Discrimination in the context of Contact hypothesis

Colonialism is the practice of extending and maintaining political, social, economic, and cultural domination over a territory and its people by another people in pursuit of interests defined in an often distant metropole, who also claim superiority. While frequently an imperialist project, colonialism functions through differentiating between the targeted land and people, and that of the colonizers (a critical component of colonization). Rather than annexation, this typically culminates in organizing the colonized into colonies separate to the colonizers' metropole. Colonialism sometimes deepens by developing settler colonialism, whereby settlers from one or multiple colonizing metropoles occupy a territory with the intention of partially or completely supplanting the existing indigenous peoples, possibly amounting to genocide.

Colonialism monopolizes power by understanding conquered land and people to be inferior, based on beliefs of entitlement and superiority, justified with beliefs of having a civilizing mission to cultivate land and life, historically often rooted in the belief of a Christian mission. These beliefs and the actual colonization establish a so-called coloniality, which keeps the colonized socio-economically othered and subaltern through modern biopolitics of sexuality, gender, race, disability and class, among others, resulting in intersectional violence and discrimination.

Labour economics is the subfield of economics concerned with the study of labour as an input to economic production. Broadly, it surveys labor markets and the ecomic decisions of agents participating in such markets. Topics of study include the labour supply of workers and how it is affected by variables such as age, education, gender and childbearing, as well as the labour demand by firms searching for different forms of labor as an input in the production of goods and services. In addition, labour economics studies, amognst others, phenomena such as schooling, human capital, inequality, unemployment, trade unions, discrimination, technological change, and public policies related to labor markets, such as unemployment benefits, pensions and health care.

Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race or ethnicity over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different ethnic background. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities. There have been attempts to legitimize racist beliefs through scientific means, such as scientific racism, which have been overwhelmingly shown to be unfounded. In terms of political systems (e.g. apartheid) that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices or laws, racist ideology may include associated social aspects such as nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, and supremacism.

While the concepts of race and ethnicity are considered to be separate in contemporary social science, the two terms have a long history of equivalence in popular usage and older social science literature. "Ethnicity" is often used in a sense close to one traditionally attributed to "race", the division of human groups based on qualities assumed to be essential or innate to the group (e.g., shared ancestry or shared behavior). Racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of whether these differences are described as racial. According to the United Nations's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, there is no distinction between the discrimination resulting from either basis of race or ethnicity, but that the terms do have different meanings that may not always coincide. It further concludes that superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust, and dangerous. The convention also declared that there is no justification for racial discrimination, anywhere, in theory or in practice.

Ableism (/ˈeɪbəlɪzəm/; also known as ablism, disablism (British English), anapirophobia, anapirism, and disability discrimination) is discrimination and social prejudice against physically or mentally disabled people. Ableism characterizes people as they are defined by their disabilities and also classifies disabled people as being inferior to non-disabled people. On this basis, people are assigned or denied certain perceived abilities, skills, or character orientations. Ableism perpetuates false ideas about individuals and groups with disabilities.

There are stereotypes which are either associated with disability in general, or they are associated with specific impairments or chronic health conditions (e.g., the presumption that all disabled people want to be cured, the false belief that wheelchair users also have an intellectual disability, or the assumption that blind people have some special form of insight). These stereotypes, in turn, serve as a justification for discriminatory practices, and reinforce discriminatory attitudes and behaviors toward people who are disabled. Labeling affects people when it limits their options for action or changes their identity.

Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, physical appearance, and age. These factors can lead to both empowerment and oppression.

Intersectionality arose in reaction to both white feminism and the then male-dominated Black liberation movement, citing the "interlocking oppressions" of racism, sexism and heteronormativity. It broadens the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, which largely focused on the experiences of women who were white, cisgender, and middle-class, to include the different experiences of women of color, poor women, immigrant women, and other groups, and aims to separate itself from white feminism by acknowledging women's differing experiences and identities.

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the state.

Civil rights generally include ensuring peoples' physical and mental integrity, life, and safety, protection from discrimination, the right to privacy, the freedom of thought, speech, religion, press, assembly, and movement.

The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Belfast Agreement (Irish: Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or Comhaontú Bhéal Feirste; Ulster Scots: Guid Friday Greeance or Bilfawst Greeance) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethnic and national conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. It is made up of the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties, and the British–Irish Agreement between the British and Irish governments. Northern Ireland's present devolved system of government is based on the agreement.

