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Lived Histories and the Changing Rhetoric of White Identity

Through open-ended interviews and oral history, this ethnographic project captures unique histories of cultivating critical race consciousness as a White subject in social contexts of continuing overt and covert racisms. The project studies the legacy of racist and prejudiced discourses in how White research participants embody, theorize, and perform White consciousness. I explore a spectrum of White consciousness that corresponds to shifting conceptualizations of racism (Jim Crow, Colorblind, and Critical Race Consciousness), unstable ideologies of activism and antiracism (reflecting whether or not and how subjects act against prejudice), and the changing politics of rhetorical practice in backstage settings (that is, how subjects represent and construct racialized realities in these discourse situations). The project concludes that storytelling can be strategically and effectively used in activist research and everyday conversation as a vehicle for positive social change to cultivate critical dialogue about and rearticulate lived histories of race, racialized identities, racial privileges, and racisms.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/145299
Date January 2011
CreatorsWray, Amanda B.
ContributorsLicona, Adela C., Enos, Theresa, Kennedy, Elizabeth L.
PublisherThe University of Arizona.
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Dissertation, text
RightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

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