A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep and Malleable Whiteness
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783220
research-article2018
SREXXX10.1177/2332649218783220Sociology of Race and EthnicityChristian
Moving Sociology of Race and Ethnicity Forward
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
A Global Critical Race and
2019, Vol. 5(2) 169–185
© American Sociological Association 2018
DOI: 10.1177/2332649218783220
https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649218783220
Racism Framework: Racial sre.sagepub.com
Entanglements and Deep and
Malleable Whiteness
Michelle Christian1
Abstract
Twenty years after Bonilla-Silva developed the analytic components of a structural race perspective and
called for “comparative work on racialization in various societies,” U.S.-centric race theory continues
to be mostly rooted in a U.S. focus. What is missing is a framework that explores race and racism as
a modern global project that takes shape differently in diverse structural and ideological forms across
all geographies but is based in global white supremacy. Drawing from Bonilla-Silva’s national racialized
social systems approach, global South scholars, and critical race scholars in the world-systems tradition,
the author advances a global critical race and racism framework that highlights two main areas: (1) core
components that include the “state,” “economy,” “institutions,” and “discourses” and “representations,”
as divided by “racist structure” and “racist ideology” and shaped by the “history” of and current forms
of transnational racialization and contemporary “global” linkages, and (2) the production of deep and
malleable global whiteness. With this framework, both the permanence and flexibility of racism across
the globe can be seen, in all its overt, invisible, and insidious forms, that ultimately sustains global white
supremacy in the twenty-first century.
Keywords
global white supremacy, global whiteness, global blackness, racial structure, global critical race and racism
More than two decades ago Eduardo Bonilla-Silva United States “have specific mechanisms, practices
(1997) developed a groundbreaking approach to and social relations that produce and reproduce
the study of race. Pushing back against what he racial inequality” (p. 476) formed through racial
labeled the “idealist view” that centered on an ideo- structure.
logical and prejudice-focused approach to race, he Twenty years later, sociologists embedded in a
called for “a rigorous conceptual framework that U.S.-centric frame have yet to fully incorporate a
allows analysis to study the operation of racially global view on contemporary racisms. Much global
stratified societies” (p. 467) through a structural race scholarship in the United States situates an
perspective. He further elaborated his framework ethnicity/nation paradigm (Brubaker 2009) or criti-
of a “structural theory of racism” through national cal race and racism scholarship bound to distinct
“racialized social systems” in White Supremacy &
Racism in the Post–Civil Rights Era (Bonilla-Silva
1
2001). Jung (2015) called Bonilla-Silva’s structural University of Tennessee–Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, USA
theory of racism one of the most “compelling and Corresponding Author:
influential” (p. 22) perspectives on racism. At the Michelle Christian, University of Tennessee–Knoxville,
end of Bonilla-Silva’s 1997 article, he called on 901 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0490, USA
scholars to explore whether societies outside the Email: mchris20@utk.edu170 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 5(2)
geographies (Fredrickson 2000; Twine 1998). In shaping all geographies and national racialized
particular, there is much that Western-centric racial social systems but in different, nuanced, and indi-
theorists can learn from global South scholars rect forms. I argue that we see white supremacy
(Bhambra 2013; Mama 1995; Nandy 1983; Patil today through practices emblematic of deep and
and Purkayastha forthcoming; Quijano 2000) and malleable whiteness. Deep and malleable white-
scholars who embrace race and racism within the ness is produced through the extension of white
world-systems perspective (Bashi Treitler and economic, political, and cultural power and the
Boatcă 2016; Grosfoguel 2013, 2016). My efforts attempt of countries and groups to negotiate their
here aim to support a framework of global racism racial structural and discursive positions by deploy-
and white supremacy by applying Bonilla-Silva’s ing forms of racial capital as an avenue to whiten
racialized social systems perspective to world- (Arat-Koç 2010). Thus, we need to expand whiten-
systems arguments surrounding an unequal global ing analyses to a global panorama (Bonilla-Silva
political economic field. Furthermore, I argue from 2015).
a global South perspective that we must see “the In the remainder of this article, I address the
global” through the lens of “colonialism and slav- limitations and strengths of current scholarship on
ery” (Banerjee-Dube 2014:513). This ontological race in a global perspective by exploring the eth-
frame reveals “the racialized hierarchies that inhere nicity/nation and critical race and racism para-
in current institutions of the global” and the racial- digms. Next, I elaborate with country and regional
ized hierarchies that are spread throughout geogra- examples the components of the GCRR frame-
phies (Banerjee-Dube 2014:513). work. Last, I explore in greater detail the processes
Therefore, I propose a global critical race and of deep and malleable global whiteness that has
racism (GCRR) framework that “retools,” as Jung sustained global white supremacy.
