Mixed Race Studies

Foucault, Bakhtin, Ethnomethodology: Accounting for Hybridity in Talk-in-Interaction

Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research
Volume 8, Number 2, Article 10
May 2007
18 pages

Shirley Anne Tate, Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies
Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies
University of Leeds

Theorising hybridity within Postcolonial Studies is often done at a level which seems to exclude the everyday with the exception of its relevance for the cultural productions of migrants and dominant culture’s “eating the other”. This article uses the exploration of hybridity as an everyday interactional achievement within Black “mixed race” British women’s conversations on identity to look at the production of an analytic method as process based on the task of the analyst as translator. This method as process thinks the links between FOUCAULT and BAKHTIN in the emergence of an ethnomethodologically inclined discourse analysis (eda) which is called on to make sense of a hybridity of the everyday where Black women reflexively translate discourses on identity positions in order to construct their own identifications in conversations. FOUCAULT’s discourses and BAKHTIN’s heteroglossia and addressivity allow us to theorise this movement in the talk which ethnomethodological transcription and theory enables us to first pinpoint occurring. The article begins by looking at first, how hybridity as identification emerges in talk-in-interaction through both speaker and analyst translations. Having established this, it then goes on to look at the theoretical convergences and divergences between FOUCAULT and BAKHTIN on the subject, identity and discourses in the eda enterprise. Looking at data through the lens of eda means that we must be aware of the subject positions which speakers identify as having the effect of constraining or facilitating particular actions and experiences and there is always the possibility for challenge to subjectification.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Method as Process—Talk, Hybridity, Translation
• 3. Blurring the Line Between Theory and Story
• 4. Discourses, Translation as Reflexivity and Dialogism in Talk on Identification
• 5. FOUCAULT and BAKHTIN—”Race”, Discourses and Dialogics
• 6. FOUCAULT and BAKHTIN: Ethnomethodology, Discourse Analysis and the Membership Category “Black Woman”
• 7. Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• References
• Author
• Citation

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Machado de Assis, the Brazilian Pyrrhonian

Purdue University Press
1994-06-01
248 pages
6 x 9
Hardback ISBN 10: 1557530513; ISBN 13: 9781557530516
eBook ISBN 10: 1612490948; ISBN 13: 9781612490946

José Raimundo Maia Neto, Professor of the Philosophy
Federal University of Minas Gerais

Machado de Assis, the Brazilian Pyrrhonian examines the towering figure of nineteenth century Latin American letters from a fresh perspective. Machado is a writer of philosophical fiction. His subtle criticism of cherished institutions is evident to all readers, and his skepticism (sometimes confused with pessimism) has often been mentioned by critics. Not until Maia Neto’s study, however, has Machado’s philosophical position been seriously examined by a philosopher.

Maia Neto traces Machado’s particular brand of skepticism to that of the ancient philosopher, Pyrrho of Elis, and reveals the sources through which he inherited that line of thought. The author then shows how Machado’s own philosophic development (as seen primarily through his fiction) follows the stages proposed by Pyrrho for the development of a skeptical world-view: flight from hypocritical society in favor of domestic quietude, investigation of manipulative social interactions, suspension of judgment, and mental tranquility.

Impressive for both the breadth and the depth of its reading, the study pays particular attention to the Brazilian master’s short stories and novels, pointing out how characters during different phases of the author’s career tend to portray the stages in the development of a skeptical philosophy.

For those who study literature, Maia Neto’s book will provide a foundation for understanding the thought of one of the most important writers of the Americas. For philosophers, the book will reveal a fascinating modern world-view, thoroughly rooted in the traditions of ancient skepticism.

The Political Ontology of Race

Polity
2011-10-17
DOI: 10.1057/pol.2011.15

Michael Rabinder James, Associate Professor of Political Science
Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
 
Race theory is dominated by two camps. Eliminativists rely on a biological ontology, which contends that the concept of race must be biologically grounded, in order to repudiate the very term, on grounds that it is epistemologically vacuous and normatively pernicious. Conservationists use a social ontology, in which race is based on social practices, in order to retain racial categories in remedial social policies, such as affirmative action and race-based political representation. This article attempts to reorient this debate in two ways. First, it challenges the idea that racial identity is entirely unchosen by defending a political ontology of race that, unlike the biological and social ontologies, affirms the role of non-white agency in determining the political salience of ascribed racial identity. It then transcends the normative impasse between eliminativism and conservationism by contending that all three ontologies are potentially valuable and dangerous, depending on where they are applied. The biological ontology is defensible for evolutionary and medical research, the social ontology for affirmative action and anti-discrimination policy, and the political ontology for political representation.

