Articulating Otherness? White rural residents talk about Gypsy-Travellers

This paper combines insights from geographical research on the racialization of ethnic minority groups with more recent interest in whiteness in an exploration of the ways white rural residents racialize Gypsy-Travellers. Focusing on the white rural residents of Appleby, Cumbria, and their racialization of and relations with Gypsy-Travellers who attend the New Fair there each year, the paper contributes both to our understanding of the ways white people racialize ethnic minority groups, and in doing so also highlights the chaotic nature of whiteness as a social construction.     

«True lovers of religion»: Methodist persecution and white resistance to anti-slavery in Barbados, 1823–1825

This paper argues that white Barbadian responses to the renewed anti-slavery campaign from 1823 to 1825 were characterized by a combination of strident assertions of loyalty with a more hostile rhetoric of difference and distance. Drawing on work that emphasizes the place of the anti-slavery campaign in the formulation of English identity, this paper considers where such accounts leave white West Indians, and argues that opposition to anti-slavery was linked to the production of white identity in Barbados. It seeks to explore the complex nature of white resistance to anti-slavery, and thus the ambiguous nature of West Indian whiteness, by focusing on a series of texts produced in the aftermath of ameliorative instructions sent out by the British government and of a major slave revolt in Demerara. In particular, it considers a series of anonymous texts produced during a period of intense anti-Methodist persecution. Locating this anti-Methodism within the broader context of opposition to the anti-slavery campaign, these texts encapsulate the ambivalence of identity and difference, loyalty and hostility that characterizes West Indian whiteness in the early nineteenth century. In this way, the paper aims to contribute to a more nuanced historical geography of white identity.     

Rethinking Whiteness and Masculinity in Geography: Drinking Alcohol in the Field in Vietnam

This paper evaluates the spatial politics of fieldwork in Vietnam in order to think through the connections between whiteness, masculinity, and geography. In drawing attention to how the consumption of alcohol underwrites daily activities in Vietnam, as well as fieldwork activities, I show that research ethics are underpinned by unique spatial contexts that do not conform to conventional accounts of masculinity and whiteness in the global North. I make three interrelated arguments. First, I argue that debates in geography about whiteness and masculinity must be understood alongside fieldwork experiences in the global South. Second, I invite geographers to think through how research ethics are shaped by spatially contingent productions of whiteness and masculinity. Lastly, I challenge geographers to keep pace with how disruptive categories like whiteness and masculinity are produced outside of the global North.     

White socio-spatial epistemology

Recent work by geographers concerned with the enduring presence of racism has called for an interrogation of the privileges and contingencies of whiteness. Central to this project of denaturalizing White Identity has been the disclosure of its co-constitution with a host of social practices. Building on the work of critical theorists in the humanities and social sciences concerned with masculinist and post-colonial epistemologies, this paper outlines a socio-spatial epistemology of whiteness. Whiteness's central tenets are an essentialist and non-relational construction of space and identity that underwrite its claims to be realized independent of an Other. Spatially, this refusal manifests itself in the deployment of discursive categories associated with scales, boundaries and extensivity in ways that reify space into discrete, unrelated parcels. We discuss some of the implications of this non-relational construction of space and identity in the context of residential segregation and spatial mobility. The paper concludes by noting that historically and geographically specific forms of whiteness have drawn upon a common socio-spatial framing and that further study in this field will benefit anti-racist activism by disclosing the workings of racialization in numerous human geographic contexts.     

纸质文物清洗用水的选择及清洗条件初探

为考察纸质文物的最佳清洗用水和清洗条件,探讨了不同清洗用水(超纯水、纯净水、蒸馏水、自来水、硬水)在不同清洗次数、不同清洗温度时对纸张p H值、抗张强度、色差、白度以及聚合度的影响。结果表明:硬水和自来水对纸张的清洗效果较差,白度上升小(2.0左右),抗张强度损失大(17%~24%),不适合作为纸质文物清洗用水;超纯水、纯净水和蒸馏水对纸张白度提升明显(分别上升2.99,2.41,2.77),抗张强度损失较小(分别为16%,9%,12%),适合作为纸质文物清洗用水。最佳清洗条件为常温下清洗6次。本实验结果可为纸质文物清洗用水的选择提供参考。     

