Meaning(s) of “race”: The US as a comparative case.

ir/relevance of race seminar (Programme group Health, Care and the Body)

Lecture

The argument is often heard these days in Netherlands’ discussions of “race”that the term means, or is used to mean, “culture.” But against what position is this argument advanced? And on what evidence does it rest? I suspect that the unspoken counterpoint is a Netherlands’ perception of the usage-meaning of “race” in the US to denote skin color, perhaps connoting class hierarchies as well, reflecting the US history of slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement. But this misconstrues the usage of the term in US policy and administrative practices, as well as in some everyday, “ordinary language,” contexts. There, “race” is used to mean color, country, and culture. The US federal government named and defined its demographic categories for the first time in 1977, in the Office of Management and Budget Directive No. 15. Empirical research looking at those definitions, census categories since the 1790s, and contemporary police and other practices demonstrates this admixture of meanings. Moreover, documentary evidence from The Netherlands shows the same mixture. What, for instance, is being conveyed when a Netherlands medical clinic registration form, asking a question on “ethnic origin,” provides as possible answers “Caucasian,” “Negro,” and “Asian”? This talk presents the meanings of “race” in US public policy practices, drawing on prior and current research (Yanow 2003, Yanow and van der Haar 2013, Yanow, van der Haar, and Völke 2013). The abstract with references is also attached.

About the lecturer
Dvora Yanow (Visiting Professor in Wageningen University’s Communication, Philosophy, and Technology Section) is a policy/political and organizational ethnographer and interpretive methodologist whose research and teaching are shaped by an overall interest in the generation and communication of knowing and meaning in organizational and policy settings. Current research investigates theories of classification and category-making in public policies (in particular with respect to state-created categories for race-ethnic identity, and immigrant integration policies and citizen-making practices), research regulation policies (e.g., Institutional Review Boards, Ethics Review Committees), practice theories and lifelong learning, and science/technology museum spatial design and the idea of science. Her most recent book, Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes (Routledge 2012), with Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, is the first volume in their co-edited Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. Constructing American “race” and “ethnicity”: Category-making in public policy and administration (Armonk, NY:  M E Sharpe, 2003) was awarded the 2007 Herbert Simon Book Award given by the American Political Science Association (Public Administration Section) and the 2004 “Best Book” award given by the American Society for Public Administration (Section on Public Administration Research).

Published by  AISSR