What Constitutes Intermarriage for Multiracial People in Britain?

Intermarriage is of great interest to analysts because a group’s tendency to partner across ethnic boundaries is usually seen as a key indicator of the social distance between groups in a multiethnic society. Theories of intermarriage as a key indicator of integration are, however, typically premised upon the union of white and nonwhite individuals, and we know very little about what happens in the unions of multiracial people, who are the children of intermarried couples. What constitutes intermarriage for multiracial people? Do multiracial individuals think that ethnic or racial ancestries are a defining aspect of their relationships with their partners? In this article, I argue that there are no conventions for how we characterize endogamous or exogamous relationships for multiracial people. I then draw on examples of how multiracial people and their partners in Britain regard their relationships with their partners and the significance of their and their partners’ ethnic and racial backgrounds. I argue that partners’ specific ancestries do not necessarily predict the ways in which multiracial individuals regard their partners’ ethnic and racial backgrounds as constituting difference or commonality within their relationships

Book Reviews

Book Reviews: The Great Land: How Western America Nearly Became a Russian Possession by Jeremy Atiyah ; Sacred Claims: Repatriation and Living Tradition by Greg Johnson ; Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai'i? by Jon M. Van Dyke ; White Enough to Be American?: Race Mixing, Indigenous People, and the Boundaries of State and Nation by Lauren L. Basson ; Colonizing Leprosy: Imperialism and the Politics of Public Health in the United States by Michelle T. Moran ; Pacific Performances: Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas by Christopher B. Balme ; Guardian of the Sea: Jizo in Hawai'i by John R. K. Clark ; Pathways to the Present: U.S. Development and Its Consequences in the Pacific by Mansel G. Blackford ; "Whole Oceans Away": Melville and the Pacific edited by Jill Barnum, Wyn Kelley, and Christopher Sten ; Ka Mo'olelo o Hi'iakaikapoliopele: Ka Wahine i ka Hikina a ka la, ka u'i Palekoki Uila o Halema'uma'u -- The Epic Tale of Hi'iakaikapoliopele: Woman of the Sunrise, Lightning-Skirted Beauty of Halema'uma'u by Ho'oulumahiehie ; We Go Eat: A Mixed Plate From Hawai'i's Food Culture edited by Susan Yim ; The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War by Gerald Horn

Investigations of the Andean Past: Papers from the First Annual Northeast Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory

The papers included in this volume represent fourteen of the twenty-three original papers presented at the First Annual Northeast Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory held at Cornell University on November 13th and 14th, 1982. The papers are: The Preceramic Occupations of the Casma Valley, Peru by Michael A. Malpass, The Historical Development of a Coastal Andean Social Formation in Central Peru, 6000 to 500 B.C. by Thomas C. Patterson, Stone Tools in Ceramic Contexts: Exploring the Unstructured by Joan M. Gero, Possible Uses, Roles, and Meanings of Chavin-style Painted Textiles of South Coast Peru by Rebecca R. Stone, Megalithic Sites in the Nepena Valley, Peru by Richard E. Daggett, Huaca del Loro Revisited: The Nasca-Huarpa Connection by Allison C. Paulsen, Spatial Patterning and the Function of a Huari Architectural Compound by Christine C. Brewster-Wray, The Development of Huari Administrative Architecture by Lynda E. Spickard, Aspects of State Ideology in Huari and Tiwanaku Iconography: The Central Deity and the Sacrificer by Anita G. Cook, Shared Ideology and Parallel Political Development: Huari and Tiwanaku by William H. Isbell, Casma Incised Pottery: An Analysis of Collections from the Nepena Valley by Cheryl Daggett, High Altitude Land Use in the Huamachuco Area by T. McGreevy and R. Shaughnessy, La Lengua Pescadora: the Lost Dialect of Chimu Fishermen by Joel Rabinowitz, and The Chancas of Angaraes: 1450(?)--1765 by Paul H. Dillon.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/andean_past_special/1002/thumbnail.jp

Is There Evidence of "Whitening" For Asian/White Multiracial People in Britain?

Growing rates of interracial unions in multi-ethnic societies such as Britain are notable, and point to significant changes in the blurring and possibly shifting nature of ethnic and racial boundaries. Asian Americans who partner with White Americans are assumed to engage in “whitening” – both in terms of their aspirations and their social consequences. Yet little is still known about the aftermath of intermarriage, even in the USA. Drawing on this US literature, this paper considers the whitening thesis in relation to multiracial people in Britain, with a particular focus on Asian/White multiracial people. I draw upon the findings of two British studies – one of multiracial young people in higher education (Aspinall & Song 2013), and another of multiracial people who are parents (Song 2017) – to explore these questions. I argue that conceptualizations of part Asian people (in the USA) as leaning toward their White heritages are often unsubstantiated, and deduced primarily from one key factor: their high rates of intermarriage with White spouses. In addition to the variable ways in which part Asian people may relate to their minority and White ancestries, we must consider the ambivalence, tensions, and contextually variable identifications and practices adopted by multiracial people

Shape Shifting: Toward a Theory of Racial Change

We are accustomed to thinking of identities—racial, ethnic, often religious—as if they were permanent, unalterable features of individuals and groups. The theory enunciated here is directed to illumine individuals and groups whose lives are more complicated than that. Such people are shape shifters. At different times in their lives, or over generations in their families and communities, their identities have changed from one group to another. This article sets out an agenda for understanding the phenomenon of racial or other primary identity change. It seeks to understand what kinds of circumstances produce racial change, what sorts of people and groups are likely to change identities, what processes facilitate identity change, and what kinds of work that change is doing. It describes three major intertwined processes at work. Sometimes it is mainly a matter of changes in context and the menu of identities that are available. Sometimes changes in identity are imposed by governments, by institutions, or by society at large. And sometimes it is an individual’s, a family’s, or an entire ethnic group’s choice to make a change. The complexity and contingency of these processes may tend to diminish our commitment to the very idea of social inquiry as science