Miscegenation is the process generated from the mix between different ethnicities. Mixed human beings have physical characteristics typical of various "races".
The individual who is born from ethnic miscegenation (which can still be called miscegenation or melting) It is considered mixed race.
From a global point of view, miscegenation is considered the union between the three main ethnic groups existing on the planet: white, black and yellow (indigenous peoples would be classified in this last group).
Currently, it is estimated that a large part of the population has some degree of miscegenation, especially due to the phenomenon of globalization, which made it easier for people to move between different points of the Earth.
Race or ethnicity?
Although they are often used interchangeably, the terms race and ethnicity do not have the same meaning, so they should not be confused. Race refers to a group when biological characteristics are considered. The Human Genome Project has already proven that genetically all human beings belong to the same race.
The term ethnicity, on the other hand, refers to a certain group of people who have phenotypic and cultural characteristics in common.
Thus, the correct term that should be used to refer to the physical and cultural differences between human beings is ethnicity, with "race" being a disused word to refer to these groups.
Learn more about meanings of race and ethnicity.
Miscegenation in Brazil
The miscegenation of the Brazilian people is quite evident and intense, mainly due to the presence of different ethnic groups that colonized and resided in the country, as Europeans, Asians, Africans and indigenous people, who already inhabited Brazil before the arrival of the Portuguese.
In fact, the process of miscegenation in Brazil began in the 16th century, with the arrival of the Portuguese in Brazilian lands. It is thanks to the phenomenon of miscegenation that Brazil is known for its cultural diversity, as the people, formed by so many mixtures, preserve the heritage of several different ethnic groups.
According to the classification of "races" in Brazil, created by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) and applied from the 1971 census, there are five categories: white, black, yellow, brown and indigenous.
According to IBGE:
"Five categories were considered for the person to be classified as to the characteristic color or race: white, black, yellow (this category includes the person who declared himself/herself to be of the yellow race), brown (including in this category the person who declared himself/herself a mulatto, cabocla, cafuza, mameluca or mestiza in black with a person of another color or race) and indigenous (considering in this category the person who declared himself/herself indigenous or Indian).”
How to recognize and classify an ethnicity?
According to the information provided by IBGE, there are three ways of identifying a particular ethnicity: self-attribution, heteroclassification and biological identification.
At self-attribution or self-identification, the individual, when answering the IBGE census questionnaire, identifies to which ethnicity he feels he belongs.
At heteroclassification or heteroidentification, recognition of ethnicity takes place through similarity, when another person indicates which ethnic group the individual belongs to. This classification takes place by identifying typical physical characteristics of the ethnicity.
already the biological identification it is done through DNA analysis, which establishes which ethnic group a person belongs to.
know more about Breed and ethnicity and also see the meaning of IBGE.
