem is essential if we are to understand what motivates the persistence of race, that is, what is at stake in the application and use of the concept. The growing sociological and anthropological literature on the geneticisation and molecularisation of race indicates that a kind of biological realism or essentialism is being revived. This is why I think it is important to explain, through a few examples, the arguments of contemporary European constructivist critical race theorists who take an anti-essentialist stance and maintain a contextualised understanding of race.