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. |
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... of the significance of whitenessin other contexts. Iattempt here to make some connections enabled by using whiteness ... ofthe variety of approaches and waysto use whitenessas a tool for socialscientists engagedin the analysis of racism ...
... of the dominant rather than minority racialised group is invalid. One commentator expresses hisunderstanding thus: 'The essence ofthe discipline canbe summed up in two words: Hating Whitey'. 2This representation ofthethrust of whiteness ...
... beenusedtodescribe groups of people intheNew Worldfora couple ofhundred years before that. Even then, racialised subdivisions began toform part ofthe picture, in the writings of Gobineau, Knox, and later Chamberlain.
... of the first four. Clearly, ifwe assume thatmerely by trying tomark whiteness asa racialised location weareproducing ... ofthe work done on it. This is hardly a surprising conclusion, given that academics from cultural studies, literary ...
... ofthe nineteenth century, W.E.BDu Bois (1996 [1903], 1999 [1920], 1998[1935]), at the beginning of the twentieth century, through Langston Hughes (1947), Richard Wright (1992[1940],1957), Ralph Ellison (1952), James Baldwin (1955, 1984 ...