This two-day conference seeks to invite scholars of race and ethnicity to the University of Chicago campus for an extended conversation on the relational nature of racialization in the United States. The conference will serve as a central program for the 20th anniversary celebration of the founding conference for the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.

May 12, 4:00PM-7:30PM 

May 13, 9AM-5:00PM

Scholars for several decades now have conceptualized race as a social construction shaped in specific historical, social and cultural contexts, and accordingly have written works on specific racialized groups, illuminating their place within America’s racial hierarchy.  But an emerging body of work has also begun to consider the relational nature of racializations moving beyond the analysis of how individual groups are formed in relation to whiteness to consider how they are formed in relation to each other. Relational studies of race posit that racialization happens dynamically; group-based racial constructions are formed not only in relation to whiteness, but also in relation to other devalued and marginalized groups (e.g. African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and Asian Pacific Islanders), whose own racialization is itself constantly in play. This conference on “Studying Race Relationally” seeks to explore these connections and dynamics.

Organized by Professor Ramón A. Gutiérrez (History, UChicago) and Natalia Molina (History, UC San Diego).

Conference Schedule
Thursday, May 12, 2016
4:00PM         Welcome Reception

4:45PM         Conference Framing: Natalia Molina, History, UC, San Diego

5:00PM         Keynote Address: “The Chinaman and the Slave: Notes on Race, Power, and Positionality”, Claire Jean Kim, Political Science and Asian American Studies, UC, Irvine
5:30PM         Comments: Michael Dawson, Political Science, UChicago; Director, Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture

5:45PM         “Towards a Critical Geography of Race in American History”, Eric Avila, Chicana and Chicano Studies, UCLA
6:15PM         Comments: Daniel HoSang, Ethnic Studies and Political Science, U Oregon

Friday, May 13, 2016
9:00AM         Introductions:  Ramón A. Gutiérrez, History, UChicago

9:15AM          “‘Our Porto Ricans’: Puerto Rican Students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1898-1918”, Catherine Ramirez, Latin American & Latino Studies, UC, Santa Cruz
9:45AM         “U.S. Colonized Subjects, Indigeneity, and Comparative Critique”, Antonio T. Tiongson, Jr., American Studies, U New Mexico
10:15AM         “Racial Migrations between Hawai‘i and the U.S. South: White Supremacy, Relational Settler      Colonialism, and Japanese American World War II War Heroes”, Jeffrey T. Yamashita, Ethnic Studies, UC, Berkeley
10:45AM         Comments:  Marco Garrido, Sociology, UChicago

11:15AM         Coffee Break

11:30AM         Keynote Address:  “The Relational Revolutions of Anti-Racist Formations”, Roderick Ferguson, African American, Gender and Women’s Studies, U Illinois, Chicago
12:00PM         Comments: Larissa Brewer-García, Romance Languages, UChicago

12:15PM         Lunch Break

1:30PM         “Racial Arithmetic: Media and Demographic Politics in a ‘Majority-Minority’ City”, Michael Rodriguez-Muñiz, Provost’s Postdoc in Sociology, UChicago
2:00PM         “From the Mississippi Delta to San Antonio’s West Side: Struggles Against Hunger, Poverty, and Racial Injustice from a Relational Perspective”, Laurie B. Green, History, U Texas, Austin
2:30PM         Comments: Edgar García, English, UChicago

3:00PM         “’Border Hopping Mexicans’ and ‘Law-Abiding Asians’: The Production and Consequences of Racialized ‘Illegality’ for Undocumented College Students”, Laura E. Enriquez, Chicano/Latino Studies, UC, Irvine
3:30PM         “The Relational Positioning of Arab and Muslim Americans in Post-9/11 Racial Politics”, Julie Lee Merseth, Political Science, Northwestern
4:00PM         Comments: Richard Jean So, English, UChicago

4:30PM         Concluding Remarks

Free and open to the public with registration. Register here.

Sponsored by the Global Voices Conference Series, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; the Franke Institute for the Humanities; and the Department of History