Overview

High profile ""mixed race"" stars like Tiger Woods have brought the politics of identity into the mainstream. Here, Jill Olumide argues that we must examine the contadictions inherent in the term ""mixed race"" in order to reach a fuller understanding of the variety in human experience and identity. The book demonstrates that there are distinctive features of mixed race experience that span time and place. By comparing contemporary experiences of mixed race, collected through a series of interviews and workshops, with those of past populations in different parts of the world, it explains how its meanings alters with national boundary, historical context, class, gender and ethnicity. Showing how different communities are linked by social ambiguity, dependency and the denial of social space, the author reveals that mixed race is essentially a conditional state. The underlying ideology that defines each community is therefore subject to frequent transformation in the face of social, economic and political change. As mixed race groups across the world call for the right of self-definition, the book aims to reveal that it is through understanding the plurality of the category of mixed race that we are best able to transcend the idea of ""race"" and challenge the racial axes of social division. The book includes an examination of the folklore around racism and anti-racism, and the agencies through which ideologies of race are propagated, including social welfare groups, religious groups, scientific texts, and the family.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jill Olumide
Publisher:   Pluto Press
Imprint:   Pluto Press
Volume:   Vol 13
Dimensions:   Width: 13.50cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 21.50cm
Weight:   0.420kg
ISBN:  

9780745317656

ISBN 10:   0745317650
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   20 February 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Stock Indefinitely
Availability:   Out of stock  

Table of Contents

Preface 1. A Spell to Make Them Balance: Introduction Dangerous Knowledge Importance of Studying Mixed Race Divisions The Mixed race Condition Group Identity A Theory of Lived Experience Social Construction: Passing and Being Passed Passing As... Structure of the book 2. The Hall of Mirrors: Structures of Power The Babalawo and the Sociologist Ideology and State Ideology For What? Race and its Provenance Religion and Race Ethnocentricism European Roots of Race Thinking Spain Classification and Race The Ground of Racialisation in the Capitalist Era A Missing Link: Whiteness as a Racial Category Ethnicity Women and the Racial Order Endpiece 3. Parallel Fictions: Writing About Mixed Race 'Natural' Science. Politics of Biology Eugenics UNESCO and Race Stonequist and the Psychologising Tendency Marginal Man Goes East Mixed Race and the Question ofIdentity Fostering Mixed Race Proving that Mixed Race Works The Mothers of Mixed Race Children Counting Mixed Race Multiracial People Biographical and Autobiographical Writing 4. Changing Illusions: Some Excerpts From the History of Mixed race Patterns in the Career of mixed Race Heredity Division and Exploitation:Slavocracy Style White Women and Black Women Losing Caste Group Consciousness Metissage Divide and Rule The Mixed Race Condition and Genocide The Purposeful Concept of Mixed Race 5. Behind the Facade: Race Mixing Background to the Research Population Access and Understanding Difference as Liberation Bridging No Positive Images Parents Must Prepare Knowledge is Power The Wrong Parents Set Up to Fail Terminology Not White/Black Enough Siblings and step-Families Conclusion 6. The Balancing Act: Race Separating Sanctions Rejection 'Looks' Abuse Reputation Pigeonholing Repatriation Suspicion of Unsuitable Combinations Strategies Hold Hands and Stick Together Challenge-Cure Ignorance Hard Work and Rightful Expectations The Goodness of Mixture Pass Amongst Imaginary Homelands Keep Your Distance Humour 7. The Very Foundation of Order: Social Origins of Mixed Race Theorising Mixed race Ethnic Leakage The Slimy Category Mixed race Undermines Black and White Women and the Reproduction of Own-Kind Family Religion Professionals Welfare Professionals in Particular Race Does Not Always Over-Determine Class and Gender The Need to Talk 8. Communities to Conjure With: Concluding Remarks Five Features of Mixed Race Ideology An Ambiguous Social Location A Contested Site A Measure of Induced Dependency is Involved It is a Conditional State It is a Point of Articulation in the Ordering of Race Gender and Other Divisions Emotional Subjects Giving Voice to Mixed Race Notes Index

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Author Information

Jill Olumide is a researcher at Royal Holloway. She has worked as a teacher with a particular interest in bilingual education and on a European Social Fund Horizon project looking at ways of assisting asylum seekers into work or training.

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