“Mixed nation!” introducing a conceptual framework for the (im)possibilities of racialized belonging among Black mixed-race youth

Abstract

ABSTRACT The authors draw from multiple research projects and their own lived experiences as motherscholars raising Black mixed-race children to inform the development of a conceptual framework to analyze the politics of belonging specific to Black mixed-race youth. Authors draw from John Crowley’s definition of the politics of belonging as “the dirty work of boundary maintenance” (1999, p. 30; Yuval-Davis, 2006) to conceptualize the boundaries in question as a politicized community of belonging in the U.S. context. The authors critique perspectives on belonging that assume sameness or agreement as a space to belong. Instead, they draw insight from Black mixed-race youth who have pushed them to think about diverse spaces as openings for belonging as they explore the central question of this paper: Where do Black mixed-race youth find a sense of belonging?