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Le métissage dans l’œuvre indochinoise de Marguerite Duras

McGill University, Montreal
2006
106 pages

Elisabeth Desaulniers

Mémoire soumis à l’Université McGill en vue de l’obtention du grade de Maître ès arts (MA) en langue et littérature françaises

This dissertation focuses on the issue of hybridity in Marguerite Duras’ corpus of Indochinese texts, as well as on the meeting of identities in the colonial realm. In order to identify the problematics of colonial coexistence, we will address the themes of the encounter between the Orient and the Occident, the use of hybrid discourse and the role of memory in the process of rewriting. Edward Said’s Orientalism theory as well as Homi Bhabha’s concept of ambivalence in colonial discourse will serve as the basis for the analysis of the Indochinese cycle. Far from being a totalizing experience, hybridity will reveal itself as being a harrowing dichotomy.

Read the entire thesis (in French) here.

Black Skin, White Masks

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
September 2008 (Originially published in 1952)
240 pages
5-1/2 x 8-1/4
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-4300-6

Frantz Fanon

Translated from the French by Richard Philcox

Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon’s, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. Fanon’s masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers.

A major influence on civil rights, anticolonial, and black consciousness movements internationally, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.

Contents

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Black Man and Language
• Chapter Two: The Woman of Color and the White Man
• Chapter Three: The Man of Color and the White Woman
• Chapter Four: The So-Called Dependency Complex of the Colonized
• Chapter Five: The Lived Experience of the Black Man
• Chapter Six: The Black Man and Psycho-pathology
• Chapter Seven: The Black Man and Recognition
  • A. The Black Man and Adler
  • B. The Black Man and Hegel
• Chapter Eight:By Way of Conclusion

Toward a Cleaner White(ness): New Racial Identities

The Philosophical Forum
Volume 36, Issue 3 (Fall 2005)
pages 243–277
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9191.2005.00203.x

David Ingram, Professor of Philosophy
Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois

The essay critically examines some arguments advanced by Henry Giroux that ‘whiteness’ can be appropriated within pedagogical settings as a positive force in combating racism. I question his assumption that racial identity can be rethought in terms of ethnicity. Nonetheless, I concede that, from a folk-psychological perspective, ethnic and racial ‘identities’ are fluid. Although blurring the distinction between race and ethnicity erases important distinctions between different types of groups, it also tends to deconstruct identity as an inherited and ascriptive—as distinct from voluntarily affirmed—locus of solidarity. Drawing on cognitive psychology, sociology, and cultural studies, I conclude that whiteness is less a form of cultural identity than a structure of power.

Read or purchase he article here.

Visualizing a Critical Mixed-Race Theory

Stance: An International Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
Volume 2 (Spring 2009)
pages 18-25
Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana
ISSN: 1943-1880

Desiree Valentine, Departments of Philosophy and Communication Studies
Marquette University

In this paper, questions regarding the cultural understanding of mixed race are explored, which have the ability to complicate the accepted portrayal of race in society as a black/white binary system. Thus, the acknowledgement of something other than this binary system offers new ways of theorizing about race, particularly concerning the sociopolitical implications of mixed-race designation. This paper argues that the visually mixed-race person has a certain direct ability to challenge the binary and its racist logic. Furthermore, this paper goes on to offer a unique interpretation of where power for working against a racially oppressive system lies within critical mixed-race theory.

I was in kindergarten when I had a clear understanding of the racialized world in which we live, when I had to check a box on my school registration papers recognizing myself as either black or white. This simple action can be quite complicated when one is a daughter of a black father and white mother. I was finally offered the choice of “mixed” by the time I reached Jr. High. But what is this concept of “mixed” and what does it offer a nation still infused with racism years after the time period known as the “Civil Rights Era” has ended?

Questions of mixed race bring with them complications to the established black/white binary system and thus offer new ways of theorizing race as well as the sociopolitical implications of mixed race designation. As Lewis Gordon states, “In spite of contemporary resistance to ‘binary’ analyses, a critical discussion of mixed-race categories calls for an understanding of how binary logic functions in discourses on race and racism. Without binaries, no racism will exist.” Can a breakdown of the current binary logic, which places social and political advantages on white individuals, occur with the inception of a critical mixed race theory? And could this lead to a society free of racism?

