Desire for Race

by Sarah Daynes , Orville Lee

• ISBN13: 9780521680479
• ISBN10: 0521680476
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-11-10
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

What do people mean when they talk about race? Are they acknowledging a biological fact, a social reality, or a cultural identity? Is race real, or is it merely an illusion? This book brings analytical clarity to one of the most vexed topics in the social sciences today, arguing that race is no more than a social construction, unsupported in biological terms and upheld for the simple reason that we continue to believe in its reality. Deploying concepts from the sociology of knowledge, religion, social memory, and psychoanalysis, the authors consider the conditions that contribute to this persistence of belief and suggest ways in which the idea of race can free itself from outdated nineteenth-century notions of biological essentialism. By conceiving of race as something that is simultaneously real and unreal, this study generates a new conceptualization that will be required reading for scholars in this field.

Table of Contents

Introduction

American sociology

Marxism

British social anthropology

British cultural studies

Intermediate reflections on essentialism

Belief and social action

Theorizing the racial ensemble

The politics of memory and race

Desire

Conclusion

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