2024 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference Call for Proposals

Posted in Live Events, Media Archive, United States, Wanted/Research Requests/Call for Papers on 2023-08-24 18:13Z by Steven

2024 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference Call for Proposals

Critical Mixed Race Studies Association
2023-08-24

The biannual CMRSA conference, More than Betwixt and Between: Solidarity and Liberation in Beloved Communities will take place at The Ohio State University from June 13-15, 2024 in Columbus, Ohio and online.

The 2024 CMRSA Conference Planning Committee is excited to announce the theme for our 7th biennial Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, taking place both virtually and in person at The Ohio State University. We are hosting the hybrid conference during the week of Loving Day, the anniversary of the June 12, 1967 Loving v. Virginia U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the remaining laws banning interracial marriage. The conference will also take place during Columbus, Ohio’s Pride weekend. In this spirit, we can mobilize love as an act of radical resistance against white supremacy and forms of intersectional oppression. Within the structure of white supremacy, people identified or identifying as multiracial, mixed, or adopted have often been placed in “liminal spaces,” or forced to navigate between two or more worlds, identities, and places that are at times conflicting. It is for this reason that we center the idea of liminality, or “betwixt and between,” as a productive space from which to form solidarities and foster “beloved community.”

Within Critical Mixed Race Studies, “betwixt and between” holds meaning as the title of the longest running college course on multiracial identity, taught by the late G. Reginald Daniel (aka “Reg”), Professor of Sociology at University of California, Santa Barbara. The idea of multiracial people living “betwixt and between” was also debated in his groundbreaking text, More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order. While we wish to elevate and honor Reg’s life and scholarship by centering liminality, the framing can also be limiting. Therefore, we invite expansive thinking around questions of “betwixt and between” toward liberating our emerging field of study. We suggest this liberation could happen through solidarity and in or through beloved community. Borrowing from the late bell hooks in Killing Rage: Ending Racism, the “transformative power of love” can be wielded to cultivate cross-racial solidarities amongst ourselves as “beloved community [which] is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world. To form a beloved community we do not surrender ties to precious origins. We deepen those bondings by connecting them with an anti-racist struggle.”

As such, we welcome contemplations of liminality, love, community, and solidarities from the wider global community, community advocacy groups, artists, clinicians, practitioners and students supporting CMRS values. We therefore invite academics and non-academics to join the conference in order to empower one another and create a space for critical community, a sense of belonging, and critical dialogues. We will accept proposals for in-person and virtual modalities that include presentations, panels, performances, workshops, posters, visual and multimedia artworks, creative writing, and film showings that address the conference theme in a broad sense. Though proposals must include written text, presentation formats (typically framed as a “paper”) may be varied and diverse, including non-academic formats that are inclusive for all participants.

Click here to submit your proposed session(s) to this form. The deadline is Sunday, September 10, 2023 12:00AM PDT.

Have any additional questions about conference proposals of conference format? Please email us at cmrsmixedrace@gmail.com.

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‘It’s no disgrace to a colored girl to placer’: Sexual Commodification and Negotiation among Louisiana’s “Quadroons,” 1805-1860

Posted in Dissertations, History, Louisiana, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2015-08-22 01:13Z by Steven

‘It’s no disgrace to a colored girl to placer’: Sexual Commodification and Negotiation among Louisiana’s “Quadroons,” 1805-1860

Ohio State University
2014
284 pages

Noel Mellick Voltz

Doctor of Philosophy in History

In 1805, a New Orleans newspaper advertisement formally defined a new social institution, the infamous Quadroon Ball, in which prostitution and plaçage – a system of concubinage – converged. These balls, limited to white men and light-skinned, free “Quadroon” women, became an interracial rendezvous that provided evening entertainment and the possibility of forming sexual liaisons in exchange for financial “sponsorship.” At these balls, money and other forms of payment were exchanged for the connubial placement of free women of color with wealthy white men.

My dissertation entitled, “‘It’s no disgrace to a colored girl to placer’: Sexual Commodification and Negotiation Among Louisiana’s “Quadroons,” 1805-1860” seeks to understand how free women of color used sex across the colorline as a tool of negotiation in various spaces, like the Quadroon Ballroom, in antebellum Louisiana. More specifically, utilizing contemporary travelers’ journals, newspapers, poems, songs, letters, notarial and ecclesiastical records, court cases and other legal documents, my dissertation examines the sexual agency exerted by Louisiana’s free women of color in four sites of contestation – the body, the ballroom, the courtroom and the sanctuary.