Migrating identities: gender,whiteness and Britishness in post-colonial Hong Kong

This paper explores the ways in which notions of nationality, whiteness and gender are drawn upon by British expatriate women in the construction and performance of their identities in post-colonial Hong Kong. A British colony since the mid-nineteenth century, Hong Kong was returned to China in the 1997 handover to become a ‘Special Administrative Region’. Now, as the administrative workings of empire are receding, so too are the expectations about race and nationality which went with them. For the white British, the opportunities to reconfigure discourses and subjectivities of whiteness are there, although the findings of this research reveals the unevenness of take-up. The paper draws on a broad feminist post-structuralist approach to reveal the ways in which four different British women migrants position themselves in the changing landscape. The approach shows important patterns of difference and diversity between the women in the performances of gendered Britishness and whiteness, and in the extent to which these are used to redefine or challenge the memory of relations established through imperialism.     

Whiteness and Farmers Markets: Performances,Perpetuations … Contestations?

Abstract: Academics and activists highlight the potential for alternative agrifood movements to contribute to the evolving coalescence of justice and sustainability. This potential, however, is constrained by what scholars have identified as the prevalent whiteness of such movements. This paper uses ethnographic research at two northern California farmers markets to investigate how whiteness is performed and perpetuated through the movements’ discourses and practices. We found that many managers, vendors and customers hold notions of what farmers and community members should be that both reflect and inform an affluent, liberal habitus of whiteness. Although whiteness pervades these spaces, we have also witnessed individual discourses and acts of solidarity and anti‐racism, as well as fledgling institutional efforts to contest white cultural dominance. We conclude by discussing the potential of farmers markets to create an anti‐racist politics of food.     

Tracing the origin of Chinese early white porcelain in the late sixth century—evidence from Xing kiln

As the criterion used by archaeologists for determining early white porcelain is quite ambiguous, the origin of Chinese white porcelain remains a point of disagreement. In this study, we systematically investigate 61 typical Xing porcelains of the late Northern dynasties to the early Sui dynasty (550–600 CE) using spectrophotometer, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and analyze the differences between early white porcelain and celadon of Xing kiln in terms of their whiteness and raw materials characteristic. The results show that early white porcelain is a new type of ware that differs from celadon, which can be distinguished by whiteness, with a whiteness greater than 8% being early white porcelain and a whiteness less than 8% being celadon. It is assumed that the ancient potters created the whiter wares based on celadon by improving the glaze and selecting new raw materials for the body, but the production of this type of ware was short lived and subsequently refined in the Sui dynasty (581–618 CE) owing to the limited improvement in whiteness.     

Editorial: Culture matters

In this paper, I examine the notion of privilege as it relates to whiteness. The argument that racial privilege is actively constructed in the micro-geographies of everyday life is based on a case study conducted in Buffalo, New York. In this study, I analyze the narrated experiences of white elderly, primarily female, residents of a changing urban neighborhood. To capture the interrelationships between racial privilege and place, I used multi-methods research which included surveys, mental maps, travel diaries, interviews, and participation observation. The stories told are detailed accounts of the ways in which these white elderly residents cope with a slipping away of their white privilege through learning new boundaries of privilege, devising strategies for coping with their changed neighborhood, and reclaiming, in part, their previously held privileges. I propose that whiteness and its attendant privilege is not just about who you are, but where you are.     

Wilderness and tolerance in Flora MacDonald Denison: towards a biopolitics of whiteness

Building on recent argumentation concerning the relationship between wilderness and multiculturalism and whiteness in Canada, this essay argues that the relationship between wilderness and tolerance, one of multiculturalism's operative terms, offers a potentially rich vein for researching and theorizing liberal biopolitics and whiteness in Canada. To formulate this argument the essay historicizes the pairing of tolerance and wilderness in Edwardian Canada through the figure of Flora MacDonald Denison, an important early twentieth-century Canadian feminist and labour activist, a wilderness enthusiast, Theosophist/spiritualist and Walt Whitman devotee.     

