Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

The use of the term “colored” was coined by mixed-race people (Ottley 1968:95). In the eighteenth century this population and their descendants created their own caste system, which was marked by color and class. In one case in South Carolina, mixed-race people formed the Brown Fellowship Society, an exclusive mulatto organization that I will discuss in more detail in Chapter 2. Mixed descendants of French and Spanish settlers in New Orleans also distinguished themselves by adopting the terms gens de couleur or people of color. This term carried with it all the connotations of higher case associated with nonblackness and mixed ancestry. In the first half of the nineteenth century, “colored” also became the term of polite usage among free Negroes of the North.

Objections to the term “colored” were duly noted in the African American press. In the September 24, 1831, edition of The Liberator, an editorial declared that “the term ‘colored’ is not a good one. Whenever used, it recalls to mind the offensive distinction of color.” T. Thomas Fortune, a leading journalist in the first quarter twentieth century, also declared that the word was a vague misnomer and had “neither geographical nor political significance, as applied to race” (a quoted in Barry and Blassingame 1982:391). Nevertheless, many people, especially middle- and upper-class African Americans, used the term “colored” (Isaacs 1964:70). The need for a name that was self-defined and descriptive remained.

Obiagele Lake, Blue Veins and Kinky Hair: Naming and Color Consciousness in African America (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003), 11.

Review Essay: Racial Relations and Racism in Brazil

Posted in Articles, Book/Video Reviews, Brazil, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science on 2010-01-23 21:02Z by Steven

Review Essay: Racial Relations and Racism in Brazil

Culture & Psychology
Volume 13, Number 4 (December 2007)
pages 461-473
DOI: 10.1177/1354067X07082805

Marcus Eugênio Oliveira Lima
Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil

Telles, Edward Eric, Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil. Princeton, NJ/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006. 324 pp. ISBN 978–0–691–12792–7 (pbk)

Edward Telles‘ book Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (2006) has contributed to the understanding of racial and skin color relations in Brazil. The main aspects of the past and present of racism in Brazil are discussed, such as whitening, mestizaje, and the ideology of racial democracy, and some additional data are presented. This work reflects on and brings to light the reflections of Telles and of other researchers of racism about a future of more equalitarian racial and social relations in Brazil.

Read or purchase the review here.

Tags: Culture & Psychology, Edward Telles, Marcus Eugênio Oliveira Lima

‘Canadian’ and ‘Being Indian’: Subject Positions and Discourses Used in South Asian-Canadian Women’s Talk about Ethnic Identity

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Canada, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, Social Science, Women on 2009-07-06 22:33Z by Steven

‘Canadian’ and ‘Being Indian’: Subject Positions and Discourses Used in South Asian-Canadian Women’s Talk about Ethnic Identity

Culture & Psychology
Volume 15, Number 2 (2009)
pages 255-283
DOI: 10.1177/1354067X09102893

Rebecca L. Malhi
University of Calgary, Canada, rmalhi@ucalgary.ca

Susan D. Boon
University of Calgary, Canada, sdboon@ucalgary.ca

Timothy B. Rogers
University of Calgary, Canada

Ethnic identity descriptions can be viewed as ‘subject positions’ (Davies and Harré, 1990) that are dynamically adopted and discarded for pragmatic purposes through the medium of socialinteraction. Inthe present paper, we use positioning theory to explore the multiple ways our participants—South Asian-Canadian women—positioned themselves and others in conversations about their ethnic identity. A discourse analysis of participants’ talk revealed a tendency to privilege a ‘hybrid’ Canadian/South Asian identity over a unicultural one. Moreover, in the rare instances when participants positioned themselves with a unicultural identity, subtle social pressure from conversational partners seemed to induce them to reposition themselves (or others) with a hybrid identity. We conclude by giving possible reasons for such a preference and by discussing the ways in which the current study corroborates and expands on the extant literature.

Read or purchase the article here.

Tags: Culture & Psychology, hybridity, Rebecca L. Malhi, Rebecca Malhi, Susan Boon, Susan D. Boon, Timothy B. Rogers, Timothy Rogers

Mixed Race Studies

Review Essay: Racial Relations and Racism in Brazil

‘Canadian’ and ‘Being Indian’: Subject Positions and Discourses Used in South Asian-Canadian Women’s Talk about Ethnic Identity

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