Contesting Power: Race, Ethnicity, and Self-Representations in Global Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

The emergence of new networks of global, political, social, cultural, and economic exchange over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries resulted in the formation of new routes of global migration and new concentrations of ethnic peoples across the globe. As societies become increasingly multiethnic and multiracial, so too does the process of racialization and the “hierarchical ordering” of people and communities into what Alexander Weheliye referred to as “humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans.”  Given these realities, it is critical that we understand the processes of racialization, how racial, ethnic, or national identity formation occur, and how societies interpret, understand, and manage racial and ethnic diversity.

Worldwide, racial or ethnic minority populations are particularly vulnerable to sociopolitical exploitation or oppression. Formal and informal systems of power serve to limit and even contain the political and cultural rights, socioeconomic opportunities, rights to movement, and modes of artistic expression and representation of minority and multi-ethnic communities. As historian Paul Spickard posited in Race in Mind: Critical Essays, “Ultimately all racial systems are about power, and specifically about the power to define difference and enforce privilege” (8). In response to these pressures and enforcements of privilege, racial and ethnic groups worldwide have advanced claims of racial and ethnic identity as resistance against social and cultural repression.

This Special Issue of Genealogy, entitled, “Contesting Power: Race, Ethnicity, and Self-Representations in Global Perspectives”, will focus on the complex racial formations that emerged in multiethnic societies in the postmodern era and the ways marginalized racial or ethnic communities responded to racial projects advanced by hegemonic groups in these societies. Questions that fall under the scope of this issue include: How do disempowered communities communicate and display modes of resistance?  How do minoritized and multiracial people navigate notions of their identity?  How do marginalized individuals and groups challenge racialized constructions of authenticity? And to what effect do these methods of resistance have on destabilizing formal and informal systems of power?

The editors especially welcome submissions from scholars working in interdisciplinary fields that engage with ethnic studies, mixed race studies, Black studies, Asian American studies, Chicanx studies, and critical refugee studies.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Genealogy editorial office (genealogy@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

List of references:

Paul Spickard, Race in Mind: Critical Essays (Notre Dame, Il.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), p. 8.

Alexander G. Weheliye, Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014), p. 8.

Tentative completion schedule:

• Abstract submission deadline: 5 February 2024
• Notification of abstract acceptance: 25 February 2024
• Full manuscript deadline: 30 June 2024

Dr. Sarah Griffith
Dr. Lily Anne Welty Tamai
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• ethnic formations
• refugee migration
• forced migration
• ethnic representations
• mixed race studies
• multinational ethnic relations
• African American studies
• diaspora/diasporic resistance
• post-modern/critical theory
• colonial/post-colonial theory

Title: Colour' Clashes in Colonial Coaches: Everyday Experiences of the Baboos in Public Transports of Colonial India

Abstract: This article will closely examine a social group that was both conspicuous and controversial in late colonial India—supposedly the ‘Baboos’. Baboo referred to the aspiring educated middle class in India (particularly in Bengal) whose members were typically part of the colonial milieu, mostly working for the colonial administration. The term had acquired somewhat pejorative connotations by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Many contemporaries observed that their ‘anglicized’ fellow countrymen had developed a fondness for the English language and a Western lifestyle with great skepticism. Their hybrid outlook and appearance frequently provoked the search for (or rather the construction of) a positive counterpart—the ‘authentic’ Indian who had not succumbed to Western influences and remained deeply rooted in their Indian values. The novelty of this study is not merely to engage with the various images, representations, and self-representations of the Baboos but rather to engage them seriously as a social group and reconstruct their everyday lives, particularly their quotidian interactions with the British colonizers. The author focuses on public transport (railways, trams, steamers, carriages, waiting halls, etc.) and its ancillary areas—a major contact zone. As one of the segmented mobile spaces where Europeans and ‘natives’ met in close physical proximity, they were often sites of verbal abuse and open racial conflicts. However, this study will show that the Baboos were by no means mere victims of this situation but used various strategies (including physical violence) to fight back or at least make their grievances heard in the public sphere. Taking an actor-centric approach in which the Baboos comprise the main unit of analysis, this article touches upon a neuralgic colonial experience of undergoing public discrimination. As a potential area of socio-political tension, the author will examine how they negotiated, resisted and accommodated the colonial situation in public transport. These were spaces where the larger dynamics of modernization, racial discrimination, assimilation and resistance played out in everyday forms. Contrary to the claim in mainstream academia that the Wester-educated colonial middle class maintained a decolonized or 'authentic' identity only in their private spaces, through the case studies, the author will argue that they did so in public spaces as well. Indeed, the Western-educated 'natives' embraced these amenities of the modern world and made these a part of their daily lives. However, adopting these British-introduced material changes or modern conveniences did not make them unresisting to injustice and unfair treatment fuelled by racial discrimination. Through examining everyday incidents in public spaces, this essay will demonstrate how discrimination was rampant, such as in segregated waiting rooms and carriages and deprivation, like the absence of water closets in third- and fourth-class coaches. Verbal and aggravated physical abuse was very common too, preying on all classes of 'natives'—from Baboos to coolies and even women. Within this larger narrative of unfair treatment and outright hostility meted out by the colonizers, another power narrative was played out by the class-conscious 'natives' among their own population. Conscious of their distinct or privileged status, the Baboos sought to distance themselves from those Indians who did not match their ideas of respect. Even in the public domain of shared spaces like transport, they tried to carve out a private space based upon their perceptions of honour and their sense of unique identity that aimed at keeping ‘other’ 'natives' and European intrusion separate. The significance of the everyday occurrences lies in the fact that these daily stories formed the basis of the public outrage that was reflected continually in regional newspapers and, subsequently, in the larger narratives of resistance and nationalism. How the Baboos negotiated position in the public spaces sheds some crucial light on their claims of civil rights and their ways of using the colonizer’s tropes of equality, justice and fairness back at them. A study of everyday politics helps us better understand post-ideological politics in the daily lives of Indians from colonial to post-colonial times, which finds resonance in the American struggle for civil liberties. One interesting case in point would be the famous bus protest of Rosa Parks (1955) in Montgomery. Keywords: Resistance, authenticity, racial contestations, public spaces

