Racialized Subjects Research Articles

Qullasuyu Rising: Indianista-Katarista Politics, Paradoxes of the Plurinational State, and the Fall of Evo Morales

This work centers activist critiques of Evo Morales’s government in order to understand how growing alienation of Indigenous social movements from the state-party apparatus contributed to his controversial fall in November 2019’s right wing coup. To that end, I engage the work of Indigenous activists pertaining to the Indianista and Katarista movements as an evolving body of critical theory produced from the vantage point of racialized subjects engaged in a multivalent, anti-colonial struggle. Rather than considering the introduction of neoliberal reforms from 1985 as the inflection point for Indigenous political participation, a more organic understanding of the scope of these movements and their evolving conceptions of their own struggle requires a longer view, beginning with the fallout from the 1952 National Revolution. Such a perspective calls for closer attention to the various militant Indian organizations active throughout the twentieth century and positions them as key protagonists in Bolivia’s numerous social, political, and economic conflicts. Borrowing from political ontology and activists’ criticisms of the traditional Left, this essay argues that Indianismo and Katarismo are anti-colonial political ideologies whose practices mobilize an ontological politics that goes beyond the nation-state but not necessarily the nation, diverging from the state-led Process of Change. Indeed, the proliferation of the wiphala as a symbol of popular revolt across South America in the ongoing protest cycle since 2019 points to both the importance of Plurinational Bolivia in the contemporary progressive imaginary and the centrality of decolonization to autonomous political projects and horizons of possibility.

Sentimental Orientation: Listening and Musical Value in Kaapse Klopse Practice

Abstract Coloured South Africans have long been marginalized by a Black/White racial binary that framed their identities and cultural practices as degraded and derivative. Situated in a postapartheid twenty-first-century global neoliberal “identity economy” in which they continue to labor for cultural recognition and value, this article argues that contemporary practitioners of Kaapse klopse (clubs of the Cape) craft aesthetics beyond that binary that recenter musicking and musical value around community tradition and the feelings produced through iterative listening. I focus on the “sentimental” song category (English-language popular love songs) to show how performers and their audiences use sentimentals to orient themselves as racialized subjects and in the process frame popular musicking as a dynamic social experience rather than a matter of cultural (or racial) authenticity.

Making All Deserts Bloom: The Racist Space/Time of UAE-Israel Collaboration

ABSTRACT Since the normalisation of political relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, the so-called ‘desert tech’ industry has emerged as a key area of economic collaboration. Desert tech combines technological innovation with speculation and entrepreneurialism, claiming to offer lucrative yet sustainable solutions to the specific dangers of climate change in arid environments. By weaving together their respective climate and security expertise and technologies, political visions, and investment capital, Israel and the UAE promise to save arid states the world over from ecological catastrophe – making themselves and their political and territorial projects indispensable in the process. In this paper, we unravel their promethean vision of making ‘all deserts bloom’. We first situate this vision in the desert’s tangible histories of colonial environmentalism, retracing the inextricable relationship of climate science to the violent expropriation, securitisation and transformation of Indigenous life and land by white, European settlers. We then follow contemporary UAE-Israel desert-tech collaboration across the geographically expansive and historically layered sites and forms of violence that facilitate, circulate, and secure this industry’s vision of the future. In so doing, we argue that normalisation is underwritten by a racialised temporality – one that constructs desert landscapes as eternally on the threshold of climate catastrophe, erasing the deep, historical relationships of Palestinians, Bedouin and other racialised subjects to arid environments.

Establishing an accountability benchmark for equity, diversity, and inclusion: A 10-year scoping review of Families, Systems, & Health.

In 2022, Families, Systems, & Health (FSH) issued a statement of purpose to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and developed a strategic plan for promoting EDI in scientific communication and publishing. The purpose of this review was to evaluate a decade of research published in FSH prior to the journal's initiatives to improve EDI. We utilized a scoping review to broadly review literature published in FSH that focused on topics of race, ethnicity, racism, and/or BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) groups. All research studies published in FSH between 2012 and 2021 were independently assessed by two reviewers for inclusion. Charting of data from each study was based on a diversity accountability index. Of the 360 research studies identified, 41 were included in the review. Characteristics and frequencies of keywords, research designs, and samples among the included studies were examined, alongside the reporting of results that focused on the differences between racial/ethnic groups and within BIPOC groups. Research focused on race, ethnicity, racism, and diversity science is not well represented among published studies in FSH prior to the implementation of the above-described EDI efforts. Among articles that did focus on these topics, comparisons largely were of a racial/ethnic minority sample to a White sample. Action steps for FSH and other journals wishing to promote EDI include a thorough examination of current journal review procedures paired with the establishment of procedures for combatting bias and racism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Multidimensional Identity as Bricolage: Indexing Race and Place in Bakersfield, California

