A mixed-race imagination
Part of the Social Anthropology Research Seminars series.
A mixed-race imagination
Speaker | Andrew Sanchez
Abstract
Taking inspiration from Queer Theory, this paper introduces the analytic framework of Mixed-Race Thought, to consider how a position of racial indeterminacy might prompt mixed-race people and their interlocutors to reflect on the terms and limits of racial classifications, and inspire a more radical conception of them. The article describes this process using the concept of classificatory dissonance. The dissonance of the mixed-race experience is a quotidian jarring of the type common to the formation of radical thought. On these terms, indeterminacy should not be understood as a tragedy of exclusion and anomie. It is rather a condition whose dissonant qualities inspire critical interrogations of the terms of social orders, and imaginative conceptualizations of new possibilities. Moving beyond the limiting historical concepts of mestizaje and biracial, Mixed-Race Thought considers the political and conceptual possibilities afforded by reconceptualizing the mixed-race person not in implicit reference to the hegemonic classifications of race, but rather in reference to embodied indeterminacy itself.
Andrew will be joined at the event by Jordan Mullard, of Newcastle University. Jordan will participate in the seminar as a discussant, offering an opening provocation and engaging in conversation on the themes raised by Andrew’s paper.
Andrew Sanchez is a social anthropologist whose published work has explored a range of issues related to precarity, marginality, work, exchange, criminality, race, and anthropological theory. He is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.
Dr Jordan Mullard (she/her) is an interdisciplinary social scientist and Senior Research Academic at Newcastle University’s Population Health Sciences Institute specialising in the qualitative study of intersectional identity and the wider determinants of health and health inequalities. She is interested in the impact of multiple 'crises' (infectious disease/ pandemics, environmental and economic) on the health of racially minoritised communities. Her published ethnographic work explores the intersections of identity (race & mixed race, class, caste, religion, gender, and place) and the impact of identity labour on health. Jordan is PI for a NIHR multi-sited project exploring by and for meanings and mechanisms of mental health mitigations amongst Asylum Seekers and Refugees. As an applied anthropologist, Jordan is interested in how academic research can be translated into meaningful actions and policies in the world. She is active in Black-led community development and is Co- Chair of the CIO, Here: North East, a global majority cultural archive and wellbeing initiative.
Further information
Cost
Free
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