This essay will focus on the views of theorists Lewis Gordon and Naomi Zack and their conceptions of the racial binary system and mixed race. I will begin by looking at both theorists’ views on the racial binary system, posing the question, “How do we understand the spectrum of race?” From there, I will explore the approaches each theorist offers for deconstructing the binary, followed by a comparison and critique of both theorizations, with the end goal of offering my own interpretation of where power for working against a racially oppressive system lies within a critical mixed race theory. It is my view that what often gets overlooked in these theorizations is the effect of visual incoherency to the black/white binary that can be provided by the mixed race individual. The concept of the “visibly mixed race person” will be used in this essay to explore the transformative areas for a society still enmeshed in the ugly history of racism…

Read the entire article here.

Race and Class in Political Science

Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Volume 11, Issue 1 (Fall 2005)
pages 99-114

Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies
Harvard University

As a discipline, political science tends to have a split personality on the issue of whether the driving force behind political action is material or ideational. Put too crudely, White scholars tend to focus on structural conditions as the cause of group identity and action, whereas scholars of color tend to focus on group identity and conflict in order to explain structural conditions. More generally, the relevant debate within political science revolves less around Jacques Derrida versus Karl Marx (as in critical race studies) than around W. E. B. DuBois versus Thomas Hobbes—that is, whether “the problem of the twentieth [and other] centur[ies] is the problem of the color line” or whether people are fundamentally self-interested individualists whose social interaction is shaped by the opportunities presented in a given political structure.
 
This paper examines those propositions by discussing important recent work by political scientists in several arenas, including ethnic conflict, nationalism, and a belief in linked fate. I then briefly discuss my own research on the relationship between race and class, and on the possible malleability of racial and ethnic concepts and practices to show one way that identity-based and interest-based political analyses interact. I conclude that material forces drive most important political disputes and outcomes, but that politics is best understood through a combination of material and ideational lenses.

Introduction
 
The discipline of political science tends to have a split personality on the issue of whether the underlying driving force behind political action is material or ideational. Put too crudely, mainstream (disproportionately White) scholars tend to focus on structural conditions such as laws or the economy, the self-interest of leaders or activists, political incentives, or even geography in order to explain ethnic identification and conflict. Conversely, scholars who study racial politics (disproportionately people of color), tend to start from racial or ethnic identity and conflict in order to explain structural conditions, understandings of self-interest, or political incentives. This generalization, like most, is indeed too crude, and one can immediately identify exceptions; but, it is arguably accurate enough to be a good starting point for further exploration. I develop this argument, with reference to the most prominent work of political scientists in several subfields, in the next two sections below.
 
Few political scientists, and even fewer in mainstream, high-status departments, focus on discourse analysis growing out of continental European philosophy. Most who do are political philosophers whose central mission does not include explaining empirical phenomena. As a result, the relevant debate within political science revolves less around Derrida versus Marx than around DuBois versus Hobbes—that is, whether “the problem of the twentieth [and other] centur[ies] is the problem of the color line” or whether people are fundamentally self-interested individualists whose social interaction is shaped by the opportunities offered in a given political structure.
 
This paper begins by examining and illuminating that proposition through discussion of important recent work by political scientists. I then briefly discuss my own prior work on the relationship between race and class, and use my current research to illuminate how tensions between identity-based politics and interest-based politics play out in academic political science as well as in actual political arenas. I conclude roughly where Richard Delgado does: that material forces and access to resources drive most significant political disputes and outcomes, but that politics is most fully understood through a combination of material and ideational lenses…

…Multiracialism shows some of the same effects. The values placed on multiracial identity are at present completely mixed, even contradictory and mutually hostile. Some people of color (and Whites) embrace the new politics and culture of multiracialism as a means of breaking down the old rigid color lines, as a way to enable people to recognize and identify with their full heritage, as a necessity for good medical care, or as a new frontier for civil rights advocacy. Others see the embrace of multiracialism as merely one more attempt by outsiders to undermine Black or Hispanic solidarity, as a strategy to disrupt litigation or legislation around civil rights, voting rights, and employment discrimination, or as an underhanded way to distance oneself from Blackness (or Latino identity). Still others see it as a pragmatic reality, given rates of immigration and intermarriage, that political actors must accommodate as well as they can. Regardless of how one feels about it, there is growing evidence that the fact of being multiracial has important consequences for one’s life chances. For example, the socioecononomic status of biracial children fall consistently between those of their lower status parent and those of their higher status parent. Thus, on the one hand, the fact of having mixed racial or ethnic ancestry has real, material, consequences for one’s life – independent of the language with which we understand that fact. But on the other hand, the growth of and contestation around a multiracial movement show that the mere fact of having parents of different races is politically and personally very different from the claim of a multiracial identity and community…

Read the entire essay here.