Title: Preliminary Title: The Brick Wall: Obfuscations around ‘race’ in Sweden

Abstract: Sweden is a society where the concept of ‘race’ is distrusted, as biological connotations are still presumed (McEachrane, 2018). This is reflected at the policy level, as in 2008 the word race was no longer included in the anti-discrimination legislation (Diskrimineringslag (2008: 567), exhibiting a post-racial ideology (Goldberg, 2015). On the micro level, several different fields of science have shown that belongingness to Sweden can be a racialized process; non-white individuals born in Sweden refer to themselves as ‘immigrants’ (Behtoui, 2021), housing (Carlsson & Eriksson, 2014)and labor market segregation (Bevelander & Irastorza, 2014; Carlsson & Rooth, 2007) is prominent and racialized. Educational studies have found that within Swedish curriculum there is an ‘us’ ‘them’ divide that has been found in neighboring countries like Finland (Zilliacus et al., 2017). In this paper, I use auto-ethnographic methods to examine my own experiences as a white doctoral student who has chosen to study ‘race’ within ‘raceless’ Sweden. Through the analysis of personal experiences, I present ‘the brick wall’ or a theoretical tool for understanding how the concept of ‘race’, even when couched in a social constructionist understanding, is met with skepticism, or avoidance within academic circles, including during peer review processes. It sheds light on how racialization processes are obscured, and white hegemonic practices persist, maintaining psychological distance from discussions on race. This research explores the interplay between the acquisition of new knowledge in doctoral studies and the preservation of white ideological practices. By shedding light on these dynamics, it contributes to the broader discourse on anti-racist theory and practices in education, offering insights into the challenges of addressing racial issues within a context that claims to be 'raceless.' References: Behtoui, A. (2021). Constructions of self-identification: children of immigrants in Sweden. Identities, 28(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2019.1658396 Bevelander, P., & Irastorza, N. (2014). Catching Up: The Labor Market Integration of new Immigrants in Sweden. Migration Policy Institute. Carlsson, M., & Eriksson, S. (2014). Discrimination in the rental market for apartments. Journal of Housing Economics, 23, 41–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JHE.2013.11.004 Carlsson, M., & Rooth, D. O. (2007). Evidence of ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labor market using experimental data. Labour Economics, 14(4 SPEC. ISS.). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2007.05.001 Diskrimineringslag (2008) Diskrimineringslag (2008:567). Available at: https://www.riksdagen.se/ sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/diskrimineringslag-2008567_ sfs-2008-567/ Goldberg, D. T. (2015). Are we all postracial yet? John Wiley & Sons. McEachrane, M. (2018). Universal Human Rights and the Coloniality of Race in Sweden. Human Rights Review, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-018-0510-x Zilliacus, H., Paulsrud, B. A., & Holm, G. (2017). Essentializing vs. non-essentializing students’ cultural identities: curricular discourses in Finland and Sweden. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2017.1311335