Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

This study adds to the growing body of literature on multiracial identity by illustrating the importance of reflected appraisals in shaping racial identity. Importantly, these findings also show how reflected appraisals are fundamentally shaped by the one-drop rule (for black-white Americans in particular). Few studies examine reflected appraisals as a determinant of racial identity (Khanna 2004), and I find that biracial respondents frequently explain their black identities as due, in part, to how they believe they are viewed by “others” and by “larger society.” As suggested by Brunsma and Rockquemore (2001), however, who argue that how biracial people think others view them is moderated by social context, many respondents draw distinctions between how they believe they are perceived depending upon whether the observers are white or black. Other white people, they argue, see them as black, while other black people are more likely to recognize their multiracial backgrounds. These conflicting perceptions have the potential to shape different “racial reflections” (e.g., as black or multiracial), yet I find that the one-drop rule affects the entire reflected appraisal process, subsequently shaping “internalized” black identities for the majority of respondents.

Nikki Khanna, “‘If You’re Half Black, You’re Just Black’: Reflected Appraisals and the Persistence of the One-Drop Rule,” Sociological Quarterly, Volume 51, Issue 1 (Winter 2010). 113-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2009.01162.x.

From exclusion and alienation to a ‘multi-racial community’: The image of the métis in New Caledonian literature

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive, Social Science on 2009-10-31 21:36Z by Steven

From exclusion and alienation to a ‘multi-racial community’: The image of the métis in New Caledonian literature

International Journal of Francophone Studies
ISSN: 13682679
Volume 8 Issue 3
December 2005
DOI: 10.1386/ijfs.8.3.305/1

Peter Brown

In her 2005 New Year’s greetings, Marie-Noëlle Thémereau, the President of the New Caledonian government, expressed her confidence in the future of her multiracial country, echoing the recognition of New Caledonia’s demographic make-up in official discourse since the Noumea Accord (1998). This view of New Caledonian society has not, however, always been so optimistic or encompassing. The island’s mixed population of some 230,000 has given rise over the years to social and political tensions. In this context, representations of Self and Other found in the island’s literature, particularly as they concern the historically highly contentious issue of biological and cultural interaction, provide valuable perspectives on this subject, enabling us to trace the evolution of local attitudes to the question of métissage and acquire a broader vision of the lived experience of the island’s population.

Tags: International Journal of Francophone Studies, New Caledonia, Peter Brown

Mixed Race Studies

From exclusion and alienation to a ‘multi-racial community’: The image of the métis in New Caledonian literature

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