Beyond Celebration: A Critical Sociological Inquiry of Interracial Union Research in Canada

Abstract

Research in Canada has latched onto the explanation that the growth in interracial unions is both cause and consequence of progressive social change. The authors cast a skeptical eye on this regime of truth produced by positivistic statistical procedure and the speculative theory of social change as it connects to the state brand of tolerance. They offer a meta-theoretical critique that challenges the taken-for-granted assumption that the growth in interracial unions can be explained by multiculturalism, the presumed antiracist implications of these unions, and the supposed amorphousness that mixed-race children presumably embody. The authors seek to disrupt the mystification and commodification of interracial unions and the children of these unions as proxies for social change. Instead, they call for critically and historically informed qualitative and quantitative research that avoids deputizing interracial unions en masse as societal change agents. They call for other and more robust metrics for measuring the reduction of racism. Attendant to radically altering how interracial unions are imagined, it is necessary for theory and research practices to deeply engage with class, gender, race, sexuality, and asymmetries of power when examining the complex, contradictory, and joyous inner and outer life-worlds of interracial couples and families.