Week 3 – Race Is A Verb.
March 24, 2023
Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog!
Updates
In the past week, I’ve continued to solidify my research question with the use of more literature. By reading works like Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities1 as well as Omi and Winant’s Racial Formation in the United States2, I became more aware of the innate, subconscious ways that society becomes structured. With my readings from the past few weeks, I crafted my interview questions in a way that they are inclusive of the majority of Indian American youth experiences. While these questions mostly cover everything that I hope to learn about, they are still flexible, leaving me space to either ask more questions or rephrase them to gain a better understanding. Additionally, I hope to also look at some movies that depict the media’s portrayal of this divide to better understand the cultural differences between the regions, and I have created a list for this as well.
More Background Information
In order to understand the divide between North and South India, I realized that I needed to understand how civilizations are structured, how splits are created in culture and society.
In Racial Formation in the United States, race-making was depicted as the process of “othering,” especially since the confines of race are meant to include some people and exclude others, helping people see friends and foes. On top of this, this “othering” process also establishes social hierarchies2.
Finally, to get back to the title of this entry, despite fundamental differences, these categories change over time as more structures and heuristics are factored into the definition of race. This makes “race” fluid, akin to a verb as it continues to get shaped by the way is it used to define people in society2.
Thank you so much, and see you next week!
Works Cited
- Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflections On The Origin And Spread Of Nationalism. Verso.
- Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2014). Racial Formation In The United States. Routledge.