"Race" in Search of a Discipline

• In Event: 25.034 - Division G Vice-Presidential Session. Race(ing) Across the Disciplines: How Research in Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Law Understands Race and Racism

Abstract

The study of “race” has varied from discipline to discipline. “Race” is in quotes because historically race was considered a biological category that denoted unalterable biological characteristics between races. There is a long intellectual history of documenting these differences based on phenotypic differences between “races” and a quest for developing a taxonomy of races based on secondary biological differences like skin color, hair texture, head size, and phenotype. Race is now considered as a social construction based on history, social relations, and imposed ideologies. However, there is still much debate about how to best study race and its consequences. I explore three disciplines and their approach to the study of race: Social Psychology, Feminist Studies, and Chicana and Chicano Studies. I document my trajectory in studying race from an intersectional perspective by working in the interstices of these three disciplines. My approach results in redefining race, a personal characteristic, to a relational process I call “racialization” and that is constructed through social interaction. Racialization varies from social context to social context and intersects with other significant axes of difference such as gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and physical ableness.

Author

• Aida Hurtado, University of California - Santa Barbara