Membership categorization analysis, race, and racism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) has the potential to highlight the dynamic ways that people make race relevant to everyday life. However, existing MCA research conducts analyses that are disconnected from the broader sociopolitical contexts within which race categories are developed and used. This article proposes an extension MCA that foregrounds ways that racial category use mobilizes racial inferences and is consequential for the constitution of knowledge about race and racism. Scholars conducting an MCA of race categories should (a) engage with social science research on race and racism (b) meet unique adequacy requirements for research. We apply these extensions to three key tenets of MCA: knowledge, the membership categorization device, and morality. We then present two illustrative analyses: from Asian Americans discussing business in the United States and from Indians discussing anti-Black racism in India. We close by discussing the implications of our framework for MCA and qualitative psychological research.