Ethnicizatlon and racialization of welfare‐state politics in Germany and the USA

Welfare‐state retrenchment, transnational migration and the integration of immigrants have been accompanied by a growing ethnicization and racialization of welfare‐state politics in the United States and Germany. Although ethnicization and racialization may have other, deeper causes, immigration and its effects on social policies and provisions has become one of the main targets of dissent in the politics of West European and North American welfare states. While in the United States these developments have reinforced race‐class cleavages that have existed since the emergence of her welfare state, German welfare‐state politics has evolved from being primarily class‐based to class‐ethnicity divides in recent years. These cleavages have disadvan‐taged social democratic positions that tried to bridge protection of native workers and humanitarian obligations towards refugees but have supported nationalist‐populist trends. Cosmopolitan‐liberal positions face the formidable task of developing institutional mechanisms for handling conflicts in ethnically pluralist'welfare states.     

Rethinking Europe, (anti-)austerity and political behaviour

Leah Bassel and Akwugo Emejulu’s Minority Women and Austerity offers an important and much needed contribution to discussions on austerity, social movements, race and gender in Europe. Centring their analysis of the interplay between the 2008 economic crisis and activism in Europe on minority women and using a critical race studies and a black feminist epistemological framework, they make a bold epistemological move since, as the authors extensively demonstrate, European political racelessness renders intersectional claims and activism invisible, inaudible and illegitimate, while dominant social movement theories tend to ignore important forms of collective action that minority women develop. Thanks to their epistemological and analytical framework, their qualitative study, although limited to three national contexts, offers a lot of room for thinking both generalization and differentiation across and beyond their case-studies. Bassel and Emejulu’s work will thus certainly be inspiring for scholars working on similar issues in other European countries.     

On Black Feminist Thought: thinking oppression and resistance through intersectional paradigm

Located in African American women's everyday and historical experiences of oppression and resistance, black feminist epistemology and critical social theory, Patricia Hill Collins raises the intellectual level in all these arenas. Developed through a dynamic interaction with black women's everyday struggles, black feminist thought is important not only for its contribution to critical social theories and methodologies, but also for providing important knowledge for the use of social justice movements. It uses intersectional analysis to shed light on the relationships between the structural, symbolic and everyday aspects of domination and individual and collective struggles in various domains of social life. Collins offers an interpretive framework for understanding the experiences of African American women. However, the significance of black feminist thought reaches far beyond US and black American communities. This article is a reading of Collins’s concept of intersectionality, the relationship between oppression and resistance, and the politics of empowerment.     

Childbirth as ritual in Brazil: young mothers' experiences

The article examines childbirth in a public hospital in Salvador, Brazil, as a multidimensional, embodied process and as a rite of passage. The birth narratives of young, poor, black mothers are seen through ethnography of the obstetric centre, run by white, middle-class obstetricians. The article follows the biosocial process of birth, tracing the development and mutation of loneliness, fear, and pain into motherlove. This subjective journey is generated within the social interactions constituting the physiological birth events. Primiparous women are shown to construct the birth as a rite of passage into legitimate motherhood, in the face of a hegemonic symbolic frame that stigmatizes youthful motherhood and delegitimizes reproduction amongst young, black, low-income women. Hospital childbirth's most powerful social effect is the constitution and consecration of a race/class divide.     

The psychological reality of social constructions

This article argues that social constructions have a psychological reality that exists apart from structural conditions. Our thesis is developed in four sections. First, psychological evidence is reviewed that illustrates how people classify and evaluate others on the basis of salient visual or auditory information, such as race, ethnicity or gender. Although this discussion should generalize to the construction of ethnic and gender differences, we concentrate on the Black‐White race relationship in the United States. Secondly, we briefly survey the debate between constructionists and essentialists within psychology, and address how social psychological findings may contribute to constructionist theory and sociological research. Thirdly, a psychological defence of the racial construct is given. It is argued that although race is crucial to the full understanding of majority‐minority relations, its usefulness is best seen in conjunction with structural formulations. Finally, an interactive model of race and social structure is submitted. Taking economic class as an example, research is reviewed that suggests how race and social structure jointly influence people's stereotypes within differing historical and cultural contexts. The black middle class is used as a case where analysis requires attention to both race and structure.     

