How Flexible is Our Understanding of Race and Racial Groups? A Three-Country Comparison on How People View Faces and Ascribe Racial Categories

Welcome to the Migration Seminar!

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Sayaka Osanami Törngren, Associate Professor/Senior Researcher, Malmö University

Attendance:

This is a hybrid seminar, you are welcome to connect via Zoom or join us at MIM seminar room, floor 9, Niagara, Nordenskiöldsgatan 1. To attend on campus, please gather by the reception area at 13.05.
If you have any questions, send an email mim@mau.se

Zoom

Will be available closer to the seminar date.

This study examines racial identity contestation that can occur across countries with different historical and contemporary contexts and relations to the perception of race and racial groups. A sample of college students in Japan, Sweden and the US were asked to assign racial categories to images of faces self-identified as Asian, Black, Latinx and White. Eye-tracking was used to examine if participants looked differently at faces of different racial groups.

The results showed greater identity contestation for Black and Latinx faces, while perceptions of Asian and White faces were more stable. Significant differences were found in perceived skin color, except for faces identified and ascribed as White. Additionally, there were differences in which parts of the face respondents focused on across countries, but not across racial groups. These findings provide insights into how phenotypes and visibility influence racial categorization in different contexts.

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