While traditional variationist research has been critiqued for positioning ethnic and regional variation in terms of separate “lects,” recent work has adopted a more nuanced view in which racialized subjects can combine individual linguistic resources to index multiple identities. Expanding upon this perspective, this paper explores how 12 African Americans in Bakersfield, California, combine elements of a local variety— California Vowel Shift (CVS)— and elements of a racialized variety— African American Language (AAL) via their realization of BOOT-fronting, BAT-backing, and the BOT-BOUGHT merger. While African Americans front BOOT and increasingly back BAT over time— as predicted by the CVS— they maintain a BOT-BOUGHT distinction— a pattern in line with descriptions of AAL. These patterns, which do not mirror either CVS or AAL in a wholesale way, align with the aforementioned perspective describing the linguistic practices of racialized individuals as a fluid linguistic repertoire, in which individual variables can be leveraged to articulate identity in complex ways. Relatedly, conversations in gender and linguistics have used bricolage as a theoretical framework to describe a similar phenomenon. Bridging these disciplinary conversations, it is argued that through stylistic bricolage, speakers draw from a fluid linguistic repertoire to articulate their identities as multidimensional.

Discursive Entrapment and the Limits of Potentiality in Plyer v. Doe

This essay traces the enduring legacy of the figure of the child leading up to and at the centre of the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision. I attempt to demonstrate the limits of the discursive deployment of the child figure for racialized subjects. This essay intervenes in education, childhood studies, and immigration literature by reading the child to understand the enduring legacy of Plyler for those who are not the central focus of the court case. I demonstrate how the necessity of matriculating into U.S. schools is implicated in politics of disposability for racialized gendered populations represented in reading the contradictions in immigration reform.

Society of Family Planning Research Practice Support: Strategies and considerations for addressing race and racism in quantitative family planning studies

ObjectiveFamily planning researchers have not critically engaged with topics of race, racism, and associated concepts like ethnicity. This lack of engagement contributes to the reproduction of research that reifies racial hierarchies rather than illuminates, and interrupts, the processes by which racism affects health. This research practice support paper lays out considerations and best practices for addressing race and racism in quantitative family planning research. Study DesignWe are scholars with racialized identities and expertise in racial health equity in family planning research. We draw from scholarship and guidance across disciplines to examine common shortcomings in the use and analysis of race and racism and propose practices for rigorous use of these concepts in quantitative family planning research. ResultsWe recommend articulating the role of race and racism in the development of the research question, authorship and positionality, study design, data collection, analytic approach, and interpretation of analyses. Definitions of relevant concepts and additional resources are provided. ConclusionFamily planning and racism are inextricably linked. Failing to name and analyze the pathways through which structural racism affects family planning and the people who need or want to plan if, when, or how to become pregnant or parent may reproduce harmful and incorrect beliefs about the causes of health inequities and the attributes of Black, Indigenous, and other people racialized as non-white. Family planning researchers should critically study racism and race with procedures grounded in appropriate and articulated theory, evidence, and analytic approaches. ImplicationsFamily planning research can better contribute to efforts to eliminate racialized health inequities, and avoid perpetuating harmful beliefs and conceptualizations of race, by ensuring that they study race and racism with procedures grounded in appropriate and articulated theory, evidence, and analytic approaches.