Pauli Murray’s journey toward social justice

Pauli Murray’s lifelong fate was to be both ahead of her times concerning racism, heteropatriarchy, and class exploitation, yet largely behind the scenes within social movements that challenged these systems of oppression. As a truly independent African American feminist thinker, Murray’s accomplishments have long remained relatively unknown. This review essay analyses The Firebrand and the Lady and Jane Crow, two important biographies that constitute important additions to the growing corpus of scholarship on Murray’s life. These books lay a scholarly foundation for studying not only the life of this neglected African American feminist intellectual activist, but also how her ideas and actions catalyzed social change. Drawing upon contemporary anti-racist, feminist and intersectional frameworks, this essay analyses how both books draw upon race, class, gender, and sexuality as categories of analysis, yet place different analytical weight on these concepts.     

Constructing racial difference through group talk: an analysis of white focus groups' discussion of racial profiling

Overtly racist statements are socially and politically unacceptable in the USA. Yet black people in the USA continue to experience discrimination and prejudice at both the individual and institutional levels. This paper examines white people's talk about race in focus groups from the North Carolina Traffic Violation Study. The participants discussed race obliquely, by talking about hypothetical behaviour related to crime and police profiling while largely avoiding direct mention of race. At the same time focus group members voice different expectations for white people and black people. By differentiating between behaviours expected from individuals perceived to belong to different racial groups, they reproduced racial difference. Focus group members legitimized racial profiling and did so using language that was largely ‘colour-blind’ and socially acceptable by attributing the disproportionately high rate of stops for black drivers to ostensibly non-racial factors. The groups used mostly colour-blind language, but the result was racializing discourse.     

Third‐way neoliberalism and conditional cash transfers: The paradoxes of empowerment,participation and self‐help among poor Uruguayan women

The Latin American literature on Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) welfare programs has typically involved the quantitative evaluation of social and economic impact, with fewer studies addressing the qualitative and gendered impacts of CCTs. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in poor squatter settlement communities in Uruguay, this article explores the everyday social realities of poor single mothers who have been disconnected from their kinship networks and must rely on CCT payments for survival. I locate these women's experiences within the third‐way neoliberal discourses of ‘empowerment’, ‘participation’ and ‘self‐help’ espoused by the state, and the various structural conditions, including crime, violence and unequal gender relations, that impact negatively on women's abilities to comply with their social and civic duties. I argue that rather than producing responsible and empowered subjects, Uruguay's recent CCT welfare program has paradoxically limited some women's participation in civic and public life and reproduced their dependent relations with men.     

Race,privilege and the growing class divide

When Wilson argued back in 1978 that by the mid-twentieth century social class mattered more for getting ahead than race, he launched a rigorous scholarly debate about the relative importance of race and class that continues to this day. Since the 1970s, the gap between the black middle class and the black poor has widened, lending credibility to Wilson's claim, but also raising new research questions for scholars to ponder. In this essay, I suggest that extending Wilson's model to include a new period, encompassing the last twenty-five years, would help to illuminate more recent structural advantages that contribute to class privilege in American society as well an emerging fault line within the black middle class.     

Being black,foreign and woman: African immigrant identities in the United States

This paper contextualizes racial and ethnic identities in shaping African women’s work lives in the USA. While the literature on black immigrant groups has posited that ethnic identities are often deployed to shield black immigrants from racism, my findings indicate that for a group of African women, their racial and ethnic identities are viewed as potential sources of discrimination. As black immigrant women from middle-class backgrounds in their home countries, they also articulate experiences with racism and downward social and occupational mobility. Accounting for how race and ethnicity intersect in the lives of black immigrant groups can nuance our understanding of racial identities and highlight diversity in experiences among national and regional groups. Focusing on particular health-care settings further suggests the importance of professional contexts in shaping the identity formations of recent black immigrants.     