Free women of color occupied a precarious position in antebellum Louisiana, often subjugated because of their race, gender and class; yet, this very positioning also afforded them a space in which to maneuver socially and economically. I contend that in these literal and figurative spaces, these women drew upon their sexuality to make strategic claims to their freedom advancing themselves socially and economically. This work pushes the boundaries of current scholarship engaging questions of sexual agency and trauma, race and identity, hegemonic myth and cultural reappropriation. In so doing, I build upon and push beyond historiographic discussions of the fetishizing and fanticizing gaze of white men and the overly simplistic dichotomous images of the hypersexualized jezebel and the totally victimized yet “respectable” free woman of color. Ultimately, this research illuminates a more nuanced understanding of black female agency in the antebellum era.

For more information, click here.

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Mixed Heritage Week 2015: AIDE Presents: “What Are You?” Exploring Biracial and Multiracial Identity (DICE)

Posted in Campus Life, Census/Demographics, Communications/Media Studies, Live Events, Media Archive, Social Science, United States on 2015-03-13 00:39Z by Steven

Mixed Heritage Week 2015: AIDE Presents: “What Are You?” Exploring Biracial and Multiracial Identity (DICE)

The Ohio State University
Student Life Multicultural Center, Alonso Family Room
3034 Ohio Union, 1739 N. High Street
Columbus, Ohio
Thursday, 2015-03-26, 20:00-21:00 EDT (Local Time)

This presentation will provide an overview of the changing racial demographics in the United States in relation to multiracial people. This will include identifying issues multiracial college students face, U.S. Census data, examples of multiracial microaggressions, and examples of the use of multiracial identity in modern pop culture…

For more information click here.

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The Racial Middle On-line Survey

Posted in Identity Development/Psychology, New Media, Social Science, United States, Wanted/Research Requests/Call for Papers on 2013-04-16 03:27Z by Steven

The Racial Middle On-line Survey

On behalf of Dr. Reanne Frank and Dr. Jennifer Jones of The Ohio State University, we invite you to take part in our research study, which concerns the development of racial identity among multiracials. There are no foreseeable significant direct benefits to you by participating in this research. However, we do hope that this research will provide you with the opportunity to engage in meaningful reflection about your identity. Furthermore, it is our hope that this research will benefit society in general by advancing our awareness and understanding of the experience of race in contemporary society.
 
If you agree to participate in our research, we ask that you complete an informational survey and family history to the best of your ability. Completing the survey and family history will take approximately 20 minutes. You must be at least 18 years of age to participate in this study.

If you would like to complete this research study, please click the link below to participate.

https://casosu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_es5b7nJjyMlPOn3
  
As a reward to participating in the survey, we offer you the opportunity to participate in a raffle to win an Amazon gift certificate for $50.
 
If you are asked and agree to participate in a follow-up interview, we will provide you with an additional small honorarium of $20.00 in exchange for your participation.
 
For more information about this research study, please contact Dr. Jennifer Jones at jones.4155@osu.edu. For questions about your rights as a participant in this study or to discuss other study-related concerns or complaints with someone who is not part of the research team, you may contact Ms. Sandra Meadows in the Office of Responsible Research Practices at 1-800-678-6251.

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Being Amerasian in South Korea: Purebloodness, Multiculturalism, and Living Alongside the U.S. Military Empire

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Dissertations, Media Archive, Social Science on 2012-11-05 14:44Z by Steven

Being Amerasian in South Korea: Purebloodness, Multiculturalism, and Living Alongside the U.S. Military Empire

The Ohio State University
June 2012
96 pages

Yuri W. Doolan

Honors Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors Research Distinction in History in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University

This thesis focuses on the history of U.S. neo-colonialism in South Korea through the lens of mixed race Amerasians—a population generally regarded and understood to have been produced through the liaisons between South Korean camptown women and American military personnel. In this project, I discuss the historical and contemporary status and identity of mixed race individuals in South Korea as the country’s national ideology evolved from an embrace of purebloodedness to multiculturalism. My analysis is chronologically framed around intercountry adoption policies in the years immediately following the Korean War (formed to excise the presence of mixed race GI babies from South Korea) and state-sponsored multicultural policy initiatives beginning in 2005. I research the production of Amerasian subjectivity and identity in South Korea over the past six decades through an analysis of pureblooded constructions of Koreanness, U.S. militarism and camptowns, androcentric Nationality and Family Laws, contemporary multicultural policy formations, and the popular culture and lived experiences of Amerasians in South Korea.

