The race relations problematic in American sociology: A case study and critique

Abstract

This article reports the results of an analysis of all racial and ethnic relations articles published in the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Social Problems, from January 1969 through December 1995. The analysis identifies by journal: 1) major methodological orientation(s); 2) how the concepts of "race," "ethnicity," and racial and ethnic relations are operationalized, which is useful for examining tendencies toward, or against, reification; 3) substantive content--that is, what a sociology of racial and ethnic relations is; and 4) primary context--that is, are racial and ethnic relations treated as a substantive subdiscipline in their own right, or are they merely a topic of interest for other subdisciplines such as social psychology? In brief, although some differences exist between the journals, all four journals publish disproportionately racial and ethnic relations research that: 1) is highly quantitative as opposed to theoretical, conceptual, or sociohistorical; 2) reifies U.S. Census definitions of race and ethnicity as opposed to critically evaluating such definitions; 3) social psychologizes racial and ethnic relations, or subsumes such relations under stratification processes; and 4) subsumes the racial and ethnic relations problematic under subdiscipline rubrics other than a sociology of racial and ethnic relations. The conclusion discusses the implications of these findings; for example, by virtue of what they publish, these journals construct a paradigmatic frame that gives precedence to, or legitimizes, some views and excludes, or de-legitimizes others.

Do Blind People See Race? Social, Legal, and Theoretical Considerations

“…This visual understanding of race among sighted respondents that focuses on phenotype and other seemingly obvious distinctions mirrors the self-evident nature by which race is discussed in sociological and legal literature (Gómez 2004;Martin & Yeung 2003;Niemonen 1997). Yet this visual understanding of race also influences how sighted people think blind people understand and experience race.…”

“…But there has not been research on how blind people understand and experience race, nor has there been researchF empirical or otherwiseFexamining the social practices that give rise to visual understandings of race. To be sure, while theoretical work in the social sciences has explored the social construction of raceFhow meaning attaches to bodiesFempirical research in the social sciences has largely treated race as a series of preexisting social categories (Martin & Yeung 2003;Niemonen 1997). (Notable exceptions to this trend include Ahmed et al 2007;Loveman & Muniz 2007;Penner & Saperstein 2008;and Telles 2002.…”

Editorial Life at a Small Regional Journal: Simultaneously at the Margins and in the Thick of Things

“…First, to what extent is it the objective quality of papers that determines their fate as opposed to the positioning of reviewers in relation to the papers they review? This issue, as we all now, is at least partially about disciplinary disputes, gate keeping efforts, fragile academic egos, and any number of such things that are only tangentially related to the quality of the papers in question (Cook and Fonow 1984;Elliott and O'Brien 2012;Hirschauer 2010;Niemonen 1997). More or less questionable concerns like these obviously do impact peer evaluations of scholarly outputs, but here I am more interested in the proliferation of judgements that are more closely linked to the papers under review.…”

Herder's Heritage and the Boundary-Making Approach: Studying Ethnicity in Immigrant Societies

“…3). Finally, the boundary perspective draws our attention to processes of group making and everyday boundary work (the processualist principle ), and puts less emphasis on the geometry of group relations , as, for example, in the U.S. and British “race relations” approach (Niemonen 1997).…”