Mixed Ghosts and Compost: Multiraciality as Investment in Modernity

• In Event: Settler Colonialism and Education

Abstract

This paper interrogates modern multiraciality as an ongoing settler colonial project in the United States. While multiraciality has been critiqued at possibly strengthening racial hierarchies, I argue multiraciality benefits white colonial interests by compelling investment in modernity. In a mix of autoethnographic and academic writing, I explore two forms of investment in relation to multiraciality: multiracial identity and multiraciality as a field of study in education. I draw on Tuck and Ree’s (2013) conceptualization of hauntings, suggesting that multiraciality scholars have not yet addressed our mixed ghosts. I conclude the paper by posing questions to help shift our ways of knowing and being to divest from modernity and imagine multiraciality otherwise.

Author

• Brendon M. Soltis, Michigan State University