(2015) did, Bonilla-Silva’s national racialized
social systems approach by adding global and his-
torical dimensions and structuring the framework Current Scholarship of
around what Golash-Boza (2016) visualized as Race in Global Perspective
“racist structure” and “racist ideology.” Adding the
global and historical dimensions is crucial because Ethnicity and Nation Paradigm
it foregrounds “the colonial” and identifies how Much global sociological and anthropological
racialization emerged amidst a global racial struc- research on race harnesses an ethnicity and nation
tural hierarchy between and within nations embed- paradigm in which emphasis is given to identity-
ded in global white supremacy (Pierre 2012). shaping ethnic processes and nation-building forms
Global white supremacy has shifted since what (Brubaker 2006). There is notably an abundance of
Winant (2008) labeled the “break” from overt sys- anthropological global field research on ethnicity
tems of racism. Yet countries and groups continue but less on race (Wade 2015). According to
to be transnationally racialized (Kim 2008) and Mullings (2005:670), anthropology became “race
must contend with the “transnational assemblage” avoidant” after the discipline’s connection to scien-
(Patil and Purkayastha forthcoming:16) of racist tific racism and the push to remove race as an ana-
logics and projects that interact and intersect in lytic category in a post-Boasian liberal context. In
local spaces. Countries and groups subsequently sociology, much of the emphasis has similarly been
negotiate and position themselves within a global with microethnic forms and how ethnicity is built
relational racial field by producing internal struc- in state formation. Race, ethnicity, and nation are
tural and ideological racial practices that create treated as separate categories, but commonly eth-
specific racial orders. As Mullings (2005) argued, nic-nation preferences rise as de facto organizing
“racial systems are simultaneously national and principles shaping the tenor of analysis. Leading
international projects” (p. 672). this focus are Brubaker (2009) and Loveman
The GCRR framework I outline in this article (1999; Brubaker, Loveman, and Stamatov 2004),
advocates for a multilevel and relational under- who argue for an emerging field of scholarship that
standing of how white supremacy has transformed treats race, ethnicity, and nationalism as belonging
and shifted in the twenty-first century across the to a “single integrated family of forms” (Brubaker
globe (Mills 1997), rather than assuming that white 2009:25). This conceptualization puts focus on
supremacy has dissipated and/or is not relevant for individual country examples and comparisons
some geographies (Suzuki 2017). The GCRR rather than any “single high-order theoretical
framework posits global white supremacy as framework” (Brubaker 2009:25). According toChristian 171
Brubaker (2009), scholars following in this tradi- presupposes that all countries are incorporated into
tion treat race and ethnicity, not as a “hard and fast” the modern world-system of racism in which
distinction but rather as phenomena that “overlap “diverse racial markers,” meanings, and contexts
and blur” (p. 25). Studies highlight a Weberian and evolve and adapt in local spaces from a global
cognitive boundary-making bottom-up phenomena racial structural order of global white supremacy
of groupness and categorical emergence (Brubaker (Grosfoguel 2011, 2016), producing “discreet rac-
et al. 2004:48) as opposed to structured inequali- ism in particular places at particular times”
ties. An emphasis on variation and comparison is (Fenelon 2016:241).
similarly espoused by Suzuki (2017), who recently For world-systems scholarship (Wallerstein
called for a “comparative sociology of race and 1991) and variants in the pan-Africanist, neo-Marx-
ethnicity.” Suzuki argued that we must “resist the ist tradition (Du Bois 1920; Reddock 2014), the role
temptation to develop a single comprehensive of racism in the production of global capitalism and
account of race and racism” (p. 289) and that the modern nation states is privileged. The unit of anal-
complexity of race and ethnicity across geogra- ysis is the “world as a whole” that contemporarily
phies demands a nuanced account. exhibits a “relatively stable global racial hierarchy”
(Bashi Treitler and Boatcă 2016:163; Jalata 2008)
but is also full of what Grosfoguel (2011, 2013)
Critical Race and Racism Paradigm labeled “heterarchies.” Heterarchies are the com-
In contrast, interdisciplinary scholars in the critical plex, entangled, overlapping processes of domina-
race and racism paradigm challenge scholars that tion across multiscale structures with a “single
conflate race and ethnicity (Wade 1997; Weiner historical reality” (Grosfoguel 2011). But for
2012); focus on the facilitation of racial orders Grosfoguel (2011), who built upon Quijano’s
through structural and discursive forms (Fenelon (2000) “coloniality of power” perspective, “the idea
2016; Goldberg 2009; Wade 2015); and, notably of race and racism becomes the organizing principle
those in the world-systems tradition, locate racism that structures all of the multiple hierarchies of the
as a world-systemic phenomenon shaping and link- world-system” (Grosfoguel 2011:10). As global
ing geographies across the global through a prism capitalism expanded the color line, producing racial
of white supremacy (Du Bois 1920; Grosfoguel capitalism, bodies assumed different labor stratifi-
2016; Marable 2008; Pierre 2012; Winant 2008). cation placements, and the “Negro,” as Robinson
Although the ethnicity school highlights group (1983) argued, was invented, but so was “white,”
dynamics, critical race and racism scholars high- “yellow,” “red,” and “brown” (Fanon 1963).
light how mechanisms of racism play out through Furthermore, the advent and adoption of scientific
institutional power and domination. There are three racism across the globe—the belief in the biologi-
key assumptions that appear to unite such authors cal, essentialized hierarchical placement of races
even as differences arise in terms of unit of analy- along a continuum of whiteness to blackness—sup-
sis, geography, and terms developed. ported the racial political economic order of the
First, race emerged specifically with modernity world-system (Dikötter 2008; Da Silva 2007).
(Goldberg 1993; Marable 2008). Hesse (2007) Through the coloniality of power, the European
argued that modernity is inherently a “racialized knowledge production of “race” sought to erase
modernity” (p. 643) that solidified the discursive indigenous knowledge and worldviews in facilita-
and material distinctions between “Europeanness tion of European domination (Quijano 2000).
and non-Europeanness” (p. 646). All of moderni- The third assumption is that racism is always
ty’s “governing technologies”—Western imperial “transforming” (Goldberg 2009) and “on the move”
expansion, transnational capitalist political econ- (Wade 2015), embedded in historical moments,
omy, chattel slavery, state formation building, geographies, and other markers of difference while
knowledge production, categorization, citizenship, still being entrenched in a continuum of white dom-
and human value—are hierarchically racialized. inance and racial subordination (Weiner 2012).
