Race and Race Theory

Race and Race Theory Author(s): Howard Winant Source: Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 26 (2000), pp. 169-185 Published by: Annual Reviews Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/223441 . Accessed: 16/10/2011 01:46 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Annual Reviews is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Annual Review of Sociology. http://www.jstor.org Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2000. 26:169-85 Copyright ? 2000 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved RACE AND RACE THEORY Howard Winant Department of Sociology, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104; e-mail: hwinant@nimbus. temple. edu Key Words racism, racial formation, racial politics * Abstract Race has always been a significant sociological theme, from the found- ing of the field and the formulation of classical theoretical statements to the present. Since the nineteenth century, sociological perspectives on race have developed and changed, always reflecting shifts in large-scale political processes. In the classical pe- riod, colonialism and biologistic racism held sway. As the twentieth century dawned, sociology came to be dominated by US-based figures. DuBois and the Chicago School presented the first notable challenges to the field's racist assumptions. In the aftermath of World War II, with the destruction of European colonialism, the rise of the civil rights movement, and the surge in migration on a world scale, the sociology of race became a central topic. The field moved toward a more critical, more egalitarian aware- ness of race, focused particularly on the overcoming of prejudice and discrimination. Although the recognition of these problems increased and political reforms made some headway in combatting them, racial injustice and inequality were not surmounted. As the global and domestic politics of race entered a new period of crisis and uncertainty, so too has the field of sociology. To tackle the themes of race and racism once again in the new millennium, sociology must develop more effective racial theory. Racial formation approaches can offer a starting point here. The key tasks will be the formu- lation of a more adequate comparative historical sociology of race, the development of a deeper understanding of the micro-macro linkages that shape racial issues, and the recognition of the pervasiveness of racial politics in contemporary society. This is a challenging but also exciting agenda. The field must not shrink from addressing it. INTRODUCTION As the world lurches forward into the twenty-first century, widespread confusion and anxiety exist about the political significance and even the meaning, of race. This uncertain situation extends into the field of sociology, which has since its founding devoted great attention to racial themes. The extent of the literature on the race concept alone, not to mention the moun- tains of empirical studies that focus on racial issues, presents difficulties for any attempt at theoretical overview and synthesis. A wide range of concepts from both the classical and moder traditions can readily be applied to racial matters. 0360-0572/00/0815-0169$14.00 169 170 WINANT Variations among national and cultural understandings of the meaning of race cry out for comparative appproaches. World history has, arguably, been racialized at least since the rise of the moder world system; racial hierarchy remains global even in the postcolonial present; and popular concepts of race, however variegated, remain in general everyday use almost everywhere. Thus, any effective sociolog- ical theory of race seems to require, at a minimum, comparative historical and political components, some sort of sociology of culture or knowledge, and an adequate microsociological account. Over the past few decades, interest in racial matters, and the pace at which racial dynamics have been changing worldwide, have both increased dramatically. Controversy over the meaning and significance of race was greatly heightened after World War II. The war itself had significant racial dimensions and left a legacy of revulsion at racism and genocide. The social movements and revolutionary upsurges that succeeded the war and brought the colonial era to an end also raised the problematic of race to a new level of prominence. The civil rights movement in the United States and the anti-apartheid mobilization in South Africa are but the most prominent examples of this. As it gained its independence, the postcolonial world was quickly embroiled in the competition of the Cold War, a situation that placed not only the legacy of imperial rule but also the racial policies of the superpowers (especially those of the United States) under additional scrutiny. Another consequence of the war was enormous migratory flows from the world's rural South to its metropolitan North; in these demographic shifts the empire struck back, pluralizing the former mother countries (Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies 1982). All these developments raised significant questions about the meaning of race. SOCIOLOGY'S RACIAL ODYSSEY In this article I survey the theoretical dimensions of race as the new century (and new millennium) commences. I begin with an account of the origins of the race concept. Here I consider how the theme of race, though prefigured in earlier ages, only took on its present range of meanings with the rise of modernity. The deep interconnection between the development of the modern world system-of capi- talism, seaborne empire, and slavery-and the exfoliation of a worldwide process of racialization is not in doubt. Next I examine how sociological theory has addressed the linkage between modernity and race. I argue that, not surprisingly, the sociological study of race has been shaped by large-scale political processes. The founding statements of sociological theory, the so-called classics, were above all concerned to explain the emergence of modernity in Europe. Whether they understood this to mean the dawn of capitalism, the advent of "disenchanted" forms of social organization, or the generation of complex dynamics of social integration and solidarity, they could hardly escape some reckoning with the problem of the Other, however s/he was