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Understanding Everyday Racism
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Understanding Everyday Racism
An Interdisciplinary Theory


Volume: 2
Other Titles in:
Ethnic Studies (General)

September 1991 | 336 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
This book compares contemporary racism in the US and the Netherlands through in-depth interviews with fifty-five black women. As an interdisciplinary analysis of gendered social constructions of racism, it breaks new ground. Essed problematizes and reinterprets many of the meanings and everyday practices that the majority of society has come to take for granted. She addresses crucial but largely neglected dimensions of racism: how it is experienced; how black women recognize its covert manifestations; how they acquire this knowledge; and how they challenge racism in everyday life. To answer these questions, over two thousand experiences of black women are analyzed within a theoretical framework that integrates the disciplines of macro- and micro-sociology, social psychology, discourse analysis, race relations theory and women's studies.

The samples include only black women with higher education. Many of their experiences of racism involve the `elite' among the dominant group. The book seriously challenges both the notion of Dutch tolerance and the idea that US racism is a problem of the past. Understanding Everyday Racism is thus urgent reading.

 
PART ONE: TOWARDS AN INTEGRATION OF MACRO AND MICRO DIMENSIONS OF RACISM
 
Racism Today
The Social-political Context

 
 
The Netherlands
 
Some Notes on Contemporary Racism in the US
 
Women and Racism
 
Black Women with Higher Education
 
Conceptualizing Racism as a Process
 
Racism
A Working Definition

 
 
The Notion of Everyday Racism
 
PART TWO: METHODOLOGICAL QUESTIONS
 
Introduction
 
Methodology within Methodology
 
Accounts
 
The Interviewees
 
Interviewing
 
Method of Analysis
 
PART THREE: KNOWLEDGE AND COMPREHENSION OF EVERYDAY RACISM
 
Introduction
 
General Knowledge and Scenarios of Racism
 
Comprehending Racism
 
Subjective and Objective Assessments of the Comprehension of Racist Events
 
A Procedure for the Assessment of Racist Events
 
Assessing Real-life Explanations of `Unfair Treatment'
 
Relating Cognitive to Social Processes of Understanding
 
The Acquisition of Knowledge of Racism
 
Reconstructing Black Women's General Knowledge of Racism
 
PART FOUR: ANALYZING ACCOUNTS OF RACISM
 
Introduction
 
Analyzing Accounts of Racism
 
Knowledge About Racism as an Evaluative Category in Verbal Accounts
 
Heuristics, Interpretations and Evaluations in Reconstructions of Racist Events
 
Racist Complications in Job Applications
 
What happened?
Examples of Real-life Accounts

 
 
Conclusions
 
PART FIVE: THE INTEGRATION OF RACISM IN EVERYDAY LIFE: THE STORY OF ROSA N.
 
Introduction
 
Rosa N.
A Fragmentary Representation of Everyday Racism

 
 
The Process of Everyday Racism in the Experience of Rosa N.
 
The Macro Context of Experiences of Racism
 
Conclusions
Rosa N. and the Shared Experience of Racism

 
 
PART SIX: THE STRUCTURE OF EVERYDAY RACISM
 
Racism as Conflict Maintaining Process
 
Hidden Agendas
The Dominations of Euro-American Values

 
 
The Basic Agenda
Perpetuation of Exclusion and Subordination

 
 
The Agenda of the Agenda
Problematizing those who Problematize Racism

 
 
The Structure of Everyday Racism
 
CONCLUSIONS
 
APPENDICES
 
Appendix 1. Interview Guide
 
Appendix 2. General Statements about Racism
 
Appendix 3. `Rosa N. File'

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ISBN: 9780803942561
£103.00

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