The second assumption is that the advent of race Much contemporary critical global race studies are
alongside modernity shaped all geographies across occupied with mapping and documenting contem-
the globe, including those geographies that were porary racisms in specific geographies while link-
not colonized or colonized by Europeans (Mullings ing racialization to racism’s “singular history”
2005; Wade 2015). Taking seriously the claim (Balibar 1991:41). Contemporarily, critical race
“there is no ‘outside’ to racial geographies . . . in a scholars document how in the post-Apartheid, post–
wholly racialized world” (Price 2010:153) Civil Rights, postcolonial, postempire historical172 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 5(2)
juncture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first (5) documenting how change occurs to racial
centuries, overt racism is no longer deemed legiti- orders through contestation (Bonilla-Silva 1997:
mate. Yet with a transforming racism stance, new 474). Crucial to the racial structure are the “spe-
ways of expressing and signifying race are found cific social arrangements and practices that pro-
alongside the historical materiality of racism. duce and reproduce a racial order” for the
Goldberg (1993, 2002, 2009) has led scholarship accumulation and reproduction of systemic advan-
documenting the variegated panorama of traveling tages for superdominant groups (Bonilla-Silva
and transforming racisms through an optic of “racial 2001:49). The racial structure can be seen as the
Americanization,” “racial Europeanization,” and totality of the racialized social relations. Yet
“racial Palestinianization.” Furthermore, we also Bonilla-Silva omitted two essential components (or
see transforming racism as individuals and groups levels) from his racialized social systems approach:
cross the globe and their racial positions shift; mar- historical formations and global linkages.
ginalized here, privileged there; white there, “oth- In Figure 1, I outline the components of a GCRR
ered” here (Purkayastha 2010). framework. Collectively, I draw inspiration from
Jung’s (2015) “retooling” of Bonilla-Silva’s struc-
tural view of race, world-system, and transforming
A GCRR Framework racism tenets (Bashi Treitler and Boatcă 2016;
The ethnicity-nation paradigm draws needed atten- Grosfoguel 2016) and the ontological view that we
tion to the importance of the “heterogeneity of must, according to Bhambra (2013), make the “colo-
experiences of race,” but combining race, ethnicity, nial global,” a notion that recenters racialized hierar-
and nationalism as a “single integrated domain” chies in the “making of the modern world”
downplays the systemic forces of racial domination (Banerjee-Dube 2014:513) and the critical race
and a wider global racial order (Brubaker 2009:25). knowledge of scholars from the global South
Unlike Suzuki’s (2017) claim that we must not (Bhambra 2013; Mama 1995; Patel 2014; Said
view the world through a global white supremacy 1978). Through a view of “colonialism which sur-
premise, I argue that it is necessary. Hence, I pro- vives the demise of Empires,” Nandy (1983) wrote,
pose a framework that combines the theoretical “The West is now everywhere, within the West and
assumptions of GCRR scholars and a global South outside; in structures and in minds” (p. xi). A GCRR
ontology, with Bonilla-Silva’s (1997, 2001) racial- framework assumes the following: the racial struc-
ized social systems approach. This expands ture is global and worldwide, national histories
Bonilla-Silva’s structural theory of race to a glob- shape contemporary racial practices and mecha-
ally interconnected, multilevel, global South per- nisms, materiality is the foundation, racism is
spective (Grosfoguel 2011; Jung 2015; Kim 2008; defined structurally and ideologically, and global
Patil 2014) while maintaining the distinctive com- white supremacy is produced and rearticulated in
ponents of a racialized social system approach new deeply rooted and malleable forms. The frame-
(Bonilla-Silva 1997, 2001). Bonilla-Silva’s origi- work does not presuppose that race and racism have
nal conceptualization is scaled up and GCRR remained static. Rather, with this framework, we can
scholarship is strengthened by documenting the identify how racism transforms depending on his-
definitive components to racialized social systems. torical, political, and geographic boundaries marked
Weiner’s (2012) “Towards a Critical Global Race by critical juncture events and path-dependent pro-
Theory” began to move in this direction but did not cesses spotlighting both the relational and intercon-
include an analysis of how countries navigate nective character between countries but still rooted
across hierarchical global racial fields. in the foundation of global white supremacy.
The original components of Bonilla-Silva’s First, the framework begins with the two addi-
racialized system are (1) identification of a society tional analytic parts, the global and historical foun-
becoming racialized; (2) identifying a “set of social dation. The global and historical components are
relations and practices based on distinctions at all the missing foundation of Bonilla-Silva’s racialized
societal levels,” notably economic, political, and social systems approach. Applying a global dimen-
social, following initial racialization; (3) exploring sion recenters the idea that the emergence and evo-
how racial groups emerge with meanings and lution of racisms is always a transnational project as
social relations formed in relation to one another positioned by world-systems (Grosfoguel 2011;
that produce oppositional rewards; (4) examining Jalata 2008; Wallerstein 1991) and coloniality-of-
how the structural foundation produces a racial ide- power frameworks (Quijano 2000) and what
ology that justifies and sustains the structure; and Reddock (2014) referred to as thinkers in theChristian 173
Figure 1. Global critical race and racism framework.
“radical Caribbean social thought” tradition. Jung global hierarchical architecture of Fanon’s (1967)
(2015:35) argued that racial structure is “not tied to “zone of being” and “zone of non-being,”
or limited to the nation-state” and that we must (Grosfoguel 2016:12). Globally, countries
explore the “denser webs of structures within and (Western) above the line are racialized as superior
across them,” local to global, to unravel any given (white) and those below as inferior (other), but
societal racial order. This also takes seriously the zones also take shape within center and periphery
assumption that we cannot look at racial dynamics spaces. The zone divisions have maintained yet
and inequities in any given society as emanating also shifted with the rise of global neoliberalism,
solely from the logics, beliefs, and structures of that the war on terror, and whitening practices. Patil and
society. This is particularly clear when we look at Purkayastha (forthcoming) argue for a “transna-
differences between dominant (core/center) and tional assemblage” approach to racialization
subordinate (semiperiphery/periphery) countries whereby multiple racial logics and understandings
within the world-system as they position them- of knowledge overlap, yet dominant Western racial
selves along a global racial hierarchy of nations on structures shape and sustain global and national
the basis of inequalities between power, wealth, racial inequities.