Issues relating to sovereignty, governance, discrimination, military and paramilitary groups, justice and policing were central to the agreement. It restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of "power sharing" and it included acceptance of the principle of consent, commitment to civil and political rights, cultural parity of esteem, police reform, paramilitary disarmament and early release of paramilitary prisoners, followed by demilitarisation. The agreement also created a number of institutions between Northern Ireland and Ireland ("North–South"), and between Ireland and the United Kingdom ("East–West").

Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—is the application of one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of using the standards of the particular culture involved. Since this judgment is often negative, some people also use the term to refer to the belief that one's culture is superior to, or more correct or normal than, all others—especially regarding the distinctions that define each ethnicity's cultural identity, such as language, behavior, customs, and religion. In common usage, it can also simply mean any culturally biased judgment. For example, ethnocentrism can be seen in the common portrayals of the Global South and the Global North.

Ethnocentrism is sometimes related to racism, stereotyping, discrimination, or xenophobia. However, the term "ethnocentrism" does not necessarily involve a negative view of the others' race or indicate a negative connotation. The opposite of ethnocentrism is cultural relativism, a guiding philosophy stating that the best way to understand a different culture is through their perspective rather than judging them from the subjective viewpoints shaped by one's own cultural standards.

Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.

Feminist theory often focuses on analyzing gender inequality. Themes often explored in feminist theory include discrimination, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping, art history and contemporary art, and aesthetics.

Equality before the law, known as equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, legal equality, or legal egalitarianism, is the principle that all people must be equally protected by the law. The principle requires a systematic rule of law that observes due process to provide equal justice, and requires equal protection ensuring that no individual nor group of individuals be privileged over others by the law. Also called the principle of isonomy, it arises from various philosophical questions concerning equality, fairness and justice. Equality before the law is one of the basic principles of some definitions of liberalism. The principle of equality before the law is incompatible with and does not exist within systems incorporating legal slavery, servitude, colonialism, or monarchy.

Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states: "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law". Thus, it states that everyone must be treated equally under the law regardless of race, gender, color, ethnicity, religion, disability, or other characteristics, without privilege, discrimination or bias. The general guarantee of equality is provided by most of the world's national constitutions, but specific implementations of this guarantee vary. For example, while many constitutions guarantee equality regardless of race, only a few mention the right to equality regardless of nationality.

A minority religion is a religion held by a minority of the population of state or which is otherwise politically marginalized. Minority religions may be subject to stigma or discrimination. An example of a stigma is using the term cult with its extremely negative connotations for certain new religious movements. People who belong to a minority religion may be subject to discrimination and prejudice, especially when the religious differences correlate with ethnic differences.

Laws are made in some countries to protect the rights of religious minorities, such as protecting the minorities' culture and to promote harmony with the majority.

The gender binary (also known as gender binarism) is the classification of gender into two distinct forms of masculine and feminine, whether by social system, cultural belief, or both simultaneously. Most cultures use a gender binary, having two genders (boys/men and girls/women).

In this binary model, gender and sexuality may be assumed by default to align with one's sex assigned at birth. This may include certain expectations of how one dresses themselves, one's behavior, sexual orientation, names or pronouns, which restroom one uses, and other qualities. For example, when a male is born, gender binarism may assume that the male will be masculine in appearance, have masculine character traits and behaviors, as well as having a heterosexual attraction to females. These expectations may reinforce negative attitudes, biases, and discrimination towards people who display expressions of gender variance or nonconformity or those whose gender identity is incongruent with their birth sex.

Economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Economic, social and cultural rights are recognised and protected in international and regional human rights instruments. Member states have a legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights and are expected to take "progressive action" towards their fulfilment.

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights recognises a number of economic, social and cultural rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is the primary international legal source of economic, social and cultural rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women recognises and protects many of the economic, social and cultural rights recognised in the ICESCR in relation to children and women. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination prohibits discrimination on the basis of racial or ethnic origin in relation to a number of economic, social and cultural rights. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also prohibits all discrimination on the basis of the disability including refusal of the reasonable accommodation relating to full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.

Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person. In the legal sense, these are behaviors that are disturbing, upsetting, or threatening to a person. Some harassment evolves from discriminatory grounds, and has the effect of nullifying a person's rights or impairing a person from utilising their rights.

When harassing behaviors become repetitive, it is defined as bullying. The continuity or repetitiveness and the aspect of distressing, alarming or threatening may distinguish it from insult. It also constitutes a tactic of coercive control, which may be deployed by an abuser. Harassment is a specific form of discrimination, and occurs when a person is the victim of unwanted intimidating, offensive, or humiliating behavior.