RACE AND RACE THEORY 171 defined: as plundered and exploited laborer, as "primitive" or "uncivilized," or as "traditional" or mechanically solidaristic. After sociology's center of gravity migrated across the Atlantic, racial themes became more central. Dealing with social problems such as crime, poverty, and disease; addressing urbanization, stratification, and underdevelopment; and con- fronting social psychological issues as well, analysts again and again had recourse to racial themes. Contemporary approaches to the race concept have by and large parted with the biologism of the past, although some vestigial viewpoints of this type can still be detected (such as those of The Bell Curve authors). The sociology of race was vastly stimulated by the political, cultural, and demographic shifts that took shape in the postwar decades. But as we begin the twenty-first century, sociological theory is confronted with the obsolescence of the Big Political Processes, such as decolonization and civil rights, that drove the theoretical vehicle forward from the war's end. So now, racial theory finds itself in a new quandary. Empires have been ended and Jim Crow and apartheid abolished (at least officially). How then is continuing racial inequality and bias to be explained? Some would argue that since racial injustice is at least tendentially diminishing, the race concept is finally being obviated: In the globalized twenty-first century, world society and transnational culture will finally attain a state of colorblindness and racial (or better, ethnic) pluralism. Others note that this new situation-of multiculturalism or diversification-provides a much prettier fig leaf for policies of laissez-faire vis-a-vis continuing racial exclusion and inequality than any intransigent white supremacy could ever have offered. But whatever political disagreements underlie the ongoing difficulties of racial theory, there can be little doubt that these difficulties persist. In the final section of this paper, I offer some notes toward a new racial theory. Any such account must take seriously the reformed present situation: postcolonial, postsegregationist (or at least post-official segregation), and racially heterogeneous (if not "integrated"). It must also note the continuing presence of racial signification and racial identity, as well as the ongoing social structural salience of race. Racial theory must now demonstrate comparative and historical capabilities, as well as addressing the formidable problem of the micro-macro linkage that inheres in racial dynamics. As this already suggests, such a theory would also incorporate elements (let us call them revisionist elements) of recent political sociology: process models of politics, new social movement theory, and constitution theories of society. Over the past two decades, racial formation theory has made the most serious attempt to fulfill this mission. This is obviously no small assignment; only the contours of such a new theo- retical approach to race can be outlined here. But I am confident that these notes, however elliptical, will facilitate access to a substantial body of work already un- derway, not only on race, but on the great multitude of issues, both substantive and conceptual, that it intersects. After all, the theme of race is situated where meaning meets social structure, where identity frames inequality. 172 WINANT ORIGINS OF THE RACE CONCEPT Can any subject be more central or more controversial in sociological thought than that of race? The concept is essentially a modem one, although prefigured in various ways by ethnocentrism, and taking preliminary form in ancient concepts of civilization and barbarity (Snowden 1983), citizen (or zoon politikon) and out- sider/slave (Hannaford 1996, Finley 1983). Yes, the Crusades and the Inquisition and the Mediterranean slave trade were important rehearsals for modem systems of racial differentiation, but in terms of scale and inexorability the race concept only began to attain its familiar meanings at the end of the middle ages. At this point it would be useful to say what I mean by "race." At its most basic level, race can be defined as a concept that signifies and symbolizes sociopolitical conflicts and interests in reference to different types of human bodies. Although the concept of race appeals to biologically based human characteristics (phenotypes), selection of these particular human features for purposes of racial signification is always and necessarily a social and historical process. There is no biological basis for distinguishing human groups along the lines of race, and the sociohistorical cat- egories employed to differentiate among these groups reveal themselves, upon seri- ous examination, to be imprecise if not completely arbitrary (Omi & Winant 1994). The idea of race began to take shape with the rise of a world political econ- omy. The onset of global economic integration, the dawn of seaborne empire, the conquest of the Americas, and the rise of the Atlantic slave trade were all key elements in the genealogy of race. The concept emerged over time as a kind of world-historical bricolage, an accretive process that was in part theoretical,1 but much more centrally practical. Though intimated throughout the world in innu- merable ways, racial categorization of human beings was a European invention. It was an outcome of the same world-historical processes that created European nation-states and empires, built the dark satanic mills of Britain (and the even more dark and satanic sugar mills of the Brazilian Reconcavo and the Caribbean), and explained it all by means of Enlightenment rationality. But this is not to say that the European attainment of imperial and world- encompassing power gave rise to race. Indeed it is just as easy to argue the opposite: that the modern concept of race gave rise to, or at least facilitated the creation of, an integrated sociopolitical world, a modem authoritarian state, the structures of an international economy, and the emergence over time of a global culture. We must recognize all these issues as deeply racialized matters. 