technology, and knowledge production (Bashi Second, Bonilla-Silva’s broad national racial
Treitler and Boatcă 2016; Joseph 2000). social systems levels (political, economic, and
Countries contemporarily represent and negoti- social) are categorized by “state,” “economy,” and
ate different racial fields depending on a process “institutions” and by “discourses” and “representa-
that Kim (2008) labeled “transnational racializa- tions” that form through what Golash-Boza (2016)
tion.” Any given country’s or group’s understand- labeled “racist structure” and “racist ideology”
ing of race, and its manifestation in racialized (p. 131). Once race became embedded in social sys-
social systems, is fashioned via its global and his- tems, different “mechanisms” (Hughey, Embrick,
torical story. Hence, transnational racialization and Doane 2015:1350) produced both “deep” and
occurs at the junction between its historical emer- “vulnerable” structures (Jung 2015:27), creating a
gence within the world-system and how it took particular racial order. Jung (2015) looked to
hold, formed, and changed in distinct geographies: Sewell’s (1992) theory of structure to strengthen
the intersection and interaction between a global Bonilla-Silva’s conceptualization to disentangle
racial order and its national contours (Iwata and different structures and understand their varying
Nemoto 2018; Mullings 2005). This is why linking degrees of “depth and power” (Jung 2015:27). If
it to a country’s given historical context is crucial. structures are “constituted by mutually sustaining
The multiple layers of racialization follow the cultural schemas and sets of resources that174 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 5(2)
empower and constrain social action” that tend to Patil and Purkayastha forthcoming). Third, by
reproduce themselves, then we can identify sche- assuming white supremacy of the world-system to
mas and resources that are more “durable” or “vul- be at the base of all racial orders, we never concep-
nerable” to structural “transformations” (Jung tually separate race and racism from its historical
2015:25; Sewell 1992). Schemas and resources inception (Mama 1995). Rather, the task at hand is
emerge, shift, and sustain through practices or to document how racial hierarchies and racisms
mechanisms shaping social systems entrenched and shift and expand while sustaining the categorical
linked in historical, geographic, and scale varia- hierarchy between whiteness and blackness
tions. In addition, in agreement with Jung and (Marable 2008). Ultimately, the GCRR framework
Golash-Boza, racism should not be restricted to an is meant as a “blueprint” to guide scholarship on
ideological core but rather that racism represents how to uncover the multiple mechanisms of
“structures of inequality and domination” that are national racial orders that are nested in the modern
articulated and witnessed at different levels and racist world-system.
depths with varying ideological justifications that
produce a racial order (Jung 2015:31). Ideological
“discourses” and “representations” emerge from History
the intersection of global, national, and local inter- To understand contemporary racism in national
pretive codes on racial distinction (Dikötter 2008). social systems, I argue that we must understand
Indeed, because racial categories do not exist with- how racialization historically occurred in the world-
out the domination of racism, race and racism must system through Western colonialism, enslavement,
be conceptualized together (Fields and Fields state building, racial violence and genocide, and
2012). racial knowledge projects (Bhambra 2013; Jalata
Last, global white supremacy in the world- 2008; Mama 1995; Reddock 2014). This orients
system, its power and symbolism, continues to be the framework with the base of “coloniality” and
at the foundation to racist structure and ideology. In its direct and indirect effects throughout the globe
the last section, I explain more thoroughly how (Bhambra 2013; Nandy 1983; Patel 2014; Quijano
whiteness has always stood and continues to stand 2000). It is impossible to understand the continued
at the top of a global hierarchical order, but what is underdevelopment of Africa and much of the
pivotal to disentangling twenty-first century global global South today, the dominance of whiteness in
whiteness is uncovering how it has continued to non-Western societies, and the vast array of strate-
materially and symbolically represent a hierarchi- gies for how countries and people negotiate their
cal position while providing space for new forms of racial status without historically analyzing the
white signification via the deployment and creation making of the modern world through European
of different forms of white capital (Pierre 2012). colonialism and how it shaped and influenced non-
The key assumption, as Garner (2014:409) argued, European colonial powers, such as Japan, and non-
is that “whiteness cannot be reduced” to bodies colonial territories alike. The postindependence
alone. landscape was a testament to a colonial system
Thus, the main contributions the GCRR frame- whereby Europe was “was built up with the sweat
work makes are threefold. First, all racialized and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians,
groups and countries come into existence through a and the yellow races” (Fanon 1963:97). This is the
global relational racial field that is hierarchically foundation of a global racialized order, yet this
based (Bhambra 2013; Mama 1995; Nandy 1983; racialization was broad in how it interacted with
Said 1978). We know something about racial cate- local social arrangements constituting new racial
gories and hierarchies across the globe only understandings and meanings.
because the meanings and hierarchies are co-con- The colonial mode of organization: trading
stitutive, mutually shaping each category’s exis- company, classic colonialism, white settler society,
tence. Racial meanings justify the global and protectorate and direct and indirect rule, or military
national inequitable distribution of resources and control conceived and configured race in distinct
whose knowledge is valued (Grosfoguel 2011; manners but ultimately shored up global white
Patel 2014). Second, the specific mechanisms racial rule and racial repression (Goldberg 2009:12;
found in social systems are embedded in multilevel, Mamdani 1996). Racial management and control
overlapping layers of structures, from global to were different, however, depending upon the dis-
local, that must be disentangled to grasp the com- tinctive needs, aims, and geopolitical context of the
plexity and evolution of racial orders (Patil 2014; colonial power (Glenn 2015). States reliant on aChristian 175
white settler colonial model (the United States, the logic of global white supremacy (Weiner 1997).
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, These original racialization mechanisms—creating
Zimbabwe, Kenya) aimed to expropriate and racial categories, structuring race relations via laws,
acquire land and in the process implemented the labor and spatial territory demands, the transporta-
“near extinction of indigenous populations” tion of bodies across borders, and building early ide-
(Razack 2002:1) and/or created “tribal” designa- ologies and justifications of racial rationale and
tions and legal-political racial categories (Mama violence—are the foundation of racial social sys-
1995; Mamdani 1996; Kennedy 1987). Mama tems. Disentangling this history is necessary to
(2001) noted that the “tribal paradigm . . . treated uncover its connection to the contemporary mecha-
dynamic and changing African societies as if they nisms in the components of the racialized social sys-
were static, ahistorical, atomized units” (p. 67). tems across geographies.
