Así son los cubanos: narratives of race and ancestry

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive on 2022-02-02 17:55Z by Steven

Así son los cubanos: narratives of race and ancestry

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Volume 44, 2021 – Issue 11
pages 2135-2153
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1823447

Elizabeth Obregón, Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology
University of Illinois, Chicago

This paper will focus on the ways in which conceptualizations of race are (re)produced through Cuban genealogical narratives in Western Cuba. Ethnographic interviews collected among eleven Cubans in Havana were collected during summer 2017 and are described here. My ethnographic data argue that despite Cuba’s colourblind racial democracy – where race “does not matter” because all races are “treated equally” – the familial narratives of ancestry actively reinforce the complex racial landscape and illustrates the superiority of whiteness that belie this ideal. These same family narratives ultimately highlight the various ways interlocutors negotiate racial self-identities and narrate family ancestry across lingering gendered and racial hierarchies.

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“I wish I didn’t look so White”: examining contested racial identities in second-generation Black–White Multiracials

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Justice, United States on 2021-05-06 14:36Z by Steven

“I wish I didn’t look so White”: examining contested racial identities in second-generation Black–White Multiracials

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online: 2020-11-05
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1841256

Haley Pilgrim
Department of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Multiracials are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. However, we are still learning how the children of Multiracial individuals understand their racial identity. I interviewed 30 “second-generation” Black–White Multiracials, who have one Black–White parent and one White parent, on the meanings they assign to racial categories, phenotypes, and their racial identity. Many cite reflected appraisals as non-Black for why they do not identify as Black, but orientation toward Blackness differs from those who identify as Multiracial. Between these two groups of Multiracials, I find distinctive responses to racial contestation consistent with differing stigmatization of racial groups, salience of racial identity, and identification as a person of colour. These findings indicate differing responses to similarly reflected appraisals and highlight the need to investigate Multiracials of multiple generational statuses to understand the varying meanings of a Multiracial identity to Multiracials.

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Still the tragic mulatto? Manufacturing multiracialization in magazine media, 1961–2011

Posted in Articles, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2021-02-13 23:01Z by Steven

Still the tragic mulatto? Manufacturing multiracialization in magazine media, 1961–2011

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Volume 42, 2019 – Issue 4: Special Issue: The mechanisms of racialization beyond the black/white binary
pages 645-665
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1380212

Sheena K. Gardner, Assistant Research Professor
Mississippi State University
Social Research Center

Matthew W. Hughey, Professor of Sociology
University of Connecticut

On the heels of the 2000 US Census allowance of multiracial categorization and with rising mainstream discussion of multiracial heritage, questions over the meanings of multiracialism are quite prevalent. Scholars have highlighted how mainstream-oriented and black-oriented media structure (multi)racial conflicts, concepts, and categories. However, sociological analysis has neither examined qualitative differences and nuance among multiracial-oriented media sources nor specified the precise qualitative themes, frames, and discourse of that representation across time and media format. A content analysis of mainstream-, black-, and multiracial-oriented magazine articles demonstrates how varied media sources differently drew upon, resisted, and reproduced distinct understandings of multiracialism to reproduce the dominance of the “Tragic Mulatto” trope. The implications for this study illuminate the import of multiracial self-esteem, the intersection of conservative political movements and black interest groups in the fight for and against a multiracial movement, and the paradoxical role of anti-black stereotypes in multiracial representations.

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Black/white mixed-race experiences of race and racism in Poland

Posted in Articles, Europe, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science on 2020-02-27 02:22Z by Steven

Black/white mixed-race experiences of race and racism in Poland

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online 2020-02-25
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1729390

Bolaji Balogun
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Presidential Fellow in Ethinicty and Inequalities
University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Whilst literature on race and ethnicity in Poland is growing, it has yet to fully grapple with the diverse range of racial identities in Poland. Simultaneously, despite calls for Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) to develop into a more global field, there remains a paucity of literature focusing on racial mixedness in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and no substantive consideration of the lived experiences of mixed-race people in Poland. Taking these absences as our entry point, we bring Critical Mixed Race Studies into conversation with pieces of literature on race and ethnicity in Poland in order to extend the theoretical and empirical terrain of both fields. Drawing upon data from interviews conducted with black/white mixed-race people in Poland, this article casts light on the lives of this nascent group, and specifically on their experiences of racism and exclusion in a society imagined as homogenously white.

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Doing hair, doing race: the influence of hairstyle on racial perception across the US

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Social Science, United States, Women on 2019-12-12 16:12Z by Steven

Doing hair, doing race: the influence of hairstyle on racial perception across the US

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online: 2019-12-11
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1700296

Jennifer Patrice Sims, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Alabama, Huntsville

Whitney Laster Pirtle, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of California, Merced

Iris Johnson-Arnold, Associate Professor
Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology
Tennessee State University

Publication Cover

Hair is an easily changeable “racial marker” feature. Although growing interdisciplinary research suggests that hairstyle influences how one is racially perceived, extant methodological practices in racial perception research reduce external validity. This study introduces new experimental and analytical procedures to test the effect of hairstyle on racial perception across racial contexts. Over 1,000 participants from primarily white, black and multiracial test sites racially categorized a diverse group of women from matched pairs of pictures in which the women have different hairstyles. Results from multilevel regression show that altering hairstyle significantly alters how participants perceive mixed-race women, Latinas, most black and some white women and that this varies by racial context with perceptions of race being less swayed by hairstyle in the multiracial context. Our research thus demonstrates that doing hair is a context-dependent part of “doing race” that has theoretical, methodological, and legal implications.

