Die Camera Obscura der Identität: Zur Reichweite des Critical-Whiteness-Ansatzes

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

The article discusses the recent adoption of „Whiteness Studies" in the German context. Renamed as „Critical Whiteness", the concept has gained popularity particularly in the political field (and partly in academia), where it soon led to vibrant controversies. The paper takes these debates as a starting point to argue that the moralization of politics in relation to the use of this concept in the German context is partly a result of the concept itself, which is caught between a race relations approach and a constructivist one. This becomes particularly apparent when it tries explain post-racism with arguments from symbolic interactionism. To frame racism in terms of „white supremacy“ is particularly problematic in a context, in which racism has since WW2 been articulated and organized around immigration, concerning people, who, with the current US terminology would be labelled as „white“. Furthermore, the paper engages critically with different elements and concepts employed by the approach, such as „awareness“, „privileges“and „standpoint theory“. It concludes with a discussion of the political subjectivation inherent in the concept in terms of the affective relations it seems to presuppose.
OriginalspracheDeutsch
ZeitschriftPROKLA. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaft
Jahrgang45
Ausgabenummer178
Seiten (von - bis)117-134
Anzahl der Seiten18
ISSN0342-8176
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.03.2015
Extern publiziertJa

    Fachgebiete

  • Soziologie - Critical-Whiteness-Ansatz, Rassismus, Whiteness Studies, Critical-Whiteness

DOI