ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates a range of approaches to understanding the subjectivities of racism, driven by the question: How do we understand racism at the level of individuals and groups caught up in its dynamics? The argument is that an understanding of racial and racist subjectivities is required in order to understand the reproduction of racism as a system. Some influential psychoanalytic contributions to the understanding of racism and racist subjectivities are discussed, including the work of the Frankfurt school, the classic, seminal work of Fanon (Black Skin, White Masks), Joel Kovel’s analysis of white supremacism, and other key contributions. Sociological approaches, where they have focused on subjectivities, mainly analyse the roles of discourses that position racial and racist subjectivities. Individuals engage with such discourses, in sometimes transformative ways. Some key examples of studies of white and black subjectivities are discussed. In addition to these approaches, the chapter makes a case for examining racial subjectivity through the lens of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus – a racialized habitus as a set of racial dispositions deeply embedded in individuals and societies.
