Living in the U.S. as an Egyptian: On Black Racialization, Temporary Interpellation and Feeling Outside Race

• In Event: Race, Gender, Class in the Arab World

Abstract

In this article, I theorize the concept of “feeling outside race” by drawing on personal narratives, social theory, and feminist and sociological literature. “Feeling outside race” derives from my upbringing in Cairo, Egypt where the social construction of race did not influence my lived experience in the world and how this experience and feeling of my place in the world have influenced my perception of my place in the U.S. It is about how I view and experience my subjectivity in daily life, and more importantly how I feel it. I argue that despite being racialized as Black/African American in the U.S. and being aware of the existence and consequences of the social construction of race, I feel outside race. I draw on feminist scholars who use (their) marginalized personal narratives to produce academic knowledge and theory.

I explain how and argue that feeling outside race is a relational emotional state to my socialization and that this feeling is embedded within me wherever I go by utilizing Moussawi’s (2021) bad feelings. Using Bonilla-Silva’s (2019) feeling race, I elaborate on my feelings towards being racialized as a Black person in the United States, with a focus on daily interactions, not on racialization by state institutions. Drawing on Althusser’s (1970) interpellation, I argue that in these interactions, I am temporarily interpellated by the racial ideology of individuals into becoming a racialized Black person. I show how this temporary interpellation does not only occur when I am perceived as Black, but also when my North Africanness is purposely undistinguished from/replaced by racial Blackness.


This article offers a different and nuanced perspective on viewing racialization and race-related emotions. It also makes a case for the importance of taking emotions seriously in Sociology, specifically when analyzing subject formation.

Author

• Nehal Elmeligy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County