The Edges of Praxis: Embracing Constraints in (Whiteness) Theorizing. Journal of Multicultural Discourses (original) (raw)

Articulating Identity: Refining Postcolonial and Whiteness Perspectives on Race within Communication Studies

Review of Communication, 2008

This paper juxtaposes postcolonial and whiteness scholarship to identify gaps and clarify influences on critical race scholarship within communication studies. This paper considers the multiplicity of each perspective and identifies the focus on race and the body as communicative texts as a linkage that unites the three perspectives. How each perspective informs a communicative understanding of race is explored through the constructs of Cartesian dualism, performance, and the gaze. The paper concludes with suggestions for future directions for interrogating race within the communication discipline, including a consideration of how white privilege is extended to and assumed by individuals who are not white.

Beyond the pale: A pragmatist approach to whiteness studies

Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2005

Abstract The recent growth of whiteness studies has brought whiteness under increasing scrutiny as a racial category that is both constructed and morally problematic. Two approaches dominate this relatively new discourse on the proper approach to whiteness. The first approach is eliminativism, which starts from the insight that the discursive categories of race, including whiteness, lack the biological ground that Enlightenment era theorists thought they had, and therefore calls for the elimination of the idea of race. The other, more heterogeneous, approach is that of the critical conservationists who agree with the general spirit of the eliminativists (namely that the idea of whiteness lacks a biological referent) but for various reasons do not think that racial categories should be eliminated.

Constructions and enactments of whiteness: a discursive analysis

Journal of Family Therapy, 2014

Systemic therapists have argued that it is important to reexamine issues about white identities if they are to develop cultural competence and cultural sensitivity. Despite this, few studies have explored whiteness in systemic psychotherapy. This small-scale qualitative study therefore explores how a group of white systemic psychotherapists (trainers and trainees) construct whiteness, how these constructions or discourses facilitate or constrain talk about whiteness and how this influences what therapists do in therapy. The research method used was focus group discussions and an action research approach. The data were analysed using Foucauldian discourse analysis and three main discourses were made apparent: 'whiteness as an invisible norm', 'political correctness' and 'systemic therapy discourses'. These discourses are described and the implications, discussed.

Introduction: White Noise: Bringing Language into Whiteness Studies

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2001

owes a special debt to anthropology. After all, the fundamental postulate of whiteness studies-that race is socially constructed-is based on extensive anthropological research extending back to Boas and continuing to the present moment (e.g., Harrison 1995Harrison ,1998. Moreover, as a phenomenon grounded in what Hill (this issue) calls the "culture of racism," the racial project of whiteness is especially suited to anthropological study. Indeed, anthropologists have been at the vanguard of scholarship in the critical investigation of whiteness. The influential studies of such researchers as Karen Brodkin (1998) and John Hartigan (1999) have enriched the field by demonstrating the importance of historical, geographic, and ethnographic specificity in understanding the workings of whiteness. It is important to acknowledge, too, that these insights, which Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11(1):3-21.

Critical Whiteness Discourse Analysis

In this chapter from the third edition of Maggie Walter's edited book Social Research Methods, I outline my synthesis of critical whiteness studies and critical discourse analysis. The resulting method, critical whiteness discourse analysis, is applied to the Gillard Government's 2011 'Closing the Gap' speech.

Discourse and Whiteness

Discourse and Whiteness, 2020

Entry on discursive constructions and enactments of whiteness for the Encyclopedia of Critical Whiteness Studies in Education. Discourse and whiteness. In Z. Casey (Ed.), Encyclopedia of critical whiteness studies in education, pp. 133-143. Boston: Brill Sense.