 | |
| Author | Rogers Brubaker |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Genre | Academic |
| Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Publication date | 2016 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 236 |
| ISBN | 9780691172354 |
Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities by American sociologist Rogers Brubaker is an analysis of racial and gender identity, published by Princeton University Press in 2016 in the wake of the publicity around Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal.
Brubaker's purpose is to compare the similarities and differences of the internal logic of gender and race. Brubaker examines gender and racial identity by comparing the Essentialist and Voluntarist perspectives. The "Essentialist" view, writes Brubaker, assumes gender and race are grounded in "nature" and "history". [1] The "Voluntarists", by contrast says Brubaker, argue that race and gender identities can be "chosen." [1] Brubaker observes that the Essentialists emphasise the immutability of the external world while Voluntarists emphasises individual self-determination. However, despite the differences between both approaches, they both recognise some similarities in the "'if Jenner, then Dolezal' syllogism." [1]
Complicating the analysis argues Brubaker is the way in which, on the political left, race is a "more closely policed category" than gender, compared to the political right where sex and gender are "more closely policed." [1] Additionally, changing gender identity is given more sociological "legitimacy" than changing race. [1] The question of legitimacy is part of what Brubaker describes as "boundary work"—the demarcation of what should be regarded as science and therefore afforded certain privileges of "resources, respect and authority". [1]
Brubaker then notes how the "paring of transracial and transgender in the Dolezal debates points to an underlying shift in the landscape of identities." [1] He cites wider debates about immigration, religion and ethnicity examples of this. In an aside Brubaker notes that "syncretism, the mixing of elements from different religious traditions, illustrates the trans of between, as do those who identify with or participate in more than one religious community or tradition." [1]
Brubaker concludes by observing that the focus on "idiosyncratic aspects" of Dolezal's story has obscured the deeper trends in the way people think about identity. [1] However he also notes in his conclusion that the increasing fluidity of identity has not excluded these identities being "embodied" or expressed practically and physically. [1]
The book was received positively. Anthony Moran writing in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies said it was "an important intervention in debates about sexual/gender and racial/ethnic identities in a period of generalized identity unsettlement." [2] A. Loudermilk in PopMatters said, "Looking back at the summer of 2015 and the public debate over Dolezal, Brubaker sees a missed opportunity." [3]
Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Platonic idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In Categories, Aristotle similarly proposed that all objects have a substance that, as George Lakoff put it, "make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing". The contrary view—non-essentialism—denies the need to posit such an "essence". Essentialism has been controversial from its beginning. In the Parmenides dialogue, Plato depicts Socrates questioning the notion, suggesting that if we accept the idea that every beautiful thing or just action partakes of an essence to be beautiful or just, we must also accept the "existence of separate essences for hair, mud, and dirt".
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.
Passing is the ability of a person to be regarded as a member of an identity group or category, such as racial identity, ethnicity, caste, social class, sexual orientation, gender, religion, age and/or disability status, that is often different from their own. Passing may be used to increase social acceptance to cope with stigma by removing stigma from the presented self and could result in other social benefits as well. Thus, passing may serve as a form of self-preservation or self-protection if expressing one's true or prior identity may be dangerous.
Trans- is a Latin prefix meaning "across", "beyond", or "on the other side of".
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class. The term could also encompass other social phenomena which are not commonly understood as exemplifying identity politics, such as governmental migration policy that regulates mobility based on identities, or far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others. For this reason, Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel, who discuss several possible definitions of the term, argue that it is an analytically imprecise concept.
Caitlyn Marie Jenner is an American media personality and former Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete.
Identity is the set of qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or a group.
Transracial may refer to:
Contexts: Understanding People in their Social Worlds is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal and an official publication of the American Sociological Association. It is designed to be a more accessible source of sociological ideas and research and has been inspired by the movement towards public sociology.
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".
The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care. A major goal of transgender activism is to allow changes to identification documents to conform with a person's current gender identity without the need for gender-affirming surgery or any medical requirements, which is known as gender self-identification. It is part of the broader LGBT rights movements.
Rogers Brubaker is professor of sociology at University of California, Los Angeles and UCLA Foundation Chair. He has written academic works on social theory, immigration, citizenship, nationalism, ethnicity, religion, diasporas, gender, populism, and digital hyperconnectivity.
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.
Ethnicities is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes research in the fields of sociology and politics concerning questions of ethnicity, nationalism and related issues such as identity politics and minority rights. It was established in 2001 and is published bimonthly by SAGE Publications. The editors-in-chief are Stephen May and Tariq Modood.
Nkechi Amare Diallo is an American former college instructor and activist known for presenting herself as a black woman despite being born to white parents. She is also a former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter president.
Ann Juanita Morning is an American sociologist and demographer whose research focuses on race. In particular, she has studied racial and ethnic classification on censuses worldwide, as well as beliefs about racial difference in the United States and Western Europe. Much of her work examines how contemporary science—particularly the field of genetics—influences how we conceptualize race.
The feminist philosophy journal Hypatia became involved in a dispute in April 2017 that led to the online shaming of one of its authors, Rebecca Tuvel, an assistant professor of philosophy at Rhodes College in Memphis. The journal had published a peer-reviewed article by Tuvel in which she compared the situation of Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, to that of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identifies as black. When the article was criticized on social media, scholars associated with Hypatia joined in the criticism and urged the journal to retract it. The controversy exposed a rift within the journal's editorial team and more broadly within feminism and academic philosophy.
A transracial person is one who identifies as a different race than the one associated with their biological ancestry. They may adjust their appearance to make themselves look more like that race, and may participate in activities associated with that race. Use of the word transracial to describe this is new and has been criticized, because the word was historically used to describe a person raised by adoptive parents of a different ethnic or racial background, such as a Black child adopted and raised by a white couple.
Racial or ethnic misrepresentation occurs when someone deliberately misrepresents their racial or ethnic background. It may occur for a variety of reasons, such as someone attempting to benefit from affirmative action programs for which they are not eligible.
Oli London is an English Internet personality. London is known for his multiple ethnic plastic surgery procedures intended to make him look like Jimin, a member of the South Korean boy band BTS.