The black citizen-subject: black single mothers in US military recruitment material

This article examines how the US military uses race inequalities to mobilize black single mothers for enlistment of their children in the Armed Forces. Through an analysis of military recruitment materials during the height of the US War on Terrorism, I demonstrate how the military disproportionately shows black single mothers going through a process of reacting to their child's enlistment (with fear and worry), welcoming the military institution as the co-parent, and accepting enlistment as a venue for education and career opportunities (productive citizenship). The military models a citizen-mother who supports their child's enlistment, while unquestionably supporting the war. This exploits the obligations of citizenship for black single mothers, whose citizenship is already under scrutiny. By targeting the children of these mothers for recruitment, the military encourages a higher burden of military participation on an already underprivileged segment of the population.     

Breastfeeding and feminism: A focus on reproductive health, rights and justice

Infant feeding occurs in the context of continued gender inequities and in the context of a feminist movement that left women vulnerable to a system that defined the male body and mind as the norm. This paper draws from a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with women artists at the 2005 Mamapalooza music festival in New York City, and conference participants at the 2005 La Leche League International and International Lactation Consultant Association Conferences and at the 2007 Reproductive Freedom Conference to understand our collective alienation from breastfeeding and to outline a process for how we might repossess breastfeeding as a positive function in women's lives. These women find power in honoring and validating their own experiences, in claiming those experiences as legitimate feminist actions, and then drawing on these experiences to seek new meanings, customs and norms that similarly honor, value and support their rights to those experiences. They argue that we need a feminist movement that fully incorporates women's needs as biological and reproductive social beings, alongside their needs as productive beings, and a movement that defines the female body and mind as the norm.     

Weight loss of black, white, and Hispanic men and women in the Diabetes Prevention Program

Objective: To provide the specific weight loss outcomes for African‐American, Hispanic, and white men and women in the lifestyle and metformin treatment arms of the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) by race‐gender group to facilitate researchers translating similar interventions to minority populations, as well as provide realistic weight loss expectations for clinicians. Methods and Procedures: Secondary analyses of weight loss of 2,921 overweight participants (22% black; 17% Hispanic; 61% white; and 68% women) with impaired glucose tolerance randomized in the DPP to intensive lifestyle modification, metformin or placebo. Data over a 30‐month period are examined for comparability across treatment arms by race and gender. Results: Within lifestyle treatment, all race‐gender groups lost comparable amounts of weight with the exception of black women who exhibited significantly smaller weight losses (P < 0.01). For example, at 12 months, weight losses for white men (?8.4%), white women (?8.1%), Hispanic men (?7.8%), Hispanic women (?7.1%), and black men (?7.1%) were similar and significantly higher than black women (?4.5%). In contrast, within metformin treatment, all race‐gender groups including black women lost similar amounts of weight. Race‐gender specific mean weight loss data are provided by treatment arm for each follow‐up period. Discussion: Diminished weight losses were apparent among black women in comparison with other race‐gender groups in a lifestyle intervention but not metformin, underscoring the critical nature of examining sociocultural and environmental contributors to successful lifestyle intervention for black women.     

Gendered measures,gendered models: toward an intersectional analysis of interpersonal racial discrimination

In this paper we draw from black and multiracial feminist theories to argue that interpersonal racial discrimination should be understood as a potentially gendered phenomenon. While there are some discriminatory practices that are directed at both black men and black women, some forms of racial discrimination affect men more than women, and some affect women more than men. Still other forms may be gender-specific. Our review of existing literature shows that most survey research has utilized measures and models of racial discrimination that fail to account for these gender differences. Drawing on the 2001–2003 National Survey of American Life (NSAL) we demonstrate the importance of gender for understanding and analysing interpersonal racial discrimination. We offer concrete ways for social researchers to centralize gender in their analyses. By doing so, we hope to advance the development of an intersectional approach to racial discrimination.     

