The race-ethnicity distinction is not a culture-versus-nature divide

Evidence

Yet it seems that, upon closer scrutiny, the belief in a deep divide between race and ethnicity that justifies a dualistic procedure runs against the problem that the distinction between ethnicity and race is simply not a distinction between culture and nature. Few if any scholars manage to sustain a completely dualistic procedure, and even fewer advocate abstaining from any comparisons between “racial” and “ethnic” groups. What seems to be the case then is that in a society in which ethnic differentiation along racial lines has historical depth and is supported by governmental bureaucracies, certain ethnic conflicts will come to be understood as “racial.” — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 723

Some contemporary scholars would like to consider “race” a special “objective” category that cannot be meaningfully discussed as a part of “ethnicity.” Yet it seems that, upon closer scrutiny, the belief in a deep divide between race and ethnicity that justifies a dualistic procedure runs against the problem that the distinction between ethnicity and race is simply not a distinction between culture and nature. … What seems to be the case then is that in a society in which ethnic differentiation along racial lines has historical depth and is supported by governmental bureaucracies, certain ethnic conflicts will come to be understood as “racial.” — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 723

Categorization

• DEFINE: Deconstructs the commonly-assumed race/nature vs ethnicity/culture binary.
• XREF: Connects to debates about constructivism vs essentialism in race theory. — connects to: Boas refuted race-thinking by grounding immigrant differences in environment — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 725; Heterogeneity does not disqualify a group from holding racial identity. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 61; Whiteness passes unclassified in nature while blackness is pre-classified as natural — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 529 (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 723