Criminology and the Monoracial Paradigm of Race

• In Event: Roundtable: Theoretical, Critical, and Feminist Perspectives

Abstract

Overwhelmingly, race is treated as a monoracial construct in criminological research and theory. This practice reflects the monoracial paradigm of race (Harris 2017) in the United States, which considers race to be comprised of mutually exclusive, monoracial categories that do not overlap. Under this paradigm, individuals historically, and as late as the 1990s, were not able to identify as more than one race (Cardwell 2024). This paradigm resulted in the lumping of those who identify as multiracial, and/or have biological parents who identify as different races, with monoracially identified people. Critical multiracial theory (MultiCrit), which builds on the tenets of critical race theory (CRT), argues that CRT reproduces a monoracial paradigm that resulted in the erasure of multiracial people in the theorizing of racism in the United States. Drawing on MultiCrit, I argue that the U.S. monoracial paradigm of race has resulted in the erasure of multiracial people in criminological research and theorizing. As such, in my paper, I will describe how a monoracial paradigm of race shapes the treatment of race in criminological research and theorizing; identify and describe tenets of MultiCrit and consider their utility in criminology; and identify areas where future research using MultiCrit is needed.

Author

• Viola Sawyer, Western Michigan University