Race, Nature and Culture: An Anthropological Perspective

Since the controversial scientific race theories of the 1930s, anthropologists have generally avoided directly addressing the issue of race, viewing it as a social construct. Challenging this tradition, Peter Wade proposes that anthropologists can in fact play an important role in the study of race.

Wade is critical of contemporary theoretical studies of race formulated within the contexts of colonial history, sociology and cultural studies. Instead he argues for a new direction; one which...