Exploring ‘mixed-race’ identities in Scotland through a familial lens

HM Sociology;HQ The family. Marriage. Woman;HT Communities. Classes. Races

Pang, Mengxi ; Virdee, Satnam

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Social and Political Sciences

关键词: 'race' and ethnicity, family and personal relationships, identities, the sociology of 'mixed-race', social inequalities.;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8741/1/2018PangPhD.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

This thesis takes ‘mixed-race’ individuals and parents of ‘mixed-race’ children in Scotlandas its subject, exploring the meanings and significance of ‘mixed-race’ and the process bywhich ‘mixed-race’ identities are constructed. Contributing to the burgeoning ‘mixed-race’scholarship in Britain, and more broadly to the intersection of the sociology of ‘race’ andthe sociology of family relationships literature, this thesis presents a qualitative analysis of‘mixed-race’ identities by exploring how mixed individuals view themselves throughinteractions with others. Informed by a theoretical approach combining interactionist andintersectional perspectives, this thesis stresses the role of everyday interactions with familymembers in shaping one’s views of the self, but it also pays attention to the ways in whichmeanings associated with ‘mixed-race’ are conditioned by and produced in the wider socialcontext.Based upon thirty-one in-depth interviews with ‘mixed-race’ individuals and parents ofmixed children conducted over a 24-month period, this thesis qualitatively examinesinterviewees’ experiences and interpretations of ‘mixed-race’ by locating them within thewider socio-cultural context. Focusing on personal and family experiences of being ´mixedrace’ or being associated with mixedness, this thesis pays particular attention to familydynamics, seeking to explore the ways in which family practices influence children’sattitudes towards mixed heritages. In so doing, empirical data is analysed and presented ina ‘thick description’ fashion. Illustrative cases are employed to draw out and exemplify thecomplex processes of negotiating and constructing meanings of ‘mixed-race’. Contendingthat the relative centrality of mixedness varies between individuals, the analysis shows that‘mixed-race’ identities are embedded in various forms of social relations and conditionedby structural constraints. Due to the uneven access to symbolic and material resources,mixed individuals have different capacities to mobilise collective meanings ascribed toethnicities in order to negotiate racialised differences. Within this process, ‘mixed-race’families play a pertinent role in providing their children with access to knowledge abouttheir mixed heritage. Furthermore, parents have an impact on children’s early attitudestowards their ethnic heritages by either reinterpreting or reproducing racial ideologies.Once again, parents’ priorities, strategies and specific plans to communicate the idea of‘mixed-race’ are structured by their racialised, classed and gendered positions.