Racialization: A Defense of the Concept

This paper defends the concept of racialization against its critics. As the concept has become increasingly popular, questions about its meaning and value have been raised, and a backlash against its use has occurred. I argue that when “racialization” is properly understood, criticisms of the concept are unsuccessful. I defend a definition of racialization and identify its companion concept, “racialized group.” Racialization is often used as a synonym for “racial formation.” I argue that this is a mistake. Racial formation theory is committed to racial ontology, but racialization is best understood as the process through which racialized – rather than racial – groups are formed. “Racialization” plays a unique role in the conceptual landscape, and it is a key concept for race eliminativists and anti-realists about race

Negotiating identities: ethnicity and social relations in a young offenders' institution

This article explores the situated nature of male prisoner identities in the late modern British context, using the contrasting theoretical frames of Sykes's (1958) indigenous model and Jacobs' (1979) importation model of prisoner subcultures and social relations. Drawing on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork in an ethnically, religiously and nationally diverse young offenders institution, consideration is given to how prisoners manage and negotiate difference, exploring the contours of racialization and racism which can operate in ambiguous and contradictory ways. Sociological understandings of identity, ethnicity, racialization and racism are used to inform a more empirically grounded theoretical criminology

Race as Technology: From Posthuman Cyborg to Human Industry

Cyborg and prosthetic technologies frame prominent posthumanist approaches to understanding the nature of race. But these frameworks struggle to accommodate the phenomena of racial passing and racial travel, and their posthumanist orientation blurs useful distinctions between racialized humans and their social contexts. We advocate, instead, a humanist approach to race, understanding racial hierarchy as an industrial technology. Our approach accommodates racial passing and travel. It integrates a wide array of research across disciplines. It also helpfully distinguishes among grounds of racialization and conditions facilitating impacts of such racialization

Is “Race” Modern? Disambiguating the Question

Race theorists have been unable to reach a consensus regarding the basic historical question, “is ‘race’ modern?” I argue that this is partly because the question itself is ambiguous. There is not really one question that race scholars are answering, but at least six. First, is the concept of race modern? Second, is there a modern concept of race that is distinct from earlier race concepts? Third, are “races” themselves modern? Fourth, are racialized groups modern? Fifth, are the means and methods associated with racialization modern? And sixth, are the meanings attached to racialized traits modern? Because these questions have different answers, the debate about the historical origins of “race” cannot be resolved unless they are distinguished. I will explain the ways in which “race” is and is not modern by answering these questions, thereby offering a resolution to a seemingly intractable problem

Borders Manifest: Racializing the Nicaraguan Refugee in Costa Rica

I look to border responses of North American countries as refugees and migrants move across them to argue that border responses racialize the foreign other in receiving countries. I pay particular attention to the South-South migration of Nicaraguans into Costa Rica, of importance now due to the increased displacement of Nicaraguans across this border as the Nicaraguan government continues its harsh crackdown on political dissenters in the country. Through critical whiteness studies, the tactics used to racialize Nicaraguans as an other in Costa Rica are interrogated. By connecting these methods of racialization and border responses, I examine how racial and geopolitical borders influence one another, coming to the conclusion that they actively support and construct each other

Breast Cancer Screening in Racialized Women: Implications for Health Equity

Inequalities across the breast cancer continuum due to racialization have significantly affected women's access to screening programs, diagnosis, treatment and survival. To ensure there is equitable access to quality care there needs to be a better understanding of broader systemic issues. Despite the existence of breast cancer prevention strategies across Canada, inequitable access to screening has barred many women from receiving adequate medical attention. More than half of recent immigrants (those who have been in Canada for less than 10 years) who are eligible for screening did not utilize the program in the previous two years compared to 26 percent of Canadian-born women. Currently, prevention through screening is the primary form of breast cancer control in Canada, thus the differential access to screening among social, geographic, demographic and racial groups can severely affect one's chances of surviving. This paper provides an overview of inequitable outcomes across the breast cancer continuum due to racialization, with a particular focus on screening. It provides a brief description of racial and ethnic differences in screening utilization, diagnosis and survival drawing on local, national, and international data. It also provides a summary of important barriers to screening in racialized and ethnic minority women. It concludes with implications for Ontario and the Greater TorontoArea (GTA), and identifies possible directions forward.Racial, ethnic and socioeconomic differences in breast cancer screening have an important impact on the chance of both developing and dying from breast cancer. Therefore, we must acknowledge the negative impact of racialization and racism on health outcomes in Canada. In order to adequately address this problem, there is a need for community-based research that allows us to gain better insight into the perceptions, lived experiences and the multiple and often competing needs of women across racialized and immigrant communities in Ontario

Review of Race Scholarship and the War on Terror

The 9/11 terrorist attacks and heavy-handed state and popular response to them stimulated increased scholarship on American Muslims. In the social sciences, this work has focused mainly on Arabs and South Asians, and more recently on African Americans. The majority of this scholarship has not engaged race theory in a comprehensive or intersectional manner. The authors provide an overview of the work on Muslims over the past 15 years and argue that the Muslim experience needs to be situated within race scholarship. The authors further show that September 11 did not create racialized Muslims, Arabs, or South Asians. Rather, the authors highlight a preexisting, racializing war on terror and a more complex history of these groups with race both globally and domestically. Islamophobia is a popular term used to talk about Muslim encounters with discrimination, but the concept lacks a clear understanding of race and structural racism. Newer frameworks have emerged situating Muslim experiences within race scholarship. The authors conclude with a call to scholars to embark on studies that fill major gaps in this emerging field of study—such as intersectional approaches that incorporate gender, communities of belonging, black Muslim experiences, class, and sexuality—and to remain conscious of the global dimensions of this racial project

A New Look at the Old Race Language: Rethinking Race and Exclusion in Social Policy

This essay is an examination of the use of the notion “race current in American social science literature and public discourse. It argues that the current assumptions of “race are mistaken and lead to misunderstanding and misdirected social policy. A rethinking of the notions of “race requires making a paradigmatic shift of the old categories of “race and “race relations to a new language that rejects “race as a descriptive and an analytical category. It examines the processes through which “racist social policies are enacted against Asian immigrants in contemporary Southern California