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“You think you’re Black?” Exploring Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection

Posted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United Kingdom on 2019-08-06 21:54Z by Steven

“You think you’re Black?” Exploring Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online 2019-08-05
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1642503

Karis Campion, Research Associate
Department of Sociology
University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Utilizing interview data with thirty-seven British people of Mixed White and Black Caribbean heritage, this paper draws upon the concept of “horizontal hostility” to describe how Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection impact on self-perceptions and expressed ethnic identities. In demonstrating the effects of being excluded from a relatable collective Black identity, the paper argues that horizontal hostility is critical in the project of theorizing mixed-race. Experiences of horizontal hostility represent significant turning points in mixed-race lives as they can prompt reconsiderations of mixed-race positionings within the broader Black imagined space. Beyond the benefits that horizontal hostility offers to mixed-race studies, it provides insights into conceptualisations of Blackness – as a collective racial identity, community and politics. The article unpacks how, when and why its boundaries are policed, adding to debates relating to the future formation and maintenance of ethnic group identities and categories more generally.

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That little Mexican part of me: race, place and transnationalism among U.S. African-descent Mexicans

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Latino Studies, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2019-07-17 16:50Z by Steven

That little Mexican part of me: race, place and transnationalism among U.S. African-descent Mexicans

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online: 2019-06-05
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1626016

Laura A. Lewis, Professor of Anthropology in Modern Languages and Linguistics
University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

This article uses semi-structured interviews and participant observation to examine transnationalism and notions of race among first- and second-generation young adult Afro-descended Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States. I suggest that transnationally inflected understandings of race encourage both generations to privilege place-based over ancestry-based racial identities. For the first generation, which is mostly undocumented, place is part of their socialization as Mexicans and a way to forge a more secure sense of belonging in the United States. For members of the second generation, place resolves their position as an anomalous “race” not recognized in the United States.

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The school experiences of mixed-race white and black Caribbean children in England

Posted in Articles, Media Archive, Teaching Resources, United Kingdom on 2019-07-16 00:26Z by Steven

The school experiences of mixed-race white and black Caribbean children in England

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online 2018-10-01
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2018.1519586

Kirstin Lewis
Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London, London
School of Education, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom

Feyisa Demie, Honorary Fellow
School of Education
University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom

This research aims to explore the school experiences of mixed white/ black Caribbean children in English schools. The overarching findings of this research confirm that although the mixed-race population as a whole is achieving above the national average, the mixed white/ black Caribbean group is consistently the lowest performing mixed-race group in the country. Views of pupils, their parents and teachers in two London secondary schools suggest various reasons why mixed white/ black Caribbean pupils might continue to be the lowest performing mixed group in the country. These included experiences of marginalization and invisibility in school life, the low expectations that teachers held about them, the lack of knowledge about how to support them at school and how all these issues were exacerbated by the friendship groups they mixed in. This research paper discusses these critical factors in detail and their implications for policy and further research.

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From white to what? MENA and Iranian American non-white reflected race

Posted in Articles, Census/Demographics, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2019-04-05 18:28Z by Steven

From white to what? MENA and Iranian American non-white reflected race

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online 2019-04-01
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1599130

Neda Maghbouleh, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Toronto

Whereas instruments like the US Census classify Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Americans as white, racial formation-informed research has established that this population holds an ambiguous relationship with whiteness. I draw on theories of the self and cognition to introduce reflected race as an underexplored dimension of MENA racialization. Interviews with 84 Iranian Americans demonstrate how group members perceive they are appraised as distinct from and, in some ways, subordinate to a hegemonic US white norm. Following initial illegibility (“what?”) in racial appraisal, respondents perceive a classificatory splitting from whiteness and/or lumping with similarly racialized others. In other words, they micro-interactionally move from “white” to “what?” and ultimately, to an uncertain but deeply felt sense non-white reflected race. By turning attention to social-psychological-informed phenomenon like reflected race, researchers can make more full use of racialization and racial formation as the dynamic, multi-level concepts they were originally theorized to be.

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Black mixed-race men’s perceptions and experiences of the police

Posted in Articles, Law, Media Archive, Social Justice, United Kingdom on 2019-03-15 18:10Z by Steven

Black mixed-race men’s perceptions and experiences of the police

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Volume 42, 2019 – Issue 2
pages 198-215
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1417618

Lisa J. Long, Senior Lecturer in Criminology
Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom

Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Senior Lecturer in Education Studies
Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom

For black people in Britain, policing has long been a site of oppression and resistance. Whilst substantive change has been lacking, institutional racism within the British police has at least been acknowledged. Concomitantly, Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) has shown that much of the race and ethnicity literature ignores the experiences of mixed-race populations. In this paper, we utilize two studies to consider black mixed-race men’s perceptions and experience of policing in Britain. In total, we draw upon interviews with 17 black mixed-race men. Whilst we recognize that their experiences are often homogenized with blackness, in the context of police contact, we show that many black mixed-race men believe they are seen as part of a black monolith. We conclude that, in this context, mixedness does not bring about clearly differentiated experiences from that of black men. The absence of clear particularities to mixedness is of significance to CMRS.

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