Navigating Collaboration with Researchers with Different Conceptualizations of Race

• In Event: 218 - Regular Session. Race/Ethnicity: Challenging Concepts and Categories

Abstract

Pressures to conduct interdisciplinary scholarship increases the likelihood of scholars with different perspectives on race professionally interacting. We asked how social scientists navigate these relationships. As of January 1, we had interviewed 13 social scientists who have worked on interdisciplinary projects involving race. We find generally consistent definitions of race as a social construction and/or power-based construct among the respondents. Their descriptions of other scholars’ views of race are similar to conceptions of race described elsewhere—from social to biological to “a variable.” The respondents described three strategies for dealing with actual or potential differences among collaborators in how race is understood and studied: backing down, avoiding conflict, and collaborating despite conflict. Respondents who backed down from conflict did so to protect themselves professionally when in graduate school or untenured. Some respondents pursued an avoidance strategy to limit stress. Respondents who worked together with those who have meaningfully different views generally conducted research on research or procedures related to race. A few respondents did not experience conflict, and consequently did not report any strategies. These respondents either did not seek to reduce racial inequality through their work, or through particular circumstances did not experience conflictual professional interactions. Despite these anomalous cases, the influence of white supremacy in academic research is demonstrated by most respondents’ reports of strategies for dealing with actual or potential conflict.

Authors

• Jennifer Malat, University of Cincinnati

• Sarah Mayorga-Gallo, University of Massachusetts-Boston