I also offer a comparative analysis of a new mixed race group in South Korea called Kosian (Korean/Asian). I critique multiculturalism in South Korea, which targets this emerging Kosian demographic, arguing that multicultural policy is primarily one of assimilation rather than a recognition of cultural and racial differences. I suggest that the marginal status of mixed race Amerasians has not changed much since the Korean War and is linked to South Korea’s persistent status as a neo-colony of the United States—a history of national shame and subjugation that Amerasians have come to symbolize. Primary sources for this study include legal and government documents, popular media representations, interviews with pureblooded Koreans, as well as oral histories of Amerasians that I conducted in South Korea during the summer of 2011.

Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • A Note on Terminology
  • Chapter One
    • Introduction
    • Pureblooded Constructions of Race
    • The G.I. Baby and Camptowns
    • Intercountry Adoption
    • Gendered Citizenship and Korean Family Law
    • Conclusion
  • Chapter Two
    • Introduction
    • A “Multicultural” Era
    • White Privilege in Contemporary South Korean Society
    • Conclusion
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography

Read the entire thesis here.

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Biological Distance and the African American Dentition

Posted in Anthropology, Dissertations, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, United States on 2012-08-25 19:04Z by Steven

Biological Distance and the African American Dentition

Ohio State University
2002
229 pages

Heather Joy Hecht Edgar

A DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Gene flow occurs whenever two human populations come in contact. African Americans are the result of gene flow between two biologically disparate groups: West Africans and Americans of European descent. This project utilized characteristics of dental morphology to trace genetic relationships among these three groups. Dental morphological traits are useful for this purpose because they are heritable, do not remodel during life (although they can be lost to wear or pathology), and can be compared equally among samples from past and present populations. The results of this research provide new knowledge about human microevolution in a biocultural setting. By analyzing observations from a variety of samples from African Americans, European Americans, West Africans, and western Europeans, conclusions were made on patterns of genetic change through time and space.

The specific hypothesis addressed is that since gene flow has been continuous among West Africans, African Americans, and European Americans in the American colonies and subsequently in the United States, the more recent a sample of African Americans observed, the more they tend toward the average, genetically, of West Africans and Europeans. Dental characteristics reflect this heritage and the pattern of temporally limited genetic similarities. In addition to testing this hypothesis, several predictions were made and tested regarding the historical patterns of admixture in African Americans. These predictions involved whether gene flow has occurred at a constant rate, whether African Americans with greater admixture were more likely to take part in the Great Migration, and whether the dental morphology of the Gullah of South Carolina is especially like their West African ancestors.

The results of this research indicate that while admixture of European American genes into the African American gene pool has been continuous over the last 350 years, it has not occurred at a constant rate. Cultural trends and historical events such as the Civil War and the Jim Crow era affected the rate of admixture. A final product of the current research is a series of probability tables that can be used to determine the likely racial affiliation of an unknown individual. These tables are useful in historic archaeological and forensic settings.

Read the entire dissertation here.

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Multiracial identity development: developmental correlates and themes among multiracial adults

Posted in Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2012-01-11 03:47Z by Steven

Multiracial identity development: developmental correlates and themes among multiracial adults

Ohio State University
1997
111 pages

Jessica Lyn Adams

A Dissertation  Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University

This study examined some of the common experiences that have been theorized to characterize the racial/ethnic identity development of multiracial individuals. The construct of ethnic identity was examined along with factors identified in the literature as influencing racial/ethnic identity development such as family support of multiracial heritage, sense of belonging, coping with discrimination, and racial/ethnic legitimacy testing. An attempt was also made to explore how ethnic identity and other factors such as self-esteem, racial diversity of the community in which one was raised, and choice of self-label are related.

