Contesting the Normalization of Antiscience in OMB & Census: Intersectionality as Critical Inquiry & Praxis

• In Event: Racial and Ethnic Minorities Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table Eight: Racialized Constructions of Social Identities and Categories

Abstract

The history and politics of race and ethnicity data guidelines for federal agencies stipulated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are a fertile site for interrogating epistemic authority in the administrative state. For example, whereas in the original 1977 and subsequent 1997 revision, OMB SPD 15 included explicit language about race and ethnicity definitions as “sociopolitical” constructs that are not “scientific,” the 2024 revision did not once mention the words “science,” “scientific,” or “social science.” It also did not reference any research produced outside the confines of the administrative state. Moreover, the 2024 revised guidelines, include a new and consequential warning to any potential rogue federal bureaucrats: “Collection forms may not indicate to respondents that they should interpret some categories as ethnicities and others as races or otherwise indicate conceptual differences among the minimum categories (OMB 2024:22195).” We ask: How does federal research based on one study come to be constructed as “sound,” while the preponderance of peer-reviewed relevant research across many disciplines is completely disregarded? How could adopting intersectionality transform what passes as knowledge in race and ethnicity measurements for advancing justice? We place intersectionality, racial formation theory, a critical race theory of the state and colorblind racism into a productive dialogue for interrogating the normalization of Antiscience and its discontents through resistance from grassroots advocacy organizations to scholar activists. Our data come from the National Archives in Washington DC and College Park Maryland as well as key informant interviews (N=14). We argue that although OMB SPD 15 race and ethnicity guidelines apply only to federal agencies, the impact of these changes on data collection and lay understandings of race and ethnicity cannot be overestimated. Combining race/visual status and ethnicity/cultural heritage will and has produced harm to marginalized communities through eroding our ability to examine structural racism.

Authors

• Nancy López, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque

• Yasmiyn Irizarry, University of Texas at Austin

• Edward Vargas, Arizona State University

• Sharan Kaur Mehta, The University of New Mexico

• Ricardo Henrique Lowe, The University of Texas at Austin

• Sarah Iverson, American University

• Joaquín Argüello de Jesús, University of New Mexico