State powers in classic colonial arrangements
exploited natural resources and created monopolis-
tic and exploitative trading relations (e.g., India, Global
Caribbean, Indonesia, Vietnam). Labor needs The global element captures the world-systems
shifted across geographies, and empire connections position that all countries are contemporarily situ-
determined how race would be constituted to jus- ated in an uneven global field of former empires,
tify forms of rule and land and body exploitation. colonies, or dominant and subordinate state actors.
Racially constituted labor produced unique empire- Current racial mechanisms within the global com-
created racial diasporas. Inferior and superior racial ponent evolved from the aforementioned historical
logics emerged at distinct historical moments often foundation but are now in the current historical
revealing periods of intermediary or fluid racial moment following what Winant (2008) labeled the
classification and meaning only to consolidate “break” from old colonial, overtly racist racial
around entrenched biologically essentialized orders. This prevailing context is defined by three
notions of race in the nineteenth century. global social forces that shape countries’ racial
Early Latin America zones governed by the practices: the worldwide process of racialized neo-
Spanish colonial legislation of sociedad or regime de liberal economic restructuring, the global circula-
castas exhibited some fluidity of racial movement, tion and transmission of racial logics, and militarism
with various categories—peninsulares, criollos, via the war on terror. First, since the fall of colonial-
mestizos, castizos, mulatos, and moreños—signify- ism and import substitution, the Soviet Union, and
ing different meanings. However, these classifica- with China opening its economic doors, the global
tions were firmly rooted in a glorification of economic order can be described through a lens of
whiteness, with its mixed and varying meanings, and neoliberal economic restructuring. With neoliberal-
individuals’ attempts to demonstrate limpieza de san- ism, countries were forced by global North institu-
gre (pure blood) (Kinsbruner 1996). In India, there tions (the World Trade Organization, the World
were shifting views on caste and religion from the Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) to open
East India Company period (1765–1858) to the their economies to foreign direct investment, pro-
British Raj (1859–1947), only to take on a fully duce products for export production, limit the role
racialized conception during the Raj period of the state, and take on externally controlled debt
(Banerjee-Dube 2014; Dirks 2001). In many white management regimes (Wilson 2012). Harrison
settler societies and traditional colonial structures, (2008) argued that the “ideological underpinnings”
local ethnic groups, groups imported for labor (e.g., of global neoliberal policies rests upon “racist pre-
South Asians, Chinese, Malays), became racialized suppositions” of cultural backwardness, resource
but were constructed differently across regions, with wastefulness and “otherness that continues to rein-
varying intermediary categories emerging (Go 2008). force the hierarchical relationships among racial
To fight against the fear of “black peril,” “yellow groups and geographies” (p. 26).
peril,” and “rebellion,” whiteness was also consoli- Second, all countries, and groups within, are
dated between different white ethnic groups incorporated into the global economic system in
(Kennedy 1987; Jayasuriya, Walker, and Gothard forms that are marked by their historic global
2003). Japan began its own colonial endeavors to racialization that intersect and interact with national
negotiate its unequal position vis-à-vis the West and forms (Iwata and Nemoto 2018). Countries and
subsequently racialized its own indigenous popula- internal racial actors understand their own racial
tions and Korean, Taiwanese, and colonial subjects in positions and racial logics vis-à-vis what Kim
an attempt to confront and negotiate but still follow (2008) labeled their “transnational racialization”176 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 5(2)
(p. 12). Transnational racialization is the “top down states, and multicultural states. Goldberg (2002),
ideological processes” that interacts with national Bashi Treitler (2016), and Bracey (2015) docu-
and local racial projects dictating how countries, mented how to conceptualize the varied mechanisms
groups, and individuals react to global racial pre- of racial states. For Goldberg (2002), racial states
sumptions and practices, often reproducing hege- define racial groups through laws, censuses, bureau-
monic understandings of whiteness, blackness, and cracy, immigration, and citizenships; regulate all
categories in between (Kim 2008:13). The notion relations between white and nonwhite constructions;
of a “racialized transnational assemblage” (Patil govern groups with racial terms; manage racial
and Purkayastha forthcoming) also highlights how placement economically; and last, mediate race rela-
“Global North dominant production” of racial log- tions (quoted in Jung and Kwon 2013:933). The two
ics and assumptions sustain racial power structures distinct components of “racial paradigms” that states
across the globe and within regions and countries exhibit for Bashi Treitler are a “racial architecture” of
(pp. 1, 3). Nations negotiate transnational racializa- categories and hierarchies, and a “racial politicul-
tion and assemblage in relation to proximate ture,” an interpretive code to understand categoriza-
regional and internal geographic comparisons and tion (p. 215). Notably, Bracey introduced the idea of
produce internal practices that are all connected to the U.S. state as a “white institutional space” that has
global power structures. For example, Costa Rica a permanent white supremacist orientation (p. 55).
historically was globally racialized as “white” and Drawing from these propositions, it is necessary to
now symbolically positions its perceived excep- document how states are direct and indirect white
tionalism via whiteness by distancing from its per- institutional spaces that define, regulate, manage,
ceivably phenotypically darker, more “dangerous” situate, organize, mediate, and produce mechanisms
Central American neighbors (Sandoval-García about race and racism in both perceivably white,
2004) to curry economic development and interna- multicultural, and nonwhite geographies alike. With
tional favor. Canada draws on a self-narrative as a the GCRR framework, all modern states are shaped
“vast northern wilderness” full of “decent people,” by white logics, praxis, and interests through the his-
to mark distinctions from the racism of its southern torical and global forces documented above and its
neighbor, the United States, thereby symbolically interaction in distinct state-making forms. Crucial to
erasing Canada’s own racist history of indigenous identifying racial mechanisms in postcolonial states
removal and the consolidation of whiteness is through how “coloniality” is institutionalized and
(Razack 2002:26). rendered durable postindependence producing both
Last, militarism with the war on terror reinforms internal racial conflict and a reflection of the continu-
a new Orientalist (Said 1978) racialized transna- ation of historical racial global inequalities (Bashi
tional assemblage of Islam that also informs reli- Treitler and Boatcă 2016; Mamdani 1996; Nandy
gious-political fault lines around Hinduism (Patel 1983; Quijano 2000).