Seventy-three multiracial adults completed measures that assessed ethnic identity, self-esteem, racial/ethnic legitimacy testing experiences, family support of multiracial heritage and coping. Results indicated that a majority of participants had experienced racial/ethnic legitimacy testing from those racial groups which were part of their racial/ethnic heritage. While self-esteem was not found to be related to racial/ethnic legitimacy testing as predicted, statistically significant relationships were obtained between self-esteem and ethnic identity, and self-esteem and family support of multiraciality. Given these findings, it was proposed that family support of the individual’s mixed heritage may have served as a buffer for the effects of racial legitimacy testing on self-esteem. Family support of multiraciality and racial diversity of neighborhood in which individual was raised were found to be significant predictors of ethnic identity. This finding is consistent with existing literature which has identified these two factors as having a positive impact on racial identity resolution. Participants were asked to identify a stressful situation in which they felt rejected due to some aspect of their multiracial heritage. A component of ethnic identity labeled ethnic identity achievement was found to be related to coping strategies that involved attempts to either alter this stressful situation or create some positive meaning from it. No significant predictors of choice of monoracial or multiracial self-label were identified.

Methodological limitations of some of the measures, as well as the small sample size, were identified as reasons for interpreting these findings with caution. Further research using improved measures to assess the constructs of interest was recommended. Implications for counseling were discussed.

Read the entire dissertation here.

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Professor Alcira Dueñas: Illuminating the Andes: Indigenous and Mestizo Intellectuals in Colonial Peru

Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Biography, Campus Life, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2011-12-03 23:59Z by Steven

Professor Alcira Dueñas: Illuminating the Andes: Indigenous and Mestizo Intellectuals in Colonial Peru

¿Qué Pasa, OSU?
Ohio State University
Autumn 2009

Michael J. Alarid

A citizen of Colombia, Professor Alcira Dueñas is a historian who conducts research on the cultural and intellectual history of Amerindians and other subordinated groups of the Peruvian Andes during the colonial era. Professor Dueñas earned her Bachelor of Arts from Universidad de Bogotá, Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Economics, and her Master of Art and Doctorate in History from The Ohio State University, where she focused on the history of Latin America. For more than twenty years, professor Dueñas has taught courses on Colonial and Modern Latin America, Women’s history of Latin America, and modern World History. Professor Dueñas has had a distinguished career: she is a Fulbright scholar, recipient of the OSU Graduate School Alumni Research Award, and, along with a group of faculty of color from the History Department, she has recently been honored with the Distinguished University Diversity Enhancement Award from the University Senate, as well as with an equivalent distinction from the College of Humanities. …

…Professor Dueñas continues to feel indebted to OSU for her intellectual flowering, and through her OSU education she has infused an interdisciplinary approach into her historical methodology as well. Her first book, which hits shelves in the spring of 2010, utilizes tools of literary criticism and ethnohistory to highlight the presence and practices of indigenous and mestizo intellectuals in colonial Peru. She develops a textual analysis of Andean manifestos, memoriales (petitions), reports, and letters to identify the rhetorical strategies these intellectuals utilized to reach out to the royal powers. Dueñas explains, “I place such analysis in the historical context of the major critical conjunctures of Spanish colonialism in the Andes, particularly the insurrections that intersected with some of the writings under study. I apply anthropological methods, as I examine issues of identity, religion, and Andean political culture.”

Professor Dueñas’ creative approach to research has resulted in her manuscript being picked up by a major academic press; the book is complete and in production with the University Press of Colorado. Her book reconstructs the history of indigenous and mestizo intellectuals in mid and late colonial Peru, illuminating the writing practices and social agency of Andeans in their quest for social change. Dueñas elucidates, “I conclude that Andean scholarship from mid-and-late colonial Peru reflects the cultural changes of the colonized ethnic elites at the outset of modernity in Latin America. Their intellectual and political struggles reveal them as autonomous subjects, moving forward to undo their colonial condition of “Indians,” while expanding the intellectual sphere of colonial Peru to educated ‘Indios ladinos.’ They used writing, Transatlantic traveling, legal action, and even subtle support to rebellions, as means to improve their social standing and foster their ethnic autonomy under Spanish rule.” Dueñas concludes, “They attempted to participate in the administration of justice for Indians and seized every opportunity to occupy positions in the ecclesiastical and state bureaucracy.”…

Read the entire article here.

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Comparing Biracials And Monoracials: Psychological Well-Being And Attitudes Toward Multiracial People

Posted in Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2011-08-17 21:15Z by Steven

Comparing Biracials And Monoracials: Psychological Well-Being And Attitudes Toward Multiracial People

Ohio State University
2008
108 pages

Peter J. Adams

DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

The study of biracial individuals and their unique experience has been limited. As biracial individuals increase in number, understanding their experiences will become more important to psychologists and mental health professionals.