The Consequence of Race Mixture: Racialised Barriers and the Politics of Desire

Social Identities
Volume 9, Issue 2 (2003)
pages 241-275
DOI: 10.1080/1350463032000101588

Jared Sexton, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Film & Media Studies
University of California, Irvine

The political… is not in itself stable, but is rather conditioned by mutability. Writ large for criticism, this means that a political criticism must not take its object for granted: in a specific sense, the object is not there in the first place, for its condition is that it is marked by an interior historicity which subjects it to constant modification, constant shifting. The proper ‘object’ of the critic who is aware of the materiality of history is, paradoxically, an object conditioned not by its appearance relative to a covert essence, but rather an object conditioned precisely by its temporal disappearance or ‘immaterialization’.

Thomas Docherty, 1996

Reality is not composed of things-in-themselves or things-behind-phenomena, but things-in-phenomena. Because phenomena constitute a non-dualistic whole, it makes no sense to talk about independently existing things as somehow behind or as the causes of phenomena … The referent is… a phenomenon.

Karen Barad, 1998

These epigraphs should be considered heretical to the project of the contemporary multiracial movement in the United States Insofar as its proponents and intellectuals speak of the ‘the end(s) of race’, the concept of multiraciality prides itself on the trouble it supposedly causes to the white supremacist rage for order, that is, its ostensible violation of racial discipline and its alleged threat to spurious notions of racial purity. The multiracial, as it were, cannot be fixed in place; by definition, it eludes the capture of a pernicious schema of racial classification. Nevertheless, this reputed disturbance of the colour line bears a cost.

A self that is internally heterogeneous beyond repair or resolution becomes a candidate for pathology in a society where the integration of self is taken to be necessary for mental health. (Alcoff, 1995, p. 261)

The multiracial is, then, fundamentally convoluted—essentially difficult and complicated without end—yet the seemingly inevitable link between such radical ‘otherness’ (other even to itself) and the pathology of disintegration is, in fact, an effect of the labour of articulation. That is to say, the relation between the terms can be re-inscribed in a gesture of more thoroughgoing…

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Black Skin, White Skulls: The Nineteenth Century Debate over the Racial Identity of the Ancient Egyptians

Parallax
Volume 13, Number 2 (2007)
pages 6-20
DOI: 10.1080/13534640701267123

Robert Bernasconi, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy
Pennsylvania State University

Not so long ago, the question ol the racial identity of the Ancient Egyptians passed beyond the narrow confines of academia onto television and into the national newspapers when, in the wake of  Martin Bernal’s Black Athena. he and certain Afrocentric historians like Molefi Kete Asante, were criticized by Mary Lefkowitz and others for not respecting proper scholary standards However, my aim in this paper is not to expose the errors made on either side of the argument, still less to decide the racial identity of the Ancient Egyptians. This latter task assumes that we have agreed on ways of classifying the races which, given the fact that contemporary biology does not recognize racial classifications, we do not. My aim in this essay is to perform the long overdue task of documenting how the Ancient Egyptians were racially identified during the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. In particular, I will support, suitably modified, the contention of the Haitian thinker Anténor Firmin, that it was not until 1842 that the Philadelphian physician, Samuel George Morton, became the first person to present a sustained scientific argument according to which the people of ancient Egypt belonged to the White race. The debate between Bernal and Lefkowitz reminds us that many people today are still heavily invested in the question of the racial identity of the Egyptians. In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to know why it was such a major issue in the nineteenth century.

At the end of the eighteenth century the argument was already beginning to be heard that if the people of ancient Egypt were African in a way that attached them to the so-called Ethiopian, Black or Negro race, then the attempt to match the hierarchy of civilizations to the hierarchy of races, which Europeands had already defined in the late eighteenth century, could not be sustained. The stakes were particularly high as the Greeks had been explicit about their debt to the Egyptians. In 1787, Constantin François Volney had published his Travels through Egypt and Syria and had declared that the Copts, who at that time were widely thought to be the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, still had largely Negro characteristics. Four years later, Volney published The Ruins, or Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires, some editions of which include the lines: ‘A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzed hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe.’ Volney did not initiate this idea, which relies on the testimony of, among other ancient authors, Herodotus, who described the Egyptians as having black skin and wooly hair…

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