2014), Judaism, and Islam. The United States’ and In addition, states construct and shift national
Europe’s distribution of military aid, the invasions racial identity and nationalist sentiment in a man-
of Afghanistan and Iraq, the rise of the Islamic ner that highlights and explains racial homogeniza-
State, and the global fear of terrorist attacks in the tion or diversity in the context of justifying and
West and global South propagate racist Islamophobia pursuing different forms of national political racial
in addition to postcolonial conflicts (Mama 2001; projects in specific historical moments. These proj-
Naber 2014). The transnational assemblage that jus- ects are a response to global hegemonic racial log-
tifies invasion and militarism reifies a discursive ics and practices and internal national demands.
white global order by distributing tenuous political For example, most nineteenth-century postcolonial
and economic rewards to gulf state Middle East Latin American states pursued blanqueamiento
Muslim allies and by strengthening Western reli- (whitening) policies of European immigration,
gious and cultural divides. racial geographic boundary making, and racial
marker signification (Wade 1997); or, depending
on demographics, glorified mestizaje (mixture) to
State, Economy, and Institutions mask racist exclusionary practice (Wade 1997;
Contemporary mechanisms in the state social system Wright 1990); or, last, accepted indigenismo
are a product of and reflect the evolving processes of (indigenousness) ideals while appropriating land
its racial history and contemporary global position. and executing violence against indigenous popula-
There are different types of contemporary racial tions (Richards 2013). These state practices
states: postempire states, postcolonial states, noncol- occurred against a global backdrop of scientific
onized states, homogenous states, ethnonational racism, eugenics, and European empireChristian 177
superpower. In contrast, African postcolonial state order, Hall (1980) argued that we must trace the
policies occurred a century later, when racism was historical junctures and movement of racism with
deemed unjust, but racial colonial unequal eco- capitalism in space and time. Part of racial capital-
nomic and political relations remained only to ism’s production is reducing workers to racial
heighten when neoliberalism took hold (Mama types that renders their civilization, culture, reli-
2001; Mamdani 1996). Using Ghana as prototypi- gion, and humanity obsolete (Robinson 1983:82).
cal example, Pierre (2012) elaborated how racial- Presently, the advent of neoliberalism has produced
ization informed African postcolonial state practice new material productions of racialized bodies as
by how “institutional white power and privilege workers are steered toward internal and external
were structured into the neocolonial relationship divisions of labor. Bank-Munoz’s (2008) study of
with Britain, the U.S. and the West in general” workers at Mexican-owned tortilla factories in the
(p. 39). Zimbabwe, in contrast, attempted to eradi- United States and Mexico documents how factories
cate the privileging of whiteness through citizen- produce racial and gender labor control emanating
ship and white land expropriation policies, but from state-supported racialized and gendered labor
these policies fundamentally did nothing to shift markets stratifying workers by racialized immigra-
the white global racial economic order and material tion status. Middle East gulf states use migrant
lives of Black Zimbabweans (Fisher 2010). Asian and African workers to handle much of their
In former white-settler colonies, and some pos- productive and reproductive labor, calling them the
tempire states, national policy often shifted from Arabic term abed, which represents a “black per-
historical homogenization to contemporary multi- son” and “a slave” (Jureidini 2005:49). Moreover,
culturalism in a way that concealed white advan- neoliberalism has also evolved to include a multi-
tage while accentuating cultural difference, cultural character (Christian 2015). “Neoliberal
equality, and fairness. Australia pursued a White multiculturalism” supports ethnic and cultural
Australia policy in 1901 with the Immigration rights while glossing over the wider intended white
Restriction Act, which excluded nonwhite immi- racial project of neoliberal market reform (Richards
gration, and myriad practices to “breed out 2013:9). In India, Dalits are protected in the consti-
Aboriginality” (Jayasuriya et al. 2003:6), only to tution, but their systemic exclusion from social
shift in the 1970s to a multicultural identity that capital and economic resources, and the overt hir-
still maintained much of the legacy of White ing practices around “suitability” and “soft skills,”
Australia through political and economic practices. has accentuated their marginalization (Jodhka
Imre (2005:82) argued that Eastern Europe 2016:236).
