ABSTRACT
In this chapter I focus on white women’s descriptions of their cultural identities and in this context critically analyze dominant conceptions of culture. In the first section I explore the intersecting meanings of whiteness and Americanness as cultural constructs, analyzing their simultaneous conceptualization in many of the women’s narratives as cultural norm and cultural residue. In the second section I ask how else white women name themselves in terms of cultural belonging within or alongside whiteness. In the third section, I look in detail at Ashkenazi Jewish women’s narratives, for it was in these that a sense of cultural belonging was most fully articulated and, moreover, articulated as dynamic, transformable, lived experience. I conclude the chapter by proposing directions for a new analysis of white cultural practice and identity.
