Critical Race Theory and Method: Rendering Race in Urban Ethnographic Research

Abstract

North American critical race theorists maintain race is a central feature in the social and economic organization of the United States. Rather than describing an objective reality or a psychological operation, according to these theorists, race is best understood as power relationships that define dominant and subjugated positions in society. In this article, the author situates a discussion of the theoretical and practical applications of critical race theory in ethnographic methodology within an analysis of its usefulness in rendering visible racialized relationships that researchers take for granted. Specifically, he analyzes data, generated during a 3-year period, to explicate how these relationships play out in a qualitative methods course at a large Midwest research university with an urban elementary educational facility field site. This analysis renders the mechanisms of race explicit in ways to subject them to critique and to lay foundations for alternative ways to imagine and do qualitative research.

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