Abstract
The focus of this book is on providing a review of some of the ways in which inquiries around what is called “new racism” have been approached, with a view to reconsidering what is involved in such research endeavors. I look in particular into how our ways of “knowing” in this arena can be accounted for by rendering open to discursive accounting the pursuance of research aims.
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Notes
- 1.
Pampallis explains that in 1948 the National Party was elected to power (by the White electorate) under the slogan of “apartheid” (2008, p. 5). As regards derogatory racial labeling, which continues today, I have in mind in particularly the use of the word “Kaffir” (to refer to Black people), which is known to be insulting and offensive. (See also Footnote 140 in Chapter 5.)
- 2.
On the basis of his interviews with 400 Black workers spanning the years since South Africa’s transition to a post-apartheid society (in 1994), Sitas indicates that 51% found the transition to be “extremely beneficial” (in that they became upwardly mobile), 25% remained “stuck” in their occupational milieu of the 1980s/early 1990s, and 22% experienced “rapid deterioration of life chances” (2004, p. 830). Of those in the last-named category, he notes that the majority attributes their position to their prior disadvantages: “no skills, no education, no nothing, now we are suffering” (2004, p. 840). Some of these expressed that the “Black elite” was being appeased by the (White) “Bosses” (those seen as having continued power) – and they expressed disappointment that the struggle movement (and comrades therein) had not been able to “look after them” in the post-apartheid era (2004, p. 840). (Sitas notes that the remaining 2% among those interviewed had got into serious “criminal trouble” by becoming involved in “violent crime and/or peddling drugs” – 2004, p. 833.)
- 3.
I use the term “procedures” to point to the processes of inquiry that might become activated. Sometimes these are also called research designs or strategies – as, for example, in Romm and Adman (2000), Gray et al. (2007, p. 45), Bonilla-Silva and Baiocchi (2008, p. 140), and Vogt (2008, pp. 1–2).
- 4.
As we shall see in the chapters that follow, when validity is defined in realist terms, the focus is on trying to improve the likelihood that theoretical conceptualizations will correspond with (or match) the workings of reality. (See also Section 1.5.1 below.)
- 5.
Because of the importance that this book gives to the way in which we use language – as part of the reproduction of our ways of seeing – I would suggest that it may be preferable to refer to the Institute of Raced Relations in order to show that the racialization of discourses and the racing of social relations (in terms of whatever definition of race” is used) is a historically variable mode of social existence (cf. Hercules, 2006, pp. 42–43; Kiguwa, 2006, pp. 127–130).
- 6.
For ease of teaching and organization, the department was organized along four lines: research methodology; conflict theory; systems approaches; and humanist sociology. I was appointed as head of the “humanist group,” in which we explored implications of humanism for sociology – with a focus on humans as dialogical beings. This often involved us in heated conversation with those endorsing the specific value of (definitions of) “conflict theory” or “systems thinking” (with the latter understood at that time in terms of a view of social systems as organisms).
- 7.
Binary thinking is also sometimes referred to as thinking that relies on a type of logic where it is contradictory to state that, say, “p and not-p are both (socially) true.” In her book on Black Sexual Politics, Collins clarifies the use of the term binary. She defines binary thinking as “a system of thought that divides concepts into two oppositional categories, for example, white/black, man/woman, heterosexual/homosexual, saint/sinner, reason/emotion, and normal/deviant” (2005, p. 349). She indicates that “both/and” thinking allows us to see the connections between the apparent oppositions.
- 8.
Bouchard (2004) prefers to use the word “community” rather than the word “group.” She argues that the word “group” already implies for her an “us/them” relationship between (groupings of) people. A similar suggestion is offered by Young (1990), who argues for the need to develop normative conceptions of communities where identifications with groups (or rather, communities) can emerge on the basis of understood affinities, while creating openings for people to “become acquainted with new and different people, [and] with different cultures and social experiences” (1990, p. 319).
- 9.
The term phenotype, as explained in wikipedia, is used to refer to “actual physical properties [of an organism], such as height, weight, hair color, and so on” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genotype-phenotype_distinction). Considered in relation to phenotypical features associated with being Black or White, it is important to note that sometimes people are expressly called (and/or self-define themselves as) Black or White by virtue of their social behavior. For example, the use of the word coconut can be used to refer (normally derogatively) to someone with phenotypically “Black” features presumably trying to act “White” (see Chapter 5, Section 5.5). In contrast, sometimes calling someone with phenotypically “White” features as “Black” could refer favorably to their being able to empathize suitably with self-reported experiences of “Black” people (as I have heard through many anecdotes in South Africa as well as Britain). As another example, in the context of social relations in the USA, Aleco Christakis (of Greek heritage), indicated to me that he is a board member of the organization called “Americans for Indian Opportunity” and considers himself as Greek Native American (as one of his self-descriptors following on his feeling welcomed in the organization) – personal communication by e-mail with me, August 2008. (See also in this regard Chapter 7, Footnote 198; and see http://www.aio.org/programs.html as well as http://www.aio.org/21228%20Ambassador%20Newsletter.pdf)
- 10.
The term “realism” embraces a variety of positions that might be labeled under this banner. In my book Accountability in Social Research (Romm, 2001), I offer a discussion of four kinds of position that can be considered realist in orientation (albeit in different ways). These are positivism (a position focusing on the search through scientific inquiry to come to grips with natural and social regularities); non-foundationalism (a position that emphasizes the impossibility of obtaining indubitable proof); scientific realism (expressing a focus on excavating structures of reality); and Weberian interpretivism (expressing a focus on striving to understand meaning-making and its consequences in the social world).
