Creating tears in the fabric of whiteness

Abstract

This dialogic piece highlights how whiteness shapes the social ecology of different spaces and how positions change depending on space or the people in that space. Employing a methodology rooted in spatial experiences via participant observation and reflective dialogue about those experiences, we suggest that the complexities of whiteness, of masculinities, and of identities mean that there are fissures and moments that create the potential for disruption and for breaking apart hegemonic whiteness and masculinity. We discuss strategic resistance in white spaces, the racial spiral of whiteness, being subject to the white gaze of suspicion, strategic collaborative manipulation of whiteness, coalitionary whiteness, touristic whiteness, and white (mis)staking/(mis)taking.