The purpose of the study was to compare biracial individuals and monoracial individuals on measures of psychological well being, ethnic identity, and attitudes towards biracial people. The present study examined one general research question and
three hypotheses:

  • General Research Question & Hypotheses
    • Will scores on measures of ethnic identity, individual self-esteem, collective self-esteem, subjective well being, and attitudes toward biracial children significantly differ between biracial and monoracial groups?
    • Bracey, Bamara, and Umana-Taylor’s (2004) results on self-esteem and ethnic identity will be replicated in this study on adults.
    • When compared to monoracial individuals, biracial individuals will have significantly more positive attitudes towards biracials
    • A positive relationship exists between psychological well being and attitudes towards biracials for biracial individuals.

Participants completed a web-based survey from an undisclosed location of their choosing. Participants were solicited from various multicultural and professional psychology list serves and through Ohio State University’s Research Experience Program.

Results indicated that biracial adults appear to be as psychologically well adjusted as their monoracial counterparts. Results even suggested that biracial adults have more realized ethnic identities than their monoracial counterparts. Bracey et al.’s (2004) results were replicated in the present study (biracials were found to be as psychologically well adjusted as monoracials). Also, a positive relationship was found between biracial individuals’ psychological well being and their attitudes towards multiracial children. Support for the second hypothesis was not found – biracial individuals in the study did not have more positive attitudes toward biracials than their monoracial counterparts.

Implications of the findings along with the limitations of the study are discussed. Recommendations of future research are also given.

Table of Contents

  • Abstract
  • Dedication
  • Acknowledgments
  • Vita
  • List of Tables
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Literature Review
    • 2.1 Ethnic Identity
    • 2.1.1 Biracial Ethnic Identity
    • 2.2 Psychological Well Being
    • 2.3 Attitudes Towards Biracial Individuals in America
    • 2.4 Summary, Hypotheses, and Research Questions
  • 3. Method
    • 3.1 Participants
    • 3.2 Instruments
      • 3.2.1 Demographic Questionnaire
      • 3.2.2 Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM)
      • 3.2.3 Collective Self-Esteem Scale (CSES)
      • 3.2.4 Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE)
      • 3.2.5 Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS)
      • 3.2.6 Attitudes Toward Multiracial Children Scale (AMCS)
      • 3.2.7 Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR)
    • 3.3 Procedure
    • 3.4 Data Analysis
  • 4. Results
    • 4.1 Descriptive Statistics
    • 4.2 Correlations
      • 4.2.1 MEIM and the AMCS
      • 4.2.2 CSE and the AMCS
      • 4.2.3 RSE and the AMCS
      • 4.2.4 SWLS and the AMCS
      • 4.2.5 BIRD and the AMCS
    • 4.3 MANOVA
  • 5. Discussion
    • 5.1 General Research Question
    • 5.2 Hypotheses
    • 5.3 Other Finding of Interest – Correlational Findings
    • 5.4 Limitations
    • 5.5 Conclusion and Future Directions
  • List of references
  • APPENDICES:
    • A. Survey Solicitation Letter
    • B. REP Solicitation Letter
    • C. Debriefing Page
    • D. Survey Introduction
    • E. Consent for Participation
    • F. Demographic Questionnaire
    • G. Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure
    • H. Collective Self-esteem Scale
    • I. Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale
    • J. Satisfaction With Life Scale
    • K. Attitudes Toward Multiracial Children Scale
    • L. Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding

List of Tables

  • 4.1 Breakdown of Participants Based on Sex, Age, Racial Categorization, and Interracial Romantic Relationships
  • 4.2 Breakdown of Caucasian Participants Based on Sex, Age, and Interracial Romantic Relationships
  • 4.3 Breakdown of Monoracial Minority Participants Based on Sex, Age, and Interracial Romantic Relationships
  • 4.4 Breakdown of Biracial Participants Based on Sex, Age, and Interracial Romantic Relationships
  • 4.5 Descriptive Statistics for Measures and Age

Read the entire dissertation here.

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The Guineas of West Virginia

Posted in Anthropology, Dissertations, History, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, Tri-Racial Isolates, United States on 2011-03-20 20:12Z by Steven

The Guineas of West Virginia

Ohio State University
1952
139 pages

John P. Burnell, Jr.

