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

TLDR

Race studies have overlooked how researchers’ race, nationality, gender, and age create methodological dilemmas. The book aims to examine how race, nationality, and gender ideologies shape research experiences and to show how a critical race perspective can improve methodologies and outcomes. It combines empirical work with a multidisciplinary team of scholars from anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, women’s studies, political science, and Asian American studies. Case studies reveal that a white researcher encounters a culture built on racial and class misinformation, while a black researcher is misidentified as a domestic worker or sex worker by Brazilian participants.

Abstract

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. Racing Race, Researching Race is the first volume of its kind to explore 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 begins to fill this gap by infusing critical race studies with more empirical work and suggesting how a critical race perspective might improve research methodologies and outcomes. The contributors to the volume encompass a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds including anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, women=s studies, political science, and Asian American studies.