Racial Formations - Critical Transformations : Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United States

By Epifanio San Juan Jr.

Book Overview

This is an interdisciplinary work whose main project is to theorize the centrality of race and racism in US discourse and practice. It is addressed to academics and policy-makers and touches upon problems in education, political strategy, ethics and rhetoric involving ethnic and race relations.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0391038583
• ISBN13: 9780391038585
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers, Incorporated
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 6.3" x 0.5"

Customer Reviews

Race and Racism in the US

E. San Juan's Racial Formations/Critical Transformations is to theorize the importance of race and racism in U.S. discourse as well as practice. San Juan's method was to use a wide range of theoretical frameworks such as critical theory, semiotics, and historical analysis. In this volume, San Juan does two (among many) interesting things, he comments on Takaki's notion of pluralism and he takes a shot at Omi and Winant's denial of internal colonialism . San Juan sees Takaki was wedded to, "the logic of liberal possessive individualism" and "the seductive lure of consumerism" (San Juan, Racial Formations 104). San Juan counters that, "Inequality engenders forms of resistance to the power of the dominant social bloc and its ideology of plural identities" (San Juan, Racial Formations 115). Moreover, according to San Juan, Omi and Winant do not fully understand the range contained in hegemony and that the, "strategy for maintaining capitalist hegemony necessarily entails its contradiction: the counter hegemonic resistance of the ruled" (San Juan, Racial Formations 52). Finally, Racial Formations/Critical Transformations touches on the recurrent themes vis-à-vis education, political strategy, ethics, as well as the rhetoric concerning ethnic studies and race relations. One of San Juan's major contributions was his critical examination of orthodox Marxism. San Juan tries shift us from reductionism, thinking that racism can be reduced to merely a function of class. Although he further argues that class, race, and gender are inextricably linked, Marxist reduction and focus on class, as a sole driving element, is incomplete. San Juan does argue that there should be an understanding of how race works with power, ethnicity, nation, gender, and class across approaches of intellectual production and social formations. Further, San Juan's articulation suggests the histories of people of color and going beyond identity politics are the grounding needed for a new field of cultural study connecting research into American racialization with counter-hegemonic movements throughout the world.