A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirments for the Degree Master of Arts.

Table of Contents

Introduction

  1. Methodology
  2. Geographical and Social Setting
  3. History and Origin
  4. Who Is A Guinea?
  5. Social Participation
  6. Attitudes and Beliefs
  7. Summary and Conclusions

Bibliography
Map (See back folder)

Sociologists are becoming increasingly aware that there exists in the United States an “outcast element” the study of which has been neglected. This element is comprised of groups of people who are generally thought to be of tri-racial origin, that is, Negro, Indian and white. The whites tend to relegate these people to the status of Negroes, a status which most of them resent.

To mention but a few of these hybrid groups which have been reported on to date, there are those in parts of Tennessee and Kentucky referred to as “Melungeons“; in North Carolina, “Indiana of Robeson County” in the southern part of Ohio, “Carmel Indians”.  Dr. Brewton Berry has applied the generic term “mestizos” to the racial hybrids of South Carolina, who are known there by various opprobrious names such as, “Brass Ankles”, “Red Legs”, “Buckheads”, and “Turks”.  In Delaware the hybrids are known as “Moors” and “Hantichokes”; in Alabama, Louisiana, and parts of Mississippi, “Creoles” and “Cajuns“, and in Virginia, “Issues”.

The writer1s interest in the racial hybrid grew out of a general interest In race relations per se, and a firm conviction that only as these various, often socially and geographically isolated, groups are investigated and reported upon will the sociologist be in a position validly to generalize about them.

The purpose of this study was to observe and describe one of these groups, thereby contributing to the knowledge of racial hybrids which is being amassed.   The group chosen for this purpose resides in the state of West Virginia, more specifically in the northeastern part of this state In Barbour and Taylor counties.

The people who constitute this group are generally considered by the white population as being a mixture of white, Negro, and Indian ancestry. Locally, they are referred to as “Guineas“, or “Guinea niggers”, both terms being of a derogatory nature.  Although the Guineas are for the most part very white in appearance, as will be noted in a later chapter devoted to a description of their physical characteristics, the whites in the area resist accepting them as social equals largely on the basis that “one drop of Negro blood makes a Negro“.   In spite of a substantial number of whites acknowledging “Indian blood”, and many more, not being quite certain as to what racial strains have gone into the make-up of these people, it seems to matter very little, for as one white Informant summed it up: “That one drop of nigger blood never washes away” The Guineas then, are referred to as “colored people.” In the areas where they reside and by virtue of this classification are subject to differential treatment by white society.

This particular group of people was chosen for study because: (1) they were conveniently located to the writer’s home; (2) the writer is a resident of the state in which they are located, and therefore it was felt that rapport could be more easily attained; and (3) only a modicum of information concerning these people Is to be found in the literature.

It must be pointed out from the very beginning that the primary object of going out into the field was to observe these people In their real life situation with a view toward describing that situation.

Lack of time and finances acted as definite limiting factors to the scope and comprehensiveness of the field work and largely contributed to limiting this study to a descriptive level.   It is hoped, however, that a more extensive and comprehensive piece of work, free from such limitations, will soon be forthcoming.   Moreover, it must be emphasized that the foregoing limitations, especially lack of finances, restricted most of the data gathered to Barbour County, even though many Guineas are to be found scattered throughout the southern part of Taylor County. To defray the expenses of the writer it was necessary for him to procure employment, and a position which permitted freedom of movement during daylight hours was found in Phillppi, the county seat of Barbour County thereby making this community a convenient center of operation.  It was felt by the writer that the latter limitation was not as much a hindrance to the study as It may at first appear because: first, there seem to. be more Guineas, or at least more people who are defined by the local populace as “Guineas”, residing in Barbour than in Taylor county; and second, they are more concentrated within specific areas in Arbour county.  Since several trips were made into Taylor county, some data which were gathered there pertaining to the Guineas has been utilized within the text. However, wherever any of these data appear, specific reference to Taylor county has been made.

It will be noted by the reader that the terms “white” and “Guinea” appear throughout the text. The writer uses the term “Guinea” as a means of identifying the people who are the aubject of this paper, but does not wish to convey the derogatory connotations generally associated with this term. In some cases the term “hybrid” is used interchangeably with Guinea. The term white applies to all of those people who are not considered either Negro or Guinea.

The methodology utilized in this study is explained in the following chapter…

Read the entire thesis here.

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