Power,knowledge and Black Feminist Thought’s enduring contribution towards social justice

In this review, I focus on three themes approached in Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought – difference and inequality, knowledge and power, and black feminist thought and black women intellectuals – in order to argue that what makes it a unique work is the fact that it features an original framework that grapples with epistemological and conceptual issues in order to grasp black women’s intellectual legacy.     

Reforming Women in the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand: A Comparative Ethnography of Welfare Reform in Global Context

Historically, the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand symbolize opposite poles of an individualist-collectivist welfare state continuum. Until recently, Aotearoa/New Zealand was known as a "cradle-to-grave" welfare state, with "universal" employment and coverage in health and education. U.S. history, in contrast, is marked by an unabashed individualism and a residualist approach to welfare. Recent neoliberal reforms, however, have engendered a convergence between the two countries in the conceptualization and organization of assistance for poor single mothers. Most notable are the "workfare" provisions of legislative changes made in 1996 in the two countries, which work to reconstitute poor mothers as potential able-bodied workers. In this article we analyze welfare reform in the United States and Aotearoa/New Zealand, with particular reference to how poor single mothers respond to, comply and cope with, or resist neoliberal strategies. Analysis is based on participant-observation, interviews, and focus groups conducted between 1989 and 1999. [welfare reform, neoliberalism, globalization, gender, the United States, Aotearoa/New Zealand]     

The racial body is gendered: a comment on Emirbayer and Desmond’s The Racial Order

ABSTRACT

In The Racial Order, Emirbayer and Desmond offer a systematic theory of race. The social psychology of race is central to the theoretical framework of this book. In their discussion of bodily aesthetics, bodily cognition, and bodily morality, they neglect the important theoretical insights and empirical contributions of feminist sociologists who have studied the racialized and gendered body. The exclusion of the intersectional research of feminist sociologists weakens their analysis of ‘relational social epistemology’. Intersectional research conducted by feminist sociologists during the past decade should be central to any theoretical discussion of the social psychology of race in North America, which is their primary focus.     

"Playing between Classes": America's Troubles with Class, Race, and Gender in a Black High School and Community

A cultural and relational framework of social class is used to present an ethnographic portrait of class as it unfolds with race and gender in a black high school and community. Traditionally viewed as troubling, these students (and staff) play between classes in ways that impact structural analyses of class and their implications for public policy.     

‘Our bones are made of Iron’: the political ecology of Garhwali women's activism

In the Garhwal Himalaya of India's Uttarakhand State, a series of social movements emerged in the late 2000s to contest hydroelectric dams on a tributary of the sacred River Ganga. Within these opposition movements, men often took high‐profile leadership roles whereas women from a range of socio‐economic backgrounds formed the overwhelming base of participation at meetings, assemblies, and rallies. This article draws from event‐based participation and semi‐structured interviews to explore the diverse concerns that women gave to explain their engagements with opposition efforts. I counter essentialist frames and employ a feminist political ecology approach to argue that the gendered dynamics are attributable to historical, cultural, religious, and political‐economic influences. The article contributes to anthropologies of gender, environment, and social movements by taking an approach focused on disparities of practice and power that helps situate Garhwali women's roles in development contestations.     

Manufacturing marginality among women and Latinos in neo-liberal America

Intersectionality is the study of how categorical distinctions made on the basis of race, class and gender interact to generate inequality, and this concept has become a primary lens by which scholars have come to model social stratification in the USA. In addition to the historically powerful interaction between race and class, gender interactions have become increasingly powerful in exacerbating class inequalities while the growing exclusion of foreigners on the basis of legal status has progressively marginalized Latinos in US society. As a result, poor whites and immigrant-origin Latinos have increasingly joined African Americans at the bottom of American society to form a new, expanded underclass.