Expectations as property of white supremacy: the coloniality of ascriptive expectations within the racial contract

Abstract

ABSTRACT To celebrate and honor Charles Mills’ intellectual legacy in social science and political philosophy, this paper utilizes the racial contract as an analytical lens to both extend his work and reenvision the field of the sociology of expectations. In doing so, this paper draws on Mills’ idea of the epistemological contract to theorize the term expectations as a form of epistemological violence associated with coloniality. The contractarian perspective suggests that the appearances and realities of inclusion and exclusion in social institutions are co-constituted in defining the coloniality of being between the signatories and the subjugated and in forming the ascriptive expectational status quo. Through a historical and contemporary analysis of policies and practices in the United States, this paper calls for further inquiries and moral outrage concerning coloniality and the intersecting dimensions of structurally, relationally, and knowledgeably ascriptive expectations.