Howard Winant | |
---|---|
Born | 1946 (age 77–78) |
Occupation | Researcher, professor, writer |
Nationality | American |
Education | |
Period | 1980–present |
Notable awards | Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award “...for lifetime career service and commitment to greater racial and social justice,” American Sociological Association, 2015; Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, for The World Is a Ghetto. Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, American Sociological Association, 2003. |
Children | 3 |
Website | |
www |
Howard Winant (born 1946) [1] is an American sociologist and race theorist. [2] Winant is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. [3] [4] Winant is best known for developing the theory of racial formation along with Michael Omi. Winant's research and teachings revolve around race and racism, comparative historical sociology, political sociology, social theory, and human rights.
Howard Winant was born in 1946 in the United States. [1] He received his B.A. degree from Brandeis University in 1968; and Ph.D from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1980. [2] [5] He has worked and taught in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. [2]
Winant is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 2002; where he is also affiliated with the Black Studies, Chicana/o Studies, and Asian American Studies departments. [2]
Winant's most influential work has been his ongoing collaboration with UC Berkeley Professor Michael Omi, Racial Formation in the United States (1986-2015). The theory draws upon Gramsci's conception of hegemony to describe the social construction of the race concept in contemporary US society. Noting the concept's origins in European settler colonialism and in the enslavement of Africans (see Slavery in the United States), Omi and Winant also follow Du Bois (see W. E. B. Du Bois) in arguing that race has always operated as an organizing factor in society. In their account the meaning of race is constantly contested through political conflict that takes the form of racial projects. Racial projects are at work throughout society, making race an unstable social category that is embedded in all identities and social structures. Taking the form of White Supremacy and shaped as well by ongoing resistance to it, race has been so foundational in the United States that it serves as a "template" for all social conflict. At key moments like the Civil War and Reconstruction period, and during the Civil Rights Movement, the meaning and sociopolitical structure of race has been transformed. Still, as both Gramsci and Du Bois would predict, the reforms secured during crisis periods like the Civil Rights era have contradictory effects: for democratic and egalitarian movements, they simultaneously represent both victory and defeat. Civil Rights, Black Power, Immigrants Rights, and other anti-racist movements have both extended democracy and demobilized resistance. Political project seeking racial equality and justice remain incomplete and are indeed threatened by racial reaction in numerous ways. Thus, the fundamental dynamics of race, such as institutional racism, nativism (anti-immigrant racism), heterophobia, and enforced inequality along racialized lines remain formidable today, constantly subject to political struggle, according to Omi and Winant.
Racial formation has solidified as one of the primary paradigms of sociological understandings of race. While recognizing the importance of ethnicity- (culturally-based theories), class- (inequality-based theories), and nation- (peoplehood-based theories), race cannot be explained a manifestation of any of these three categories. Omi and Winant criticize any attempt to do so as inherently reductionist. In their view race remains a fundamental dimension of social structure and signification, while simultaneously retaining its instability, contrariety, and openness, because it is always engulfed in the turmoil of political conflict.
Winant was the founder and director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, a multidisciplinary program that was active on all ten UC campuses of the UC from 2010 to 2015. [2] The UCCNRS was not renewed in 2015, for reasons that remain unclear.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a common nation of origin, or common sets of ancestry, traditions, language, history, society, religion, or social treatment. The term ethnicity is often used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism.
Whiteness studies is the study of the structures that produce white privilege, the examination of what whiteness is when analyzed as a race, a culture, and a source of systemic racism, and the exploration of other social phenomena generated by the societal compositions, perceptions and group behaviors of white people. It is an interdisciplinary arena of inquiry that has developed beginning in the United States from white trash studies and critical race studies, particularly since the late 20th century. It is focused on what proponents describe as the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the social construction of "whiteness" as an ideology tied to social status.
Public sociology is a subfield of the wider sociological discipline that emphasizes expanding the disciplinary boundaries of sociology in order to engage with non-academic audiences. It is perhaps best understood as a style of sociology rather than a particular method, theory, or set of political values. Since the twenty-first century, the term has been widely associated with University of California, Berkeley sociologist Michael Burawoy, who delivered an impassioned call for a disciplinary embrace of public sociology in his 2004 American Sociological Association (ASA) presidential address. In his address, Burawoy contrasts public sociology with what he terms "professional sociology", a form of sociology that is concerned primarily with addressing other academic sociologists.
“Critical race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary academic field focused on the relationshipss between social conceptions of race and ethnicity, social and political laws, and media.” doesn’t even make sense. CRT also considers racism to be systemic in various laws and rules, and not based only on individuals' prejudices. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical theory rather than criticizing or blaming individuals.
Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher at the University of Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on Africana and black existentialism, postcolonial phenomenology, race and racism, and on the works and thought of W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon. His most recent book is titled: Fear of Black Consciousness.
Racialization or ethnicization is a sociological concept used to describe the intent and processes by which ethnic or racial identities are systematically constructed within a society. Constructs for racialization are centered on erroneous generalizations about racial aspects of distinct groups, leading to the denial of equal societal engagement. It is a process of racial dominance that has lasting harmful or damaging outcomes for racialized groups.
William Archibald Dunning was an American historian and political scientist at Columbia University noted for his work on the Reconstruction era of the United States. He founded the informal Dunning School of interpreting the Reconstruction era through his own writings and the Ph.D. dissertations of his numerous students.
France Winddance Twine is a Black and Native American sociologist, ethnographer, visual artist, and documentary filmmaker. Twine has conducted field research in Brazil, the UK, and the United States on race, racism, and anti-racism. She has published 11 books and more than 100 articles, review essays, and books on these topics.
David Theo Goldberg is a South African professor working in the United States, known for his work in critical race theory, the digital humanities, and the state of the university.
Joe Richard Feagin is an American sociologist and social theorist who has conducted extensive research on racial and gender issues in the United States. He is currently the Ella C. McFadden Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University.
Michael Omi is an American sociologist, writer, scholar, and educator. Omi has served on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the Associate Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. Omi is best known for developing the theory of racial formation along with Howard Winant. Omi's work includes race theory, Asian American studies, and antiracist scholarship. Omi sits on the faculty advisory board of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies.
Racial formation theory is an analytical tool in sociology, developed by Michael Omi and Howard Winant, which is used to look at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determined by social, economic, and political forces. Unlike other traditional race theories, "In [Omi and Winant's] view, racial meanings pervade US society, extending from the shaping of individual racial identities to the structuring of collective political action on the terrain of the state".
Laissez-faire racism is closely related to color blindness and covert racism, and is theorised to encompass an ideology that blames minorities for their poorer economic situations, viewing it as the result of cultural inferiority. The term is used largely by scholars of whiteness studies, who argue that laissez-faire racism has tangible consequences even though few would openly claim to be, or even believe they are, laissez-faire racists.
Postcolonial international relations is a branch of scholarship that approaches the study of international relations (IR) using the critical lens of postcolonialism. This critique of IR theory suggests that mainstream IR scholarship does not adequately address the impacts of colonialism and imperialism on current day world politics. Despite using the language of post-, scholars of postcolonial IR argue that the legacies of colonialism are ongoing, and that critiquing international relations with this lens allows scholars to contextualize global events. By bridging postcolonialism and international relations, scholars point to the process of globalization as a crucial point in both fields, due to the increases in global interactions and integration. Postcolonial IR focuses on the re-narrativization of global politics to create a balanced transnational understanding of colonial histories, and attempts to tie non-Western sources of thought into political praxis.
The sociology of race and ethnic relations is the study of social, political, and economic relations between races and ethnicities at all levels of society. This area encompasses the study of systemic racism, like residential segregation and other complex social processes between different racial and ethnic groups.
Aldon Douglas Morris is emeritus professor of sociology at Northwestern University and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, whose work involves social movements, civil rights, and social inequality. He was the 2021 president of the American Sociological Association. He is best known for his work on sociolgist W. E. B. Du Bois.
Multiracial feminist theory refers to scholarship written by women of color (WOC) that became prominent during the second-wave feminist movement. This body of scholarship "does not offer a singular or unified feminism but a body of knowledge situating women and men in multiple systems of domination."
Prejudice plus power, also known as R = P + P, is a definition of racism used in the United States. Patricia Bidol-Padva first proposed this definition in a 1970 book, where she defined racism as "prejudice plus institutional power." According to this definition, two elements are required in order for racism to exist: racial prejudice, and social power to codify and enforce this prejudice into an entire society. Adherents write that while all people can be racially prejudiced, minorities are powerless and therefore only white people have the power to be racist. This definition is supported by the argument that power is responsible for the process of racialization and that social power is distributed in a zero-sum game. This view is commonly shared by social liberals and progressives. It also been used to define other forms of discrimination such as sexism, homophobia, and ableism.
Racial capitalism is a concept reframing the history of capitalism as grounded in the extraction of social and economic value from people of marginalized racial identities, typically from Black people. It was described by Cedric J. Robinson in his book Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, published in 1983, which, in contrast to both his predecessors and successors, theorized that all capitalism is inherently racial capitalism, and racialism is present in all layers of capitalism's socioeconomic stratification. Jodi Melamed has summarized the concept, explaining that capitalism "can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe inequality among human groups", and therefore, for capitalism to survive, it must exploit and prey upon the "unequal differentiation of human value."