White Lives: The Interplay of 'Race', Class and Gender in Everyday Life

by Byrne; Bridget

• ISBN13: 9780415347129
• ISBN10: 0415347122
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2006-04-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This revealing book explores the processes of racialization, class and gender, and examines how these processes play out in the everyday lives of white women living in London with young children. Analyzing the endurability and flexibility of racialized discourse in everyday life, author Byrne simultaneously argues for a radical deconstruction of the notions of race these discourses create.Byrne focuses on the experience of white mothers and their children, as a key site in the reproduction of class, race and gender subjectivities. Examining what they say about themselves and how they have made friends, join clubs, spent time with and chosen schools for their children, the book asks what this can tell us about whiteness in everyday life. Byrne offers a unique perspective on both the experience of motherhood and on ideas of white identity.Byrne's research is unique in its approach of exploring whiteness in the context of practices of mothering. She adopts a broad perspective, and her approach provides a suggestive framework for analyzing the racialization of everyday life. The book's multi-layered analysis shifts expertly from intimate acts to those which engage with local and national discourses in more public spaces.Reconsidering white identities through white experiences of race, White Lives will appeal across many disciplines, to students studying sociology, anthropology, race and ethnicity and cultural studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Knowing `whiteness'	1	(14)
Troubling `race'	15	(13)
Talk, tea and tape recorders	28	(14)
Narrating the self	42	(30)
Seeing, talking, living `race'	72	(32)
In search of a `good mix': `race', class and gender and practices of mothering	104	(34)
How English am I?	138	(30)
Conclusion	168	(8)
Notes	176	(5)
Bibliography	181	(10)
Appendix 1	191	(3)
Appendix 2	194	(2)
Index	196