“adopted the racism and nationalism of the West” Last, institutional social systems proliferate
as a way to distance from European periphery sta- shaping myriad material lived experiences for
tus after the fall of the Soviet Union. As Japan con- racial groups, including but not limited to educa-
tinued to negotiate its global racial position after tion, criminal justice, the military, the media, and
World War II, the myth of homogenization took religion. Moore (2008) developed the concept of
form through heavy-handed immigration laws and “white institutional spaces” (p. 5). These institu-
regulations that deemed Japanese-Brazilian tions are made up of “deep normative structures
migrants culturally and racially inferior in contrast and institutional practices” that organize social
to the superiority of Western migrants (Iwata and relations and material outcomes along racial lines
Nemoto 2018:304). Israel, from its inception, (p. 5). Everyday practices embedded in institu-
sought to create a unified Jewish state and pursued tions, institutional and individual, produce the
policies to “get rid” of Palestinians or to “achieve accumulation of economic, political, and social
total subordination” through settlement building, rewards for whites while valorizing and normaliz-
land appropriation, physical expulsions, pacifica- ing whiteness. This begets an analysis, similar to
tion through militarism, and containment (Spangler the state, of how we can use the notion of white
2015:29). Israel’s state practices are linked to a dis- institutional space even without “white” institu-
cursive and material production of Israeli white- tions. With the GCRR framework, it is necessary to
ness (Goldberg 2009; Spangler 2015). analyze how white norms were globally histori-
The economic social system interacts with the cally institutionalized and contemporarily adapted
state through how states pursue economic develop- in ways that interact with national-local racial strat-
ment, tax, land, and, notably, labor policies, that ification forms in any given society. For example,
directly and indirectly shape how economies form. in India, Roy (2014:21) noted “how a crime is com-
As Robinson (1983) documented the continuous mitted against a Dalit by a non-Dalit every 16 min-
evolution of racial capitalism out of the feudal utes” with impunity. The court systems and178 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 5(2)
government officials are disproportionately Countries, and groups within countries, also nego-
Brahman. In 1901, British anthropologist and tiate dominant global racial meanings in their racial
colonial administrator Herbert Risely wrote The identity making because of “transnational racial-
People of India, creating a racial hierarchy of caste ization” (Kim 2008). Still, the contemporary global
around Aryanization Brahmanical understandings diffusion of a broad and wide “colorblind” ideol-
(Banerjee-Dube 2014; Dirks 2001). Thus, the ogy, that adapts and takes shape differently through
court, education, and other institutions in India are specific manifestations including “multicultural-
indirect white institutional spaces that emerged in ism,” “racial democracy,” “mestizaje,” “caste
postcolonial India, following partition, deeply blind,” and “ethnic nationalism,” all produce dif-
informed by and in negotiation with modern white ferent discursive and representational practices that
European norms and Hindu hegemony. downplay the significance of race and racism.
Colorblindness is seen in what Goldberg (2009)
referred to as “racial Europeanization,” whereby
Discourses and Representations Europe lives in a world of racial denial after World
Discourses and representations are the ideological War II, “wanting race to erase itself” from the
mechanisms that hold and maintain the racist struc- colonial project. Racial erasure across Europe is
ture. They collectively act as an organizing map to particularly seen in France, where French “univer-
explain and interpret racial social relations, what salism” lays out a “common culture” of Republic
Bashi Treitler (2016) calls the “racial politiculture” values for all French people to embrace (Keaton
(p. 215). Stuart Hall (1997) argued that “representa- 2006). Proponents of postempire “multicultural-
tion is an essential part of the process by which ism,” most notably seen in the United Kingdom, the
meaning is produced and exchanged . . . involving Netherlands, Sweden, and postcolonial states such
language, sings, and images” (p. 15). We possess a as Malaysia and Singapore, also produce a version
system by which people, events, spaces correlate of colorblindness while advocating for cultural plu-
with “a set of mental representations in our head” rality and diversity. Analyzing Europe, Lentin and
that allow us to organize, cluster, arrange, and clas- Titley (2011:15) highlighted how multiculturalism
sify meanings and the complex relationships between serves as a way to manage and control nonwhite
them through language (Hall 1997:17). Race has racial groups and sustain the white racial status quo
always relied on producing meanings about the of nonwhite exclusion with a veneer of cultural rec-
“spectacle of the Other” that generate common-sense ognition. In contrast, for Go (2008), postcolonial
and hegemonic rationales for racism, but which also multiculturalism is a product of colonial racializa-
engage “feelings, attitudes, and emotions” to mobi- tion and state formation in Malaysia but operates
lize fears and anxieties at a “deeper level than we can through inclusion that still does little to disrupt
explain in a simple, common-sense way” (Hall colonial racialization and new forms of othering.
1997:225–26; Patil and Purkayastha forthcoming). Multiculturalism in another name seen through the
Jung (2015:40) argued that most discursive ideologi- prism of Brazilian “racial democracy” (Twine
cal racist practices are “enactments of tacit schemas 1997) or Mexican mestizaje is “an attempt to
largely taken for granted” and “operative schemas” reframe modernity away from whiteness toward
that “bypass, override, or influence” conscious abil- hybridity” (Wade 1997:34) that denies racism while
ity to decode racism. making whiteness the ideal. Also, countries that
The worldwide diffusion and power of racial build their discourses and representations around
logics is found via understanding its “scavenger” constructions of homogeneity (Japan, Korea,
qualities (Wade 2015:22). Racism’s scavenger Nordic countries, Eastern Europe) also embody a
essence follows the process by which the global form of colorblindness because race is withdrawn
circulation of racial discourses and representations as a rational for buttressing ethnic homogeneity and
“are continuously absorbed into the political and pursuing racial exclusionary practices.
social vicissitudes of the local space” (Valluvan
2016:2247), what Dikötter (2008) called the “inter-
active model of interpretation” (p. 1482). Diverse Deep and Malleable Global
geographies have an understanding of what
Valluvan (2016:2247) described as “iconic racial Whiteness
meanings”—such as the “black criminal,” “unde- The GCRR framework places the world-system of
serving migrant,” or “rabid Muslim”—even if global white supremacy at the base of racist struc-
those populations do not exist within their borders. ture and racist ideology. To underscore how whiteChristian 179
supremacy has evolved and adapted in the twenty- second, that part of whiteness’s maintenance is
first century, we must analytically engage with the found in how countries and groups constructed as
notion of deep and malleable global whiteness. The “not white” have reproduced the system by buying
concept of deep and malleable global whiteness into whiteness; thus the “malleable” form. Because
recognizes the persistence of white domination whiteness since modernity discursively represents
globally, and in all national racial social systems, status, desirability, development, and global power,
even those that are ostensibly without white bodies these are characteristics that countries and groups
and white institutions. Therefore, we must examine can attempt to capture (Goldberg 2009; López
whiteness beyond bodies (Garner 2014). This 2005). Therefore, it is necessary to apply “whiten-
moves our understanding of whiteness and white ing” analyses, such as, blanqueamiento, honorary
supremacy maintenance in the contemporary whiteness, Abyssinianization, Christianization,
global sphere beyond corporeal bodies to what Judaization, and Sanskritization, to all varied geo-
critical whiteness studies argue is whiteness “as a graphic arrangements (Bonilla-Silva 2004; Bonilla-
process,” not “a thing” (Frankenberg 1997:1; Silva 2015; Christian 2015; Goldberg 2009; Jalata
Gallagher and Twine 2012). As a process, always 2008).