Cutting Power Lines within the Palace? Countering Paternity and Eurocentrism in the 'Geographical Tradition'

This paper attempts to combine critical feminist and post-colonial approaches to suggest how more inclusive histories of geography may be written. Drawing on the specific example of women travellers in West Africa during the late nineteenth century, the paper proposes strategies to disrupt the masculinist and eurocentric construction of 'the geographical tradition'. These strategies include moving beyond a disciplinary focus, disrupting essentialisms, interrogating whiteness and authority, and attempting to reveal the historical agency and resistance of colonized others. The problematic and antagonist relationship between the recovery of the agency of white women and the recovery of non-Western agency and resistance is recognized, and it is suggested that countering eurocentrism requires a rethinking of current forms of countering paternity.     

“Whiteness” and natural resource management: let's talk about race baby,let's talk about sovereignty!

Issues of race and sovereignty are embedded in every cross‐cultural collaboration in natural resource management (NRM). This article aims to bring these issues to the forefront by incorporating the term whiteness. Whiteness enables a critique of the privileging of Western sovereignty and the so‐called objective and universal value of Western science. By reversing the gaze away from the colonised Other and onto systems descended from colonial authority and its inheritors, whiteness identifies how race privilege works. A critical whiteness lens provides an analytical and practical tool for decolonising NRM. We provide a case study of the South Australian Department of Environment and Water to consider how NRM professionals reproduce and deconstruct whiteness in nuanced ways, where (a) participants are defeated by Western sovereignty when whiteness is seen as normal or as the only way; (b) the privilege of Western sovereignty begins to be unsettled; and (c) the gaze is reversed. Thus,Western sovereignty is problematized, and solutions to persistent problems are found in collaboration. We argue that reversing the gaze is a process that opens spaces to co‐develop context specific solutions with Indigenous nations that decolonise cross‐cultural engagement in NRM and respect Indigenous sovereignty.     

Kinned to be Norwegian: transnational adoptees' positioning in relation to whiteness and the negotiation of nationhood

Embedded in ongoing discussions on everyday nationhood in the context of migration‐related diversity, this article explores how Norwegian transnational adoptees, as border subjects, negotiate their national belonging and identities by positioning themselves in relation to whiteness. By doing so, it further explores the relationship between race and nation. The analysis demonstrates that transnational adoptees position themselves as white when encountering the norm of whiteness, which the author argues in favour of understanding as continued process of doing race. While phenotypic differences trigger a process of racialisation through which transnational adoptees can easily be placed in a minoritised position, adoption provides them with unique access to whiteness, mostly along the negotiable and intertwined dimensions of kinship and the notion of ‘origin’, referred to as the place where they grew up. The article argues that individuals' positioning along majoritisation/minoritisation processes is another important dimension to understand one's multiple and fluid national identity and belonging in migration‐related diversity. The analysis also furthers the discussions on hierarchy of belonging by highlighting the relevance of kinship in intersection with race.     

Race,religion and British multiculturalism: The political responses of Black and Minority Ethnic voluntary organisations to multicultural cohesion

This paper explores the contradictory politics of race, religion and multiculturalism in contemporary Britain. It is argued that a pan-European political consensus has emerged concerning the ‘end of multiculturalism’ where a liberal ethos is being supplanted by an authoritarian stance focused on securitization, risk and terror. Based on a qualitative investigation of thirty Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) and faith-based voluntary organisations in the Tyne and Wear conurbation of North East England, the paper divulges their grounded opinions on race, religion and multiculturalism. Groups disclose a high level of civic responsibility and commitment to community participation with an emphasis on integration rather than segregation. Discussions of race, religion and multiculturalism reveal many BME organisations are removed from the politics of decision-making and transfixed by the structures of whiteness that bind them, and to which they must respond. The paper concludes by considering the workings of whiteness in an attempt to displace the burden of cohesion that has come to settle upon BME and faith-based organisations in political debates on race, religion and multiculturalism in the present.     

