Embodied Resistance: Multiracial Identity, Gender, and the Body

Gabrielle G Gonzales

doi:10.3390/socsci8080221

Gabrielle G Gonzales

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8080221

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Journal: Social Sciences	Publication Date: Jul 24, 2019
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of California, Santa Barbara

Abstract

This article explores the importance of the physical body in the development of gendered racial and ethnic identities through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 11 multiracial/multiethnic women. From a critical mixed race and critical feminist perspective, I argue that the development of an embodied and gendered multiracial and multiethnic identity is a path to questioning and resisting the dominant monoracial order in the United States. Interviews reveal that respondents develop these embodied identities both through understandings of themselves as gendered and raced subjects and through relationships with monoracial individuals. The process by which these women understand their physical bodies as multiracial subjects illustrates a critical embodied component of the social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States.

Highlights

The scholarly research on and public discussion of mixed-race identity has increased in popularity within the last 50 years as the population and visibility of mixed-race individuals has increased.Multiracial scholar Jackson (2012) states, “Due to the growing number of persons who claim membership in more than one racial group and the increased visibility of multiracial persons in the media in the late1990s and early 2000s (e.g., Tiger Woods, President Barack Obama), multiracial identity has received increased attention in social science research” (p. 45)
From a critical race and critical feminist approach, how multiracial women conceive of and navigate their physical bodies. This project explores the following specific questions: How do multiracially-identified women make sense of their identity in light of their mixed background? What role does skin color and the body play for the multiracial person themselves and the onlooker? and What do multiracial women have to say about the social construction of race in the
A variety of factors contribute to this resistance including the variables age, gender, sexuality, etc., in addition to race and ethnicity

Summary

Introduction

The scholarly research on and public discussion of mixed-race identity has increased in popularity within the last 50 years as the population and visibility of mixed-race individuals has increased.Multiracial scholar Jackson (2012) states, “Due to the growing number of persons who claim membership in more than one racial group and the increased visibility of multiracial persons in the media in the late1990s and early 2000s (e.g., Tiger Woods, President Barack Obama), multiracial identity has received increased attention in social science research” (p. 45). This article explores the gendered and embodied aspects of constructing a multiracial and multiethnic identity in a monoracially oriented society through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 11 self-identified multiracial and/or multiethnic women in various geographic locations across the United States. It describes, from a critical race and critical feminist approach, how multiracial women conceive of and navigate their physical bodies. From a critical race and critical feminist approach, how multiracial women conceive of and navigate their physical bodies This project explores the following specific questions: How do multiracially-identified women make sense of their identity in light of their mixed background? This project explores the following specific questions: How do multiracially-identified women make sense of their identity in light of their mixed background? What role does skin color and the body play for the multiracial person themselves and the onlooker? and What do multiracial women have to say about the social construction of race in the United States?

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Conclusion