When Others Disagree: Documenting Perceived Racial Contestation

• In Event: 285 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Paper Session. Intersectionality and Methods: Multidimensional and Multilevel Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and Class Data

Abstract

The term racial contestation refers to incongruence between personal racial identification and external racial categorization. For example, an individual may self-identify as White, but be perceived by most others as non-White. Documenting racial contestation is important because racialized experiences are shaped not only by the racial identity that individuals claim for themselves, but also the external racial attributions placed upon them by others. This study answers three key questions about racial contestation: 1) How common do people report it? 2) Who is most likely to report experiencing it? and 3) How does it influence aspects of racial identity and race-linked experiences of discrimination? Employing the only nationally representative study to ask respondents directly about racial contestation (Portraits of American Life Study, 2006), results suggest that racial contestation is more common than previous studies suggest, and that experiences of racial contestation are often associated with immigrant generation and ancestral descent. Findings also illustrate that individuals who experience racial contestation do not vary from their non-contested counterparts on key elements of racial identity including racial identity salience, racial awareness, and racial group closeness. Interestingly, self-identified Whites who report racial contestation (contested Whites) and self-identified Blacks who report racial contestation (contested Blacks) report experiencing much higher levels of racial discrimination than their non-contested counterparts. Implications of these findings for future survey-based studies of race are discussed.

Authors

• Nicholas Vargas, University of Texas-Dallas

• Kevin Stainback, Purdue University