Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century

Michael Omi and Howard Winant’sRacial Formation in the United States remains one of the most influential books and widely read books about race.Racial Formation in the 21st Century, arriving twenty-five years after the publication of Omi and Winant’s influential work, brings together fourteen essays by leading scholars in law, history, sociology, ethnic studies, literature, anthropology and gender studies to consider the past, present and future of racial formation. The contributors explore far-reaching concerns: slavery and land ownership; labor and social movements; torture and war; sexuality and gender formation; indigineity and colonialism; genetics and the body. From the ecclesiastical courts of seventeenth century Lima to the cell blocks of Abu Grahib, the essays draw from Omi and Winant’s influential theory of racial formation and adapt it to the various criticisms, challenges, and changes of life in the twenty-first century.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant’sRacial Formation in the United States remains one of the most influential books and widely read books about race.Racial Formation in the 21st Century, arriving twenty-five years after the publication of Omi and Winant’s influential work, brings together fourteen essays by leading scholars in law, history, sociology, ethnic studies, literature, anthropology and gender studies to consider the past, present and future of racial formation. The contributors explore far-reaching concerns: slavery and land ownership; labor and social movements; torture and war; sexuality and gender formation; indigineity and colonialism; genetics and the body. From the ecclesiastical courts of seventeenth century Lima to the cell blocks of Abu Grahib, the essays draw from Omi and Winant’s influential theory of racial formation and adapt it to the various criticisms, challenges, and changes of life in the twenty-first century.

List of Illustrations

Introduction
Daniel Martinez HoSang and Oneka LaBennett

Part I. Racial Formation Theory Revisited
1. Gendering Racial Formation
Priya Kandaswamy

2. On the Specificities of Racial Formation: Gender and Sexuality in the Historiographies of Race
Roderick A. Ferguson

3. The Transitivity of Race and the Challenge of the Imagination
James Kyung-Jin Lee

4. Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy
Andrea Smith

Part II. Racial Projects and Histories of Racialization
5. The Importance of Being Asian: Growers, the United Farm Workers, and the Rise of Colorblindness
Matthew Garcia

6. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Black): Legal and Cultural Constructions of Race and Nation in Colonial Latin America
Michelle A. McKinley

7. Race, Racialization, and Latino Populations in the United States
Tomás Almaguer

8. Kill the Messengers: Can We Achieve Racial Justice without Mentioning Race?
Gary Delgado

9. The New Racial Preferences: Rethinking Racial Projects
Devon W. Carbado and Cheryl I. Harris

Part III. War and the Racial State
10. "We didn’t kill ’em, we didn’t cut their head off": Abu Ghraib Revisited
Sherene H. Razack

11. The "War on Terror" as Racial Crisis: Homeland Security, Obama, and Racial (Trans)Formations
Nicholas De Genova

12. Racial Formation in an Age of Permanent War
Nikhil Singh

Conclusion. Racial Formation Rules: Continuity, Instability, and Change
Michael Omi and Howard Winant

Bibliography
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Index