A racial capitalism approach to communication and critical cultural studies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Taking as a generative starting point, Stuart Hall’s insight that “race is the modality in which class is lived” (1978), this essay considers the relevance of theoretical paradigms of “racial capitalism” for the intellectual and political work of communication and critical cultural studies. Rather than choosing between class- and race-based analyses, I sketch the outlines of a racial capitalism approach to communication, emphasizing how raced and gendered differences organize – and are organized by – capitalism, and highlighting how cultural histories of race and gender reflect the material uses that capital has long made of them.