scholarly journals ‘But you’re white’: An autoethnography of whiteness and white privilege in East Asian universities

Author(s):  
Leon Moosavi

It is well established within the field of Critical Whiteness Studies that white privilege routinely materialises in Western universities. Yet, even though a third wave of Critical Whiteness Studies is increasingly focussing on whiteness in non-Western contexts, there has been insufficient attention toward whether white privilege also exists in East Asian universities. This article seeks to explore this issue by offering an autoethnography in which the author, a mixed-race academic who is racialised as white on some occasions and as a person of colour on others, critically interrogates whiteness in East Asian higher education. It is argued that those who are racialised as white are privileged in East Asian universities and may even seek to actively sustain this. In departing from the dominant understanding of whiteness as always-and-only privileging, this article also explores the extent to which white academics in East Asia may also be disadvantaged by their whiteness.

Author(s):  
Barbara Applebaum

In 1903, standing at the dawn of the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that the color line is the defining characteristic of American society. Well into the 21st century, Du Bois’s prescience sadly still rings true. Even when a society is built on a commitment to equality, and even with the election of its first black president, the United States has been unsuccessful in bringing about an end to the rampant and violent effects of racism, as numerous acts of racial violence in the media have shown. For generations, scholars of color, among them Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Franz Fanon, have maintained that whiteness lies at the center of the problem of racism. It is only relatively recently that the critical study of whiteness has become an academic field, committed to disrupting racism by problematizing whiteness as a corrective to the traditional exclusive focus on the racialized “other.” Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) is a growing field of scholarship whose aim is to reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege. CWS presumes a certain conception of racism that is connected to white supremacy. In advancing the importance of vigilance among white people, CWS examines the meaning of white privilege and white privilege pedagogy, as well as how white privilege is connected to complicity in racism. Unless white people learn to acknowledge, rather than deny, how whites are complicit in racism, and until white people develop an awareness that critically questions the frames of truth and conceptions of the “good” through which they understand their social world, Du Bois’s insight will continue to ring true.


Author(s):  
Shannon Sullivan

Critical whiteness studies can be understood in terms of three overlapping waves ranging from the national to the international and from the 19th to the 21st centuries. Beginning in the Reconstruction era in the United States, the first wave criticized whiteness in the form of protection of white femininity, possessive ownership, and the public and psychological wages paid to white people during Jim Crow America. The second wave began after the end of World War II, when challenges to legalized racial segregation and European colonialism flourished. The third wave, whose beginning can be marked roughly at the end of the 20th century, is distinguished by increased examination of nonblack immigrants’ relation to whiteness, the growing number of white authors contributing to the field, and a blossoming international range of critical studies of whiteness.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Balázs Berkovits

AbstractThe “whiteness” of Jews has recently become a popular topic both in public debates and in academic research (Critical Whiteness Studies). Within this discourse, “whiteness” is used as a critical concept denoting those who enjoy white privilege in American and other Western societies. However, attributing “whiteness” to Jews is more than controversial, for it assimilates the most persecuted minority in European history to the dominant majority, while downgrading the significance of antisemitism. This is a necessary move in order to reaffirm and critically address the fundamental nature of the black and white divide; however, it is questionable both methodologically and politically.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-50
Author(s):  
Annette Sprung

This paper discusses organisational development in institutions of adult education aimed at enhancing diversity and preventing the discrimination of migrants. A critical analysis of three approaches, inter- cultural opening, managing diversity and fighting institutional racism, will be presented and amplified in the light of critical whiteness studies. The concepts differ in terms of their main goals, traditions, fields of practice and discourses of legitimation. The paper is based on the theoretical and empirical results of an Austrian applied research project, which explored how adult education institutions deal with migrant-related diversity. Finally, a strategic approach for opening up Austrian adult education for migrants, which was developed as part of the project, is presented.


2017 ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Edward W. Choi

While regional actors in the East Asian higher education sphere share a history of collaboration, they implement regionalization schemes largely based on different needs, goals, timetables, and customs. This piece presents a summary of key regionalization efforts and intitial indications for a path forward.


2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 463-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina N. Berchini

Transformative work with teacher candidates relies on a critique of the tenets of Critical Pedagogy and subsequent Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). I employ analyses of extant scholarship to argue that these specific domains, as popularly framed, might be responsible for uncritical examinations of the White teacher education students who devotedly enroll in our courses and trust their teachers to treat them fairly, responsibly, and with care. I then entwine relevant research on White privilege pedagogies with my own narrative to argue that taking on the problem of Whiteness in teacher education seems to have inspired an uncritical pedagogy of harmful generalizations. To conclude, I reconceptualize the application of White privilege pedagogies for more complex, systemic examination, and argue that if we are to move beyond a pedagogy of dismantling students, more work which openly and honestly grapples with paradoxes, double binds, and contexts of Whiteness is needed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 306-318
Author(s):  
Stephanie Behm Cross ◽  
Nermin Tosmur-Bayazit ◽  
Alyssa Hadley Dunn

Studies on student teaching continue to suggest that preservice teachers’ feelings of dissonance are related to disparate views of teaching and learning between universities and schools. Drawing on interview, artifact, and observation data, the authors utilize Cognitive Dissonance and Critical Whiteness Studies to make different sense of the experiences of one White student teacher (Brett). Results indicate that Brett experienced dissonance related to fractured relationships, misaligned teaching strategies, and disengagement as he taught youth of color. Importantly, the use of Critical Whiteness Studies helped to additionally reveal the way Whiteness affected Brett’s movements toward consonance—mainly through rationalization and problematic notions of perseverance. The authors suggest that Whiteness itself is a dissonant state, and argue that conversations focused on dissonance from misaligned university theory and K-12 schooling practices is dangerously incomplete. Implications for research and practice are included.


2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garth Stevens

Green, Sonn, and Matsebula (2007) offer critical whiteness studies as a potential form of resistance against the strategic relations of power that constitute racism. While there may be utility in applying and extending international work on whiteness in the South African and Australian contexts, it is important to observe some cautions. First, whiteness manifests differently across contexts, and the type of comparison performed by Green et al. may at times elide important differences between, for example, contexts where whiteness has historically always been on the defensive versus contexts where it has not. Second, whiteness studies runs the risk of uncritically accepting white identity self-articulations. Third, whiteness studies may be incorrectly perceived as a ‘silver bullet’ for understanding and combating racism, rather than as a complementary and often secondary critical tool for anti-racist praxis.


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