The colonial face of ‘housing’ refugees: the construction of the racialised subject within a necropolitical infrastructure

The incredible mobilisation to welcome Ukrainian refugees following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 demonstrated how housing is an affective sociomaterial infrastructure. In cruel contrast, such mobilisation also exposed the inherently racist and colonial face of accommodating refugees and migrants, and the structural inequalities that racial capitalism continues to reproduce. Drawing reflections across several geographies and temporalities through illustrative vignettes, this paper begs the questions under what conditions do we accept that some people are housed, others not? What kind of power structures allow certain bodies to be welcomed? This paper borrows from postcolonial, black and critical theory to examine refugee housing through the lens of necropolitical infrastructure. It connects Mbembe’s notion of necropower with Power and Mee’s notion of housing as infrastructure of care, and filters this through reflections across Calais, Brescia and Athens, to illustrate the bio- and necropolitical side of the refugee housing infrastructure in Europe. The paper ultimately argues that refugee housing, because it is an infrastructure and because it is part of the broader extractive and exploitative system of (humanitarian) care, is deeply imbricated in the production of racialised subjects. Specifically, it is complicit with the extraction, (re)incorporation, abandonment and slow death of Black and Brown refugee lives.

Portrayal of Race and Gender in the Selected Novels of Toni Morrison: A Critical Reading

With deep insight into the racial problems that have been confronted by Blacks since their existence, Toni Morrison has boldly projected the prejudices and racism faced by African American Women and explicitly exposes the long struggle that Blacks have had against the exploitative tendencies of the Whites. In my paper, I will analyze the selected novels of Toni Morrison, namely, The Bluest Eye, Sula, and Beloved. My thrust area in these novels of Toni Morrison will be on the theme of race and gender, which is persistent and is rendered as an entirely different perspective in each of her novels.

Racist Agnotology: How Myth-Making about Institutions and Knowledge Production Contributes to Racialized Ignorance

Recently, scholars have revitalized the study of race by exploring how ignorance epistemologically fortifies racial domination. To articulate terms of analysis, much of this literature invokes two recurrent modes of racialized ignorance—racist essentialism and racialized nonknowing. We introduce a third mode—racist agnotology. With racist agnotology, actors perpetuate racialized ignorance by characterizing social constructionist accounts of race or anti-racist forms of knowledge as evidence of how knowledge-producing institutions—like science, academia, or other research-intensive fields—have become intellectually compromised or beholden to political principles that produce inaccurate knowledge about race. Whereas racist essentialism and racialized nonknowing produce ignorance by, respectively, distorting and occluding knowledge about racialized subjects, racist agnotology produces ignorance through stories and narratives about how such knowledge is prefigured by institutions. To demonstrate the usefulness of our contribution, and its relationship to extant literature, we empirically explore the intersection of race and health to illustrate how racialized ignorance thrives in patterned ways that reflect the logics of racist essentialism, racialized nonknowing, and racist agnotology. Our analysis reveals additional stakes and contours involved in the phenomenon of racialized ignorance. Importantly, it also reveals how many of the hermeneutic processes that have been revelatory for scholars and their study of race and ignorance—for example, demystification—can be used toward racist ends as well. In this regard, our contribution helps apprehend and theorize the social politics of knowledge involved in much of the contemporary, reactionary response to anti-racism or racial equity interventions.

Racial Biases in AIs and Gemini's Inability to Write Narratives About Black People

This article addresses the racism that emerges in artificial intelligence based on an experiment carried out in Gemini, Google's text-generative tool that uses natural language. In an attempt to observe possible racial biases in the chatbot's responses, commands reproduced for the binary matrices man/woman and white/black were submitted in order to compare the responses, but Gemini, despite having text production as its primary function, was unable to generate narratives that involved black people. This empirical experimentation was analyzed according to a bibliographical review of authors who deal with racial themes, mainly considering the view of Denise Ferreira da Silva in relation to the idea of a transparent subjectivity, the temporal displacement of the black body discussed by Bhabha and the overlap between technology and race brought by Noble and Faustino and Lippold. This erasure of minoritized racial groups is not restricted to the tool or the algorithmic means, but is a symptom of other exclusionary practices observed in society.

Postcolonialism in South Africa: Unraveling Historical Legacies and Contemporary Impacts

Abstract Critically observing and analyzing South Africa calls for the mentions of colonialism and postcolonialism. The African country was highly influenced throughout its history by western powers, those times having an important impact in today’s day and age. Frantz Fanon and Edward Said will be the main inspiration points of the study, their viewpoints helping us to understand the implications of colonialism and postcolonialism. Narrative building, stereotyping and power games will be added to the problematics of racial subjugation, psychological traumatization and the need for self-realization in order to frame the image of South Africa. These ideas will be complemented by the addition of critical theory, which will complement the paper by looking into the economic dimension of the colonial and postcolonial periods. This mash-up of ideas will try to serve as a framework that will better explain the situation in South Africa and how the discovered problems could or should be settled.

