Mixed Race Studies

Beyond Loving: Intimate Racework in Lesbian, Gay, and Straight Interracial Relationships

Oxford University Press
2012-08-07
240 pages
6-1/8 x 9-1/4
ISBN13: 9780199743568; ISBN10: 0199743568

Amy C. Steinbugler, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Beyond Loving provides a critical examination of interracial intimacy in the beginning decades of the twenty-first century—an era rife with racial contradictions, where interracial relationships are increasingly seen as symbols of racial progress even as old stereotypes about illicit eroticism persist. Drawing on extensive qualitative research, Amy Steinbugler examines the racial dynamics of everyday life for lesbian, gay, and heterosexual Black/White couples. She disputes the notion that interracial partners are enlightened subjects who have somehow managed to “get beyond” race. Instead, for many partners, interracial intimacy represents not the end, but the beginning of a sustained process of negotiating racial differences. Her research reveals the ordinary challenges that partners frequently face and the myriad ways that race shapes their interactions with each other as well as with neighbors, family members, co-workers and strangers. Steinbugler analyzes the everyday actions and strategies through which individuals maintain close relationships in a society with deeply-rooted racial inequalities-what she calls “racework.” Beyond Loving reveals interracial intimacy as an ongoing process rather than a singular accomplishment. This analytic shift helps us reach a new understanding of how race “works” – not just in intimate spheres, but across all facets of contemporary social life.

Features

• Interviews with same-sex interracial couples–a topic on which there is very little research—allow Steinbugler to examine for the first time how everyday racial practices are shaped by sexuality and gender.
• Amy Steinbugler challenges the widespread assumption that interracial intimacy represents the ultimate erasure of racial differences.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Historical Roots of Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Black/White Intimacy
• Chapter 2: Public Interraciality: Navigating Racially Homogeneous Social Spaces
• Chapter 3: Public Interraciality: Managing Visibility
• Chapter 4: Intimate Interactions: Racework as Emotional Labor
• Chapter 5: Interracial Identities: Racework as Boundary Work
• Chapter 6: White Racial Identities Through the Lens of Interracial Intimacy
• Conclusion: The Intimate Politics of Interraciality
• Appendix A. Research Methods
• Appendix B. Respondent Characteristics
• Table 1. Design of Interview Sample
• Table 2. Sample Details by Group

Interracial Relationships in the 21st Century

Carolina Academic Press
2009
160 pp
Paper ISBN: 978-1-59460-571-0
LCCN: 2009001612

Earl Smith, Professor of Sociology and Rubin Professor and Director of Ethnic Studies
Wake Forest University

Angela J. Hattery, Professor of Sociology
Wake Forest University

Interracial Relationships in the 21st Century is a unique set of essays—both personal and research based—that explore a variety of issues related to interracial couplings in the 21st Century United States. Edited by Earl Smith and Angela Hattery, professors of sociology at Wake Forest University, this volume brings together the leading scholars in both the social sciences and the humanities who explore interracialities.

The chapters cover a wide range of topics related to navigating interracial relationships, including a chapter by George Yancey and colleagues that focuses on the tensions around interracial relationships in conservative Christian churches, to the role that racism and patriarchy play in shaping intimate partner violence among interracial couples—Smith and Hattery’s own contribution. Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey A. Laszloffy focus on the children of interracial unions and their attempts to negotiate a racial identity. Wei Ming Dariotis uses a personal narrative to explore the discourse and cooption of the term “Hapa” by a variety of Asian Americans. And, Amy Steinbugler offers an examination of the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in her chapter on interracial, same sex couples. Other contributors include Kellina M. Craig-Henderson, Emily J. Hubbard and Amy Smith.

In light of the recent election of the first African American president, Barack Obama, himself a bi-racial individual living in a multi-racial family, this book could not be more timely.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments

The Gap Between Whites and Whiteness: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy

Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
September 2006
Volume 3, Issue 2
pages 341-363
DOI: 10.1017/S1742058X06060231

France Winddance Twine, Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara

Amy C. Steinbugler, Assistant Professor of Sociology
Dickinson University

How do White members of Black-White interracial families negotiate the meanings of race, and particularly Whiteness? Inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois‘s concept of double consciousness, this article argues that interracial intimacy is a microlevel political site where White people can acquire a critical analytical lens that we conceptualize as racial literacy. This article fills a gap in the empirical and theoretical literature on race and Whiteness by including gay, lesbian, and heterosexual families on both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing on two ethnographic research projects involving one hundred and twenty-one interracial families in the United Kingdom and the eastern United States, we provide an analysis of how White people learn to translate racial codes, decipher racial structures, and manage the racial climate in their communities. We draw on “racial consciousness” interviews conducted with one hundred and one heterosexual families and twenty gay and lesbian families to present seven portraits that illuminate three dimensions of racial literacy: double consciousness, negotiation of local racial meanings, and seeing routine forms of everyday racism.

Read the entire article here.