'Religious, philosophical, literary/artistic, political, and scientific discourses all were di- rected in a never ending flood of ink and image to the themes of "the Other"; variations in human nature; and the corporeal, mental, spiritual, sexual, and "natural historical" differ- ences among "men." To the extent that this discussion addressed itself to the problem of patterns of human difference/identity and human variability, it may be fairly characterized as about race. To cite some valuable texts among a virtual infinity: Hannaford 1996, Gossett 1965, Todorov 1985, 1993, Kiernan 1969, Montagu 1997 [1942], Banton 1987. RACE AND RACE THEORY 173 THE SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF RACE HAS BEEN SHAPED BY LARGE-SCALE POLITICAL PROCESSES The "Classics" When we look at the treatment of racial matters in sociological theory, we find the concept present from the beginning, though often in an inchoate, undertheorized, or taken-for-granted form. Herbert Spencer, the usual example cited as the ur-socio- logist, reads as a biological determinist today, preoccupied as he is with human evolution and the ranking of groups according to their "natural" characteristics.2 Marx's orientation to themes we would now consider racial was complex. His denunciation in Capital of the depredation, despoliation, and plunder of the non- European world in pursuit of primitive accumulation,3 and his ferocious opposition to slavery, both commend him. But his insistence that the colonized pre-capitalist societies would ultimately benefit from their enmeshment in the brutal clutches of the European powers hints to present-day readers that he was not entirely immune to the hierarchization of the world that characterized the imperial Europe of his day. Weber's treatment of the concept of ethnie under the rubric of "status" (a re- lational category based on "honor") presages a social constructionist approach to race; but in Weber's voluminous output there is no serious consideration of the mod- em imperial phenomenon, there are numerous instances of European chauvinism,4 and there is an occasional indulgence in-let us call it-racialist meditation.5 Durkheim too ranks the world eurocentrically, distinguishing rather absolutely 2Early treatments of the race concept in Europe and the United States combined supposedly biologistic or natural history-based conceptions of race with a high degree of arbitrariness, if not outright incoherence, in their application. Numerous groups qualified as "races": national origin (the Irish) and religion (Jews) as well as the more familiar criteria of color were frequently invoked as signs of racial otherness. Although this fungibility has been somewhat reduced and regularized over recent decades, it still remains in effect and indeed can never be supplanted by "objective" criteria. See the discussion of racial formation below. 3"The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement, and entomb- ment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of blackskins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations with the globe for a theater. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England's AntiJacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars with China, etc." (Marx 1967:351). 4Especially during the World War I years, when Weber was seriously afflicted with German nationalism. 5In fairness, Weber also recognizes racism, notably anti-black racism in the United States. See his remarks on U.S. racial attitudes in Gerth & Mills 1958:405-6. Weber's sensitivity to U.S. racial matters may be attributed, at least in part, to the orientation provided him by Du Bois. See Lewis 1993:225, 277. 174 WINANT between "primitive" and "civilized" peoples based on the limited ethnology avail- able to him; he also muses somewhat racialistically.6 It is not my purpose to chide these masters. Far from it: They acquit themselves well when compared to the rank-and-file pundits and even the bien philosophes who were their contemporaries. They can hardly be expected to have remained totally immune from the racial ideology of their times. But that is precisely the point: Sociological thought arose in an imperialist, eurocentric, and indeed racist era, both in Europe and in the United States. In its classical early statements, it was racially marked by the time and place of its birth. Across the Atlantic It was largely in the United States that the early sociology of race first forsook the library for the streets, partaking in the great empirical effloresence that marked the field's establishment in that country. There was an inescapable association between the discipline's development in this period (the early twentieth century), and the rise of pragmatism in US philosophy and progressivism in US politics during the same epoch. Nor is it hard to understand why race was promoted to a more central sociological concern as the discipline acquired its foothold-indeed its headquarters-in the United States. This was, after all, a country where African slavery was still an artifact of living memory, where the frontier had only recently been declared closed, where immigration was a flood stage, and where debates over the propriety of imperial activity (in the Phillipines, for example) were still current. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a nearly comprehensive view of the race concept still located it at the biological level. On this account, races were "nat- ural": their characteristics were essential and given, immutable. Over the centuries such approaches had accomplished a wide range of explanatory work. Both the defense of slavery and its critique (abolitionism) had appealed to "natural" criteria in support of their views. In a similar vein the holocaust visited upon indigenous peoples, as well as the absorption of large numbers of former Mexican, Spanish, and Asian subjects through war and coercive immigration policies, had been jus- tified as "natural," inevitable forms of human progress.7 Even after emancipation and the "closing of the frontier" in the United States, scientific arguments still summoned "natural causes" to the defense of hierarchical concepts of race. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the impact of social Darwinism was 6Racial categories are employed as "social types" in Suicide, for example. See Fenton 1980. 7The Chicago theorists, particularly Park, proposed a deterministic version of this argument in the form of a "race relations cycle" through which macrosoci