Racing Research, Researching Race: Methodological Dilemmas in Critical Race Studies

by France Winddance Twine, Jonathan Warren

Overview

An examination of the influence of race and racism on the research experience

A white woman studies upper-class eighth grade girls at her alma mater on Long Island and finds a culture founded on misinformation about its own racial and class identity. A Black American researcher is repeatedly assumed by many Brazilian subjects to be a domestic servant or sex worker. Through encounters such as these, Racing Research, Researching Race explores how ideologies of race and racism intersect with nationality and gender to shape the research experience.

Critical work in race studies has not adequately addressed how racial positions in the field—as inflected by nationality, gender, and age—generate numerous methodological dilemmas. Racing Research, Researching Race works to fill this gap by infusing critical race studies with empirical work and suggesting how a critical race perspective might improve research methodologies and outcomes.

Featuring contributions from scholars working across anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, women’s studies, political science, and Asian American studies, this volume offers new perspectives anyone embarking on research in their field.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814782422
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

France Winddance Twine (Editor)
France Winddance Twine is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author and a co-editor of ten books, including Outsourcing the Womb: Race, Class and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market and A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy.

Jonathan Warren (Editor)
Jonathan Warren is Professor in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Troy Duster

1  Introduction: Racial Ideologies, Racial Methodologies, and Racial Fields France Winddance Twine
2   Research as an Act of Betrayal: Researching Race in an Asian Community in Los Angeles Naheed Islam
3   White Like Me? Methods, Meaning, and Manipulation in the Field of White Studies Charles Gallagher
4   White on White: Interviewing Women in U.S. White Supremacist Groups Kathleen M. Blee
5   Doing My Homework: The Autoethnography of a White Teenage Girl Lorraine Delia Kenny
6   Masters in the Field: White Talk, White Privilege, White Biases Jonathan W. Warren
7   Racism, Eroticism, and the Paradoxes of a U.S. Black Researcher in Brazil Michael G. Hanchard
8   Violating Apartheid in the United States: On the Streets and in Academia Philippe Bourgois
9   Race and Peeing on Sixth Avenue Mitchell Duneier
10   Women in Prison: Researching Race in Three National Contexts Kum-Kum Bhavnani and Angela Y. Davis
11   Afterword: Racism and the Research Process Howard S. Becker

Bibliography
Contributors
Index

What People are Saying About This

Ruth Frankenburg

Essential reading for all those whose research explicitly engages racial issues-and for all those who do not realize that their work inevitably engages racial issues.
—Ruth Frankenberg, author of White Women, Race Matters and editor of Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Cultural Criticism

William Darity

Absolutely critical reading. This volume powerfully explores how scholars' own racial background shapes the analytical lens with which they view whiteness, blackness . . . the exoticism and eroticism of racial 'others' and the domain of white privilege.
—William Darity, Jr., coauthor of Persistent Disparity and Boshamer Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Research Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics, Sociology and African American Studies at Duke University

John Solomos

Timely and challenging, this innovative book engages questions and dilemmas that researchers on race and racism rarely talk about in public. Refreshingly clear and comparative in scope, it is a must reading in all courses about race and ethnic relations, calling for a fundamental rethinking of research agendas in this field.
—John Solomos, author of Race and Racism in Britain, coeditor of The Blackwell Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, and Professor of Sociology, South Bank University (London)

Rinaldo Walcott

Points to the ethical dilemmas of researchers researching race among communities that are at once 'victims' of racism and active in the continued process of racialization.
—Rinaldo Walcott, author of Black Like Who?, and Professor of Humanities, York University (Canada)

Steven Gregory

A remarkable collection of essays interrogating the political, methodological and ethical dilemmas of conducting research in racially stratified societies. These theoretically astute and ethnographically rich case studies compellingly demonstrate how the production of knowledge is framed and mediated by the racialized subject positions held by social scientists. Racing Research, Researching Race will no doubt incite a critical and long overdue discussion of the racial politics of ethnographic fieldwork.
—Steven Gregory, author of Black Corona, and Professor of Africana and American Studies at New York University

Editorial Reviews

"Points to the ethical dilemmas of researchers researching race among communities that are at once ‘victims' of racism and active in the continued process of racialization."

Rinaldo Walcott

"A remarkable collection of essays interrogating the political, methodological and ethical dilemmas of conducting research in racially stratified societies. These theoretically astute and ethnographically rich case studies compellingly demonstrate how the production of knowledge is framed and mediated by the racialized subject positions held by social scientists. Racing Research, Researching Race will no doubt incite a critical and long overdue discussion of the racial politics of ethnographic fieldwork."

Steven Gregory

"Essential reading for all those whose research explicitly engages racial issues, and for all those who do not realize that their work inevitably engages racial issues."

Ruth Frankenberg

"A remarkable collection of essays interrogating the political, methodological and ethical dilemmas of conducting research in racially stratified societies. These theoretically astute and ethnographically rich case studies compellingly demonstrate how the production of knowledge is framed and mediated by the racialized subject positions held by social scientists. Racing Research, Researching Race will no doubt incite a critical and long overdue discussion of the racial politics of ethnographic fieldwork."--Steven Gregory, author of Black Corona, and Professor of Africana and American Studies at New York University

"Absolutely critical reading. This volume powerfully explores how scholars' own racial background shapes the analytical lens with which they view whiteness, blackness . . . the exoticism and eroticism of racial 'others' and the domain of white privilege."--William Darity Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Duke University

"Essential reading for all those whose research explicitly engages racial issues, and for all those who do not realize that their work inevitably engages racial issues."--Ruth Frankenberg, author of White Women, Race Matters and editor of Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Cultural Criticism

"Points to the ethical dilemmas of researchers researching race among communities that are at once 'victims' of racism and active in the continued process of racialization."--Rinaldo Walcott, author of Black Like Who?, and Professor of Humanities, York University (Canada)

"Timely and challenging, this innovative book engages questions and dilemmas that researchers on race and racism rarely talk about in public. Refreshingly clear and comparative in scope, it is a must reading in all courses about race and ethnic relations, calling for a fundamental rethinking of research agendas in this field."--John Solomos, Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick

From the Publisher

"Timely and challenging, this innovative book engages questions and dilemmas that researchers on race and racism rarely talk about in public. Refreshingly clear and comparative in scope, it is a must reading in all courses about race and ethnic relations, calling for a fundamental rethinking of research agendas in this field."

John Solomos

This book is an examination of what it means to be "conscious" of race when one is doing research. There are those who argue that just to acknowledge race is to perpetuate the biological myth of race. But, this book warns, that is to confuse the biological with the social, further arguing that the race of the researcher can be a significant factor in what information is revealed by interviewees, and that this needs to be considered when planning a study or reviewing its results. This book is the authors attempt to initiate a serious discussion of the potential ethical, emotional, analytical, and methodological dilemmas generated by racial subjectivities, racial ideologies, and racial disparities in research. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

A useful and innovative dialogue that explores, for the first time in a detailed way, the dilemmas in qualitative research on a range of race and racism issues.

Methodolgy and Research Techniques

"Absolutely critical reading. This volume powerfully explores how scholars' own racial background shapes the analytical lens with which they view whiteness, blackness . . . the exoticism and eroticism of racial ‘others' and the domain of white privilege."

William Darity Jr.