Education, perceived discrimination, and identity voting: evidence from Brazil’s 2018 election

ABSTRACT Brazil’s electoral arena has long been characterized as devoid of identity politics. Recent analyses, however, have uncovered shifting racial subjectivities and effects of race and gender on electoral preferences. This paper leverages Brazil’s 2018 election to reassess conventional wisdom and test whether recent findings derived from racial groups extend to other subordinate social groups in this context, namely women and sexual minorities. I test two hypotheses: (1) that higher levels of education correlate with greater perceptions of group-based discrimination, and (2) that perceptions of group-based discrimination explain within-group variation in support for Bolsonaro. Analysis of national survey data show that education correlates with group consciousness among subordinate groups, and that these individuals are more likely to oppose the far-right populist candidate. This article provides a more complete understanding of the electoral salience of identity in the Brazilian context, and provides evidence that insights derived from one marginalized group can extend to others.

Condition of Women in the Works of Alice Walker During the Post-Colonial Era

This review paper explores the impactful literary contributions of Alice Walker, focusing on her portrayal of the struggles faced by African American women in the post-colonial era. Alice Walker, known as the primary author of subaltern literature, delves into themes of racism, sexism, feminism, and womanism, shedding light on the intersecting oppressions experienced by Black women. Through an analysis of Walker's seminal works such as "The Color Purple," "Meridian," and "Possessing the Secret of Joy," this paper examines the emotional and physical traumas endured by her characters, including Celie, Meridian Hill, and Tashi. The narrative framework of Walker's novels, often utilizing epistolary styles, provides a unique lens through which to explore the complexities of identity, cultural expectations, and societal norms. Furthermore, Walker's portrayal of resilience, strength, and the unbreakable spirit of her female characters serves as a poignant reminder of the ongoing struggles for social justice and women's rights. Through her literature, Walker challenges readers to confront systemic injustices and work towards a more equitable and inclusive society. This review paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the intersectionality of race and gender, highlighting the enduring relevance of Walker's writings in contemporary discourse on marginalized voices and societal transformation.

"I want to lift my people up": Exploring the psychological correlates of racial themes within the life stories of midlife Black Americans.

This study explores how middle-aged Black Americans talk about race, without prompting, while telling their life stories. Drawing upon a dataset of lengthy Life Story Interviews (N = 70), we first employed a keyword search to identify race-relevant interview scenes for each participant. Next, we conducted a thematic analysis of these scenes to identify salient racial narrative themes. Finally, we coded race-relevant scenes to examine the psychological correlates of racial narrative themes. We identified 460 total racially themed Life Story Interview scenes, with the number of racially themed scenes ranging from 1 to 17 across participants' interviews. Racial narrative themes included Community of Care, Black Cultural Identity, Multiculturalism, Activism, Encounter with Racism, Systemic Racism, and Racial Reckoning. Quantitative analyses highlight a relationship between racial narrative themes and psychological measures of wisdom and generativity. This study offers insight into the ways that race manifests in the life stories of Black Americans and highlights the importance of considering race in the study of narrative identity, and personality, more broadly.

An ideological critique of the legacy of Nelson Mandela in Brenda Fassie’s “Black President”

The intrarelationship between language and music is an enthralling and intricate interplay that spans various dimensions of human expression. Both language and music are complex forms of communication, and their interaction can be observed in several ways. Words, phrases, and sentences in a language underpin specific meanings and convey information. The structure and choice of words enable precise communication of thoughts, emotions, and ideas. Musical elements such as melody, harmony, rhythm, and dynamic forces contribute to the emotional and expressive power of music. Even without lyrics, instrumental music has the capacity to evoke a wide range of sensibilities. With this in mind, the primary aim of this article is to uncover Brenda Fassie’s “Black President” in an attempt to unravel Nelson Mandela’s political and leadership discourse. To do this, an ideological critique as a theory is applied to the discussions. Ultimately, this article makes two notable findings and discussions. First, Fassie’s “Black President” emerges as a consequential symbol within postcolonial and post-apartheid South Africa. In fact, the clause “Black President” is laden with historical significance, representing a departure from the era of racial subjugation. Through linguistic choices and symbolic language, the song contributes to the ideological critique by illustrating Mandela’s presidency as a transformative moment in the nation’s history. Second (last), Fassie’s lyrical craftsmanship introduces a layer of narrative complexity, offering an ideological critique that goes beyond simple glorification. While the song acknowledges Mandela’s heroic stature, it equally confronts the challenges and disparities countenancing in post-apartheid South Africa. Linguistic choices convey a multifaceted reflection on the “Black President’s” legacy, questioning whether the dreams of liberation have materialized into concrete improvements for all citizens. The language used becomes a tool for critique, urging listeners to grapple with the intricacies of societal transformation and the realization that, despite the monumental changes, there remains unfinished business in the pursuit of liberty and justice. The concluding remarks underline the necessity to continue to examine political and leadership figures as (re)produced in musical linguistics.

