Is there a racial order? Comments on Emirbayer and Desmond

Abstract

ABSTRACTEmirbayer and Desmond’s THE RACIAL ORDER is a heroic but ultimately quixotic effort. The work relies upon an attempted synthesis of Deweyan pragmatism and Bourdieuian social capital theory. Emirbayer and Desmond deploy an uneasy combination of approaches, insisting upon ‘reflexivity’ in sociological study of race and racism (the pragmatism dimension), and crafting a dubious taxonomy of sociological ‘fields’ where racial conflict takes shape, and in which sociologists study race as well (the social capital dimension). A chapter on ‘racial reconstruction’ proposes to apply their understanding to concrete political struggles, in pursuit of an augmented ‘racial democracy’. While the book is tremendously erudite theoretically and provides a valuable literature review, it does not advance racial theory very much. The authors are distracted by Bourdieu’s scientism and obsession with classification. Although ‘racial order’ is revealed to be a chimera, there is still much to be learned here.