- 11.
Many researchers in the “interpretivist” tradition have queried this argument of Popper as applied in the social sciences, and have argued for a more inductively based connection between empirical data and theoretical conceptualization (cf. Henwood and Pidgeon, 1993). However, Henwood and Pidgeon indicate that even within this tradition, it is understood that good theorizing needs to integrate “diverse levels of abstraction” as part of the process of developing a “conceptually rich understanding” that can be plausibly argued to “fit the data” (1993, pp. 21–22). Furthermore, they indicate that the “negative case analysis” often promoted within this tradition can be seen as paralleling “the Popperian strategy of ingeniously seeking wherever possible to falsify working hypotheses derived from the emergent model in that, as analysis of initial cases proceeds, further cases would be selected for their discomforting potential” (1993, pp. 25–26).
- 12.
Weber (1949) argues that social scientific inquiry is distinct from natural scientific inquiry, because social scientists can explore the realm of social meaning making that renders people’s actions understandable. (See also Romm, 2001, pp. 55–66 for an exploration of ways of locating Weber’s interpretivist argument in relation to other positions on social inquiry.)
- 13.
In terms of the labels proffered in Footnote 10, Hammersley subscribes to non-foundationalism (distinguishing his position from positivist foundationalism or naïve empiricism). Davidson and Layder invoke a scientific realist position – which relies on a different way of connecting “reason” with empirical “evidence” (sometimes called retroductive logic) so as to be able to excavate unobservable structures (Romm, 2001, p. 4). See Chapter 6, Section 6.1.2, as well as Chapter 8, for more detail on this.
- 14.
As with the term realism, the term “constructivism” embraces a variety of positions. For example, positions such as critical theory, anti-foundationalist feminism, and discursively oriented constructivism all query the realist focus on science as a process of generating increasingly improved access to independently existing (extra-linguistic) reality (Romm, 2001, pp. 5–7).
- 15.
Since Kuhn’s work exploring the manner in which paradigms may frame our ways of perceiving, much debate has ensued around implications of this for processes of dialogue across paradigmatic positions (whether engaged in by professional researchers and/or others). While certain authors argue that people engaged in dialogue across paradigms necessarily in some ways talk past each other (as the languages are not fully translatable), others have pointed to the potential for developing mutual engagement – see, for instance, Tsing (1993), Flood and Romm (1996a), and Yuval-Davis (2004); and see my discussion in Chapter 4, Section 4.3.1.
- 16.
In similar vein, Ospina (2008, p. 441) notes that in order to cater for a stance where it can be admitted that thinking and feeling are inseparable, some people in Latin America refer to themselves as “feelthinkers” (via the concept of “sentipensante”). She refers to the way in which Fals-Borda (1985) drew on this concept in his writing about action research experiences in Latin America.
- 17.
She notes, for instance, that when liberal notions such as “democracy, tolerance, and gender equality” are invoked with the aim of pointing (by contrast) to negative sides of Islam, the way in which these notions are defined can imply that they are themselves “beyond criticism” in their instantiation (2008, p. 41). Furthermore, the way in which the research is framed, reinforces negative stereotyping of Muslims, instead of “contextualizing, historicizing and displaying internal variation and differentiation among Muslims” (2008, p. 29). Regarding the question of whether their religion is to be conceived as a “stumbling block for integration,” she notes that this question itself assumes a particular conception of what “integration” into the nation-state might imply – and can be seen to “uphold a notion of a unified national society or culture” (2008, p. 45). I return to this issue in my discussion of cultural racism in Chapter 2.
- 18.
Collins makes a similar point when discussing the “tradition of African humanism.” She suggests that this tradition gains expression in “the polyrhythms of African American music, in which no one main beat subordinates the other” (2000, p. 263). Thus the connectedness becomes focused upon at the same time as individual uniqueness is acknowledged (2000, pp. 262–263).
- 19.
This understanding of ethics (and ethical inquiry) has affinity with Aristotle’s account of virtue ethics as outlined by Richardson and McMullen (2006). They suggest that the focus in such an ethics is not on the question of “what should I do?”, but rather on “what sort of person should I be?” Translated into research ethics, it means that certain dispositions are encouraged in researchers (such as “honesty, sensitivity, respectfulness, reflexivity, etc.”) – rather than trying to provide (via professional associations) “prescriptive or algorithmic rules or codes” (2007, p. 1128). Although Richardson and McMullen discuss virtue ethics in terms of Aristotle’s account, others have argued that it has roots in Chinese philosophy (cf. Hursthouse, 2007, pp. 1–2). And Collins considers the (related) ethic of caring as having roots in African humanism (2000, p. 263).
- 20.
My argument for considering experimental designs as not necessarily only quantitative in character is in line with Vogt’s view that the quantitative/qualitative distinction is one affecting data coding/measurement and analysis (rather than the research design as such). He avers that designs – such as, say, experiments, surveys, and participant observation – do not carry with them a necessary link to the way in which data will be coded and analyzed (i.e., in more numerical or narrative form) (Vogt, 2008, p. 2). And my argument for including cross-racial discussion, is in line with Harris-Lacewell’s observation that thus far Black people have been largely decentered through the way in which White scholars study “race politics” and that there appears to be a racial separation in the research community between those (largely Whites) studying “White racial attitudes” and those (largely Blacks) studying “Black politics” (2003, p. 241).
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Romm, N. (2010). General Introduction. In: New Racism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8728-7_1
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