ABSTRACT
Among the central contributions offered by Omi and Winant's (1994) now classic Racial Formation in the United States is their theory of racial formation—the process by which racial categories are “created, inhabited, transformed and destroyed” (p. 55)—and the related concept of racial projects—roughly, how race is represented, deployed and institutionalized. Because race is a technology that links social and political struggle to different human bodies—bodies whose racial meanings are constructed and constantly under pressure and transformation—Omi and Winant illustrate that our task is less to search for lasting characteristics that define race in a once-and-for-all sense but rather to attend to how race is constructed and formed—a process that proceeds through the installation of various racial projects. Racial projects connect an interpretation of race in a given historical moment or context to the organization of social structures and everyday practices. Thus, a racial project “is simultaneously an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to re-organize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines” (Omi & Winant, 1994, p. 56, emphasis in original).
