Whiteness: An IntroductionWhat is whiteness? Why is it worth using as a tool in the social sciences? Making sociological sense of the idea of whiteness, this book skilfully argues how this concept can help us understand contemporary societies. If one of sociology's objectives is to make the familiar unfamiliar in order to gain heightened understanding, then whiteness offers a perfect opportunity to do so. Leaning firstly on the North American corpus, this key book critically engages with writings on the formation of white identities in Britain, Ireland and the Americas, using multidisciplinary sources. Empirical work done in the UK, including the author's own, is developed in order to suggest how whiteness functions in Britain. Bringing an emphasis on empirical work to a heavily theorized area, this important text synthesizes and reviews existing work, incorporates multidisciplinary sources of interest to those outside the sociology sphere, and features concise chapters which will engage undergraduates. Garner deftly argues that whiteness is a multifaceted, contingent and fluid identity, and that it must be incorporated into any contemporary understandings of racism as a system of power relationships in both its local and global forms. |
From inside the book
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... chapter. Moreover, many socialscientists are squeamish aboutusing theterm 'whiteness'. Wendy Shaw notes that'... researchonwhiteness has tendedtosuffer from guilt bydiscursive association with the bulk ofWhiteness Studies' (2006: 854) ...
... argumentispresented inthree sections of the book. Chapters 1–4 dealwiththe waysin whichwhiteness has been theorised and appliedto social relationships sofar. Sincethe predominant academic production of work on whiteness has emanated from.
... Chapters 8–9 draw more on empirical fieldworkdoneinthe UK since theearly 1990s andparticularly the beginning of the ... chapter 1),and one of my arguments isthat analysing whiteness is only effective when deployed to accomplish thisend ...
... sexuality and nation.Oneof thepoints to be madeinthe following chapters is that whiteness has two simultaneous borders:one between whiteand Otherand the second separating grades of whiteness. Overemphasis on the latter is.
... chapters that followI amgoingto suggestthat the ways in which whiteness has been theorised reflect the multidisciplinary tensions ofthe work done on it. This is hardly a surprising conclusion, given that academics from cultural studies ...