A Critical and Comprehensive Sociological Theory of Race and Racism

This article contests the contention that sociology lacks a sound theoretical approach to the study of race and racism, instead arguing that a comprehensive and critical sociological theory of race and racism exists. This article outlines this theory of race and racism, drawing from the work of key scholars in and around the field. This consideration of the state of race theory in sociology leads to four contentions regarding what a critical and comprehensive theory of race and racism should do: (1) bring race and racism together into the same analytical framework; (2) articulate the connections between racist ideologies and racist structures; (3) lead us towards the elimination of racial oppression; and (4) include an intersectional analysis

What Does A Sociology Without Borders Look Like?

In this essay, I consider what a sociology without borders would look like through an exploration of two questions: 1) How can sociology be mobilized to make the world a better place? and 2) What does a sociology of human rights look like? To answer these questions, I take the reader through a discussion of the history of Sociologists without Borders, the influence of Professor Judith Blau, and my own excursions into the sociology of human rights in the United States and abroad

Notes From the Field: The Criminalization of Undocumented Migrants: Legalities and Realities

Undocumented migrants are not criminals. Detention is not prison. Deportation is not punishment. These are truths in the legal system of the United States. However, undocumented migrants are treated like criminals; detainees feel as if they are in prison; and deportees experience their exclusion as punishment. This article examines the contradictions between legal arguments which indicate that immigration proceedings are not criminal proceedings and the experiences of deportees who often feel as if they were treated like criminals and that banishment from the country in which they have lived most of their lives is a cruel punishment

Disinvestment and Carceral Investment in Black Neighborhoods

This comic is based on the research in the 2024 University of California Press book, Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap  This book shows how a century of redlining, disinvestment, and the War on Drugs wreaked devastation on Black people and paved the way for gentrification in Washington, DC. In Before Gentrification, Tanya Golash-Boza tracks the cycles of state abandonment and punishment that have shaped the city, revealing how policies and policing work to displace and decimate the Black middle class

The Parallels between Mass Incarceration and Mass Deportation: An Intersectional Analysis of State Repression

In the spring of 2014, President Obama’s administration reached a landmark of over 2 million deportations—more in under six years than the sum total of all deportations prior to 1997. Mass deportation has not affected all communities equally: the vast majority of deportees are Latin American and Caribbean men. Today, nearly 90 percent of deportees are men, and over 97 percent of deportees are Latin American or Caribbean. This article explores the global context under which mass deportation has occurred and draws parallels with mass incarceration. Whereas other scholars have characterized mass deportation as a tool of social or migration control, this article argues that mass deportation is best understood as a racialized and gendered tool of state repression implemented in a time of crisis. I argue that the confluence of four factors has created the conditions of possibility for mass deportation from the United States: (1) nearly all deportees are Latin American and Caribbean men; (2) the rise of a politics of fear in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th; (3) the global financial crisis; and (4) the utility of deportee

Does Whitening Happen? Distinguishing between Race and Color Labels in an African-Descended Community in Peru

Published as "Does Whitening Happen? Distinguishing between Race and Color Labels in an African-Descended Community in Peru." Tanya Golash-Boza. Social Problems. Vol. 57, No. 1 (February 2010), pp. 138-156 . © 2010 by Society for the Study of Social Problems. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by Society for the Study of Social Problems for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on [Caliber (http://caliber.ucpress.net/)] or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com.This article explores how race and color labels are used to describe people in an Afro-Peruvian community. This article is based on analyses of 88 interviews and 18 months of fieldwork in an African-descended community in Peru. The analyses of these data reveal that, if we consider race and color to be conceptually distinct, there is no “mulatto escape hatch,” no social or cultural whitening, and no continuum of racial categories in the black Peruvian community under study. This article considers the implications of drawing a conceptual distinction between race and color for research on racial classifications in Latin America. Keywords: blackness, race, skin color, Latin America, whitening