Whitewash: white privilege and racialized landscapes at the University of Georgia

This paper examines racialized landscapes at the University of Georgia to better understand the ways that whiteness—or more specifically white privilege—is positioned in and uses landscapes. Given a history of segregation, violently contested desegregation, and a contemporary student body that is disproportionately white (compared to the population of the entire state of Georgia), we investigate the meanings and contradictions of the University's historic ‘North Campus’. Using a multi-method qualitative approach—including open-ended interviews and ‘roving focus groups’—we argue that privileged, white landscapes operate through a kind of whitewashing of history, which seeks to deploy race strategically to create a progressive landscape narrative pertaining to ‘race’.     

Gender,Sexuality and the Formation of Racial Identities in the Eighteenth‐Century Anglo‐Caribbean World

In recent years, scholars have directed considerable attention to the influence of gender relations and sexual practices on developing racial formations in early British America, the colonial Caribbean and the wider British empire. Understanding that unauthorised intimacies in the imperial world threatened notions of Britishness at home has greatly enhanced our knowledge of the complexity and instability of the process of collective identity formation. Building on pioneering research in early American and British imperial history, this article charts the connection between gendered concepts of ‘whiteness’ in Anglo‐Caribbean contexts and in metropolitan discourses surrounding British national identity, as articulated in eighteenth‐century colonial legislation and official correspondence, popular texts and personal narratives of everyday life. It explores the extent to which the socio‐sexual practices of British West Indian whites imperilled the emerging conflation between whiteness and Britishness.     

Creating a safe space for mindfulness: Non-white practitioner experiences in North America

This ethnographic article contributes to anthropology scholarship examining whiteness's privilege, power, and investment in baseline understandings of the modern world. It examines critiques of institutional whiteness in North American mindfulness institutions made by practitioners of colour (PoC) – an emic self-identifier of participants. Based on ethnographic research among PoC mindfulness practitioner groups conducted in the United States between 2016 and 2021, the article illustrates several strategies some PoC develop – including establishing institutional structures and ritual practice – to counter the whiteness of meditation instructions and meditation centres.     

Indigeneity and the refusal of whiteness

Drawing on international literature examining mismatch between racial appearance and racial identity, this paper analyses the subgroup of Indigenous Australians who have been identified, and self-identify, as ‘light-’, ‘fair-’, ‘pale-’ or ‘white-skinned’. We utilise the term ‘race discordance’ to describe the experience of regularly being attributed an identity that is different from how one personally identifies. In contrast to existing terms such as elective race, ethnic fraud and transracialism, race discordance does not seek to explain or judge the validity of identity claims that do not match perceived appearance. When unnoticed or unchallenged, ‘race discordance’ corresponds to ‘passing’. We propose the term ‘race refusal’ to describe instances when a person rejects the race they are ascribed to. In the case of white-skinned Indigenous Australians who are frequently assumed to identify as white, race refusal entails the refusal of whiteness. When light-skinned Indigenous people refuse whiteness, what are they refusing? In conversation with Audra Simpson’s notion of refusal of state recognition as an assertion of continued Indigenous sovereignty, we find that these particular micro-politics of race refusal demand rather than negate state recognition. We argue that identity refusal by pale-skinned Aboriginal people acts to disrupt histories of assimilation, white sociality and everyday racialisation while simultaneously reinforcing Australian recognition regimes.     

Invisible colour: Landscapes of whiteness and racial identity in international development

Racialized identity in relation to international development is a surprisingly unanalyzed theme within anthropology, even though extensively explored in connection with contemporary western multi-cultural societies and historical relations between different parts of the world. In the paper I explore race and whiteness in relation to international development, emphasizing the importance of analyzing how the historical construction of racial identity continues to inform actual lived relationships of people belonging to different geographical spaces. In order to capture the importance of development in visual and everyday lives of people in different parts of the world, I use the term "developscape", adapting Arjun Appadurai's (1996) idea of globalization consisting of different "scapes", furhtermore, as asking how this "developscape" is racialized.