Resisting the obfuscation of ‘race’: The importance of acknowledging the sociopolitical in normative data research

Abstract

The concept of ‘race’ is, rightly, associated with a myriad of discriminatory practices, including its ontological justification through the misuse of science, including that of Psychology. Seeking to distance the discipline and profession from such a problematic history, most psychologists have abandoned the notion of ‘race’ or, as in social psychology, have turned to the study of racism. Within the context of contemporary South Africa, now almost two decades beyond the legislated presence of apartheid, the abandonment of the term ‘race’ has been especially motivated. This article asks the apparently controversial question of whether such an urgent distancing is justified. This is especially salient given that it has resulted in some researchers turning to alternate terms such as ‘culture’ and ‘ethnicity’ as though the simple exchange of these seemingly apolitical terms for ‘race’ will allow the business of traditional research to continue as usual. However, we cannot escape the effects of the past so easily; these terms are themselves not innocent but are in a complex relationship with each other and society. Furthermore, ‘race’ is more than a word, and its consequences lie well entrenched via past and present ideologically based social and material engineering. In this article, I argue that we need to return, as an ethically and conceptually sound act, to the concept of ‘race’ in normative data research. This requires that we abandon naïve notions of scientific practice and acknowledge both the sociopolitical context in which we conduct scientific research and the historically embedded and contingent nature of the concepts we utilise in our work and the data we produce.