in motion, whiteness embodies a structural position First, despite decolonization, the end of
of historical global wealth accumulation and politi- Apartheid, and the advent of civil rights, global
cal economic power that reproduces itself through whiteness remains the uncontested marker of cul-
contemporary structural practice. Whiteness also tural, economic, political, social, and symbolic
embodies the discursive meanings to the character- capital, and power (Weiss 2006). Pierre (2012)
istics of whiteness, that is, as a form of symbolic argued that true deracialization of whiteness on top
value, morality, aesthetics, and advancement of the world-system never occurred. Whiteness
(Goldberg 2009; Hesse 2007; López 2005). We structured the foundation to all racialized social
must look at the “possessive investment” (Lipsitz systems—global capitalism, the state, legal tenets,
2011) of whiteness at the global level and how it spatial arrangements, wealth, tastes and prefer-
interacts with national and local structures (Pierre ences, family, even the terms and categories we
2012:74). Omi and Winant (2015) argued that use—and has remained in the postcolonial, neolib-
racial formations are always in process, with racial eral, war-on-terror moment, leaving intact the ves-
meanings shifting and expanding connected to spe- tiges of structured racial inequality while producing
cific racial projects in distinct historical junctions. new mechanisms for its replication as documented
The racial formation of global white supremacy above. Thus, white economic and political interests
through deep and malleable whiteness is occurring through global institutions, transnational linkages,
and found today because we are in a postcolonial, and the adoption of white cultural norms and val-
postracial, colorblind, caste-blind era in which ues are sustained (Boatcă 2017).
overt appeals to white superiority are no longer Second, “whitening” practices are found in how
legitimate. Thus, we must explore whiteness’s whiteness is captured, produced, and performed at
deep, historical emergence and structural position the macro-structural level of states to the meso- and
alongside a malleable understanding of how non- micro-levels of groups and individuals. In making
white bodies and spaces can symbolically and a case for “transnational whiteness,” Arat-Koç
materially gain advantages of whiteness. (2010) argued that “claims to whiteness are very
Consequently, the practices of deep and mallea- much about contemporary attempts to locate one-
ble global whiteness are occurring in two ways: (1) self at national and international levels” (p. 156). In
through the historical accumulation and continua- Figure 2, I display a global field of whiteness posi-
tion of white economic and political control in the tions for countries or regions and groups.1 My
world-system and (2) through the “whitening” prac- interpretation visualizes a plane between global
tices of how countries and specific groups maneuver whiteness and global blackness along a scale of
along a racial hierarchy of nations and categories. superiority/inferiority and racist inclusion/racist
These two avenues of how deep and malleable exclusion practice. Countries or regions and groups
whiteness is occurring privilege how the unequal position themselves by deploying different forms
racial exchange in the world system is a “deep struc- of racial capital—symbolic, economic, cultural,
ture” (Jung 2015) that has merely evolved rather social, and/or aesthetic—that are relationally con-
than fundamentally altered from its inception; thus structed to other regions and groups (Christian
the “deep” manifestation of contemporary whiteness 2015; Feagin 2013; Joseph 2000). Depending on a
(Bashi Treitler and Boatcă 2016; Boatcă 2017). And country’s racial history, how transnational180 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 5(2)
Figure 2. The global field of whiteness.
racialization occurred, and the interaction between symbolic racial capital; and reproduce racialized
global/local racial projects, different regions, coun- hierarchies informed by global whiteness. For
tries, and groups have the ability to hierarchically example, China reproduces essentialized racial log-
position themselves along the field of global white- ics and practices about antiblackness through its
ness. The countries or regions and groups high- economic practices in Africa (Burawoy 2014),
lighted are ideal-type examples of whiteness’s along with pursuing Han-superiority state-building
material and discursive plane but are in no way practices within its borders (Dikötter 2015). As
exhaustive, static, or exact. Boatcă (2017) and Arat-Koç (2010) highlighted,
Examples of countries or regions at the top of this new semiperiphery transnational class uses its
the plane are the United States, the United Kingdom, racial economic capital to buy proximity to white-
and Western Europe; in the middle, Israel, Japan, ness and white spaces (e.g., through citizenship,
China, Argentina, and the gulf states; and at the bot- status symbols, and economic opportunities).
tom, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Among Moreover, countries such as Costa Rica, Argentina,
the field there are regions or countries positioned Israel, and Turkey attempt to whiten by deploying
low, such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, but white symbolic capital in a process that links their
groups within those regions or countries that are national identities and exceptional characteristics
positioned higher, such as white South Africans, closer to European and Western norms (Christian
high-caste Indians, and Habashas in Ethiopia (Jalata 2015; Joseph 2000; Spangler 2015) or by support-
2008). Hence, the processes of whiteness must be ing the global war on terror.
disaggregated from macro, meso, to micro repre- Nonetheless, whiteness is unstable for those
sentations and further exhibit the multiple layers to countries and groups that were not historically con-
racial hierarchies. Some world-systems scholars2 structed as white but are attempting to acquire its
argue that the global rise of China, India, and Brazil privileges. A group that acquires forms of whiteness
symbolizes a disruption of white Western domina- in one space, or in one structural form, may find it
tion and therefore racism. Through the GCRR evaporate in another when they travel across the
framework, however, these countries represent spe- plane, depending on how race signs are encoded
cific racialized groups (Han Chinese, high-caste and embedded in specific national social systems
Indians, and white Brazilians) that achieved top (Faria and Mollett 2016; Price 2010; Purkayastha
hierarchical racial category status and meaning dur- 2010). For example, the Arab Middle East gulf state
ing their countries’ global and national racialization elites who have wealth and regional power from oil
processes; gained access to economic, cultural, and reserves are racialized as culturally other when theyYou can also read