“Hot hoes” and “dirty whites”: racial contestation and fetishization of multiracial and contested white women

The fear of race-mixing through procreation has been strategically propagated in the Unites States as a force for social control, even though interracial intimacies have taken place since the 1600s. Fetishization can be considered an inversion of that fear. In contemporary times, the college and graduate school years constitute seasons wherein individuals learn from interpersonal, romantic, and sexual relationships, and both fear of race-mixing and fetishization show up in this arena. This manuscript considers the narratives of 14 contested white cis women students at a predominantly white postsecondary institution and delineates the construction of the paradoxical “Hot hoe/Dirty white” subjectivity through discourse. The discourses of white supremacy shape the experiences of postsecondary students, ordering romantic and sexual possibilities and engendering subjectivity. Considering racialized subjectivity through discourse illuminates the role of hegemonic norms and adds important insights to contemporary, widespread developmental models of racial identity extant in social science literature.

Creating Racial Subjects: Eugenics, Psychiatry, and the Ainu

ABSTRACT This article explores the development of psychiatric interest in the Ainu people of Hokkaidō Island within the socio-political context of Japan’s colonial expansion and the eugenics movement from the late nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War. Japanese researchers reinterpreted data on the Ainu – particularly as this related to racial categorization and blood-mixing – in reaction to the passing of the 1940 National Eugenics Law and the Japanese Empire’s geographic expansion. Their studies negated colonial reality and attributed psychiatric degeneracy to a racialized Ainu constitution, building off and reinforcing preexisting anticipated futures for Ainu people. The article ends by raising questions about the impact of eugenics ideology, its practices, and related laws on minoritized groups in the post-war period.

Overlooked by the Spirit-filled: Womanist Pentecostalism and the case of the Hellenistic widows

ABSTRACT From its inception until now, Pentecostalism has thrived among Black communities, women and those experiencing socio-economic deprivation. Pentecostal theological ethicists have dealt in some ways with the themes of race, class and gender but often as single issues, meaning that Black women, who exist at the intersections, can be overlooked. Womanist ethics has a particular contribution to make to Pentecostal theology and Pentecostal studies since womanists centre the Spirit, as well as the lived experiences and faith of Black women in a world (and churches) marked indelibly by racism, sexism and classism. Given the centrality of the Bible in Black Pentecostal women’s spirituality, in this article, I examine the case of the Hellenistic widows in Acts 6 which illustrates the importance of Pentecostal womanism for critiquing the problems of race, gender and class, that shape even the Spirit-filled community not only in the early church but also today.

Formação de psicólogos no Estado do Piauí - discutindo as questões raciais do Brasil

Abstract Objective The aim of this discussion was to present how racial issues are treated with in some higher education courses in Psychology in the state of Piauí, Brazil. Method Our methodology involved qualitative analysis of the texts of the institutional curricular documents of these programs. We discussed the implications arising from the racial theme from a historical perspective, from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, a period in which psychology was debating the Brazilian racial issue, as it was developing as an independent science, a situation in which the influence of other sciences, such as medicine, allowed psychological knowledge to be used to validate theories that were intended to defend scientific racism. Results The results of the analysis showed that the issue of race is not explicitly addressed in these courses. Conclusion Our conclusions indicate that we still need to overcome the challenge of understanding racism as a serious problem whose consequences affect society as a whole and that the discussion of these curricular absences is irrefutably relevant for the training of psychologists in a state like Piauí where 76.5% of the population is made up of Brazilians of African descent.