Constructions of Race in Culture and Politics - Essay Example

Constructions of ’Race’ in Culture and Politics: How convincing do you find Stuart Hall’s approach to ‘race’? Stuart Hall is renowned as a cultural theorist who has made remarkable contributions to cultural studies. He has exerted great influence particularly on the racial thinking in the UK and he is regarded as a transitional giant who has rewritten and reconstructed concepts in the Marxist lexicon and applied them to the new conditions of society, “such as transformation of European nations into multicultural societies, the emergence of new media, the meaning of race and racial domination, the situation and identities of intellectuals in post-colonial regions, and the ideologies that accompanied the shift to neo-liberal policies” (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 189). Hall’s writings and his public discourses predominantly focuses on issues related to race, ethnicity, culture, media and political hegemony. In his approach to race Hall points out how Marxist writers have naturalized the idea of race. On the other hand, he also argues that “contemporary articulations of "race" and racism could not be explained merely through references to capitalism, class differentiation, or false ideology, but also needed to be located in the cultural, political, and social realms (Dua, Razack, & Warner 2005). As such, Hall conceives both sociological and economic tendencies as central to the ‘racially-structured social formations’ that govern racism (Hall 1980, p. 305). It is worthwhile to analyze Hall’s economic as well as social approaches to race. While Hall regarded sociological and economic tendencies as ‘two broad dominant tendencies’ that contribute towards ‘racially-structured social formations’ (Hall 1980, p. 305), he never fails to admit that social divisions and economic structures are inherent in any societies. Following his economic approach to race, Hall purported that it is the ‘economic structures and processes’ that contribute towards “those social divisions which assume a distinctively racial or ethnic character” (Hall 1980, p. 306). It has also been pointed out by Hancock and Garner (2009, p. 199) that both economics and race, even though they are autonomous, are connected to each other “through different modes of production at social, political, and ideological levels that are historically specific and socially constructed.” For Hall it is because of this factor that various modes of exploitation are still prevalent among various groups of the workforce. In the same way, Hall’s sociological approach also takes into account such aspects as the ‘social relations between different racial or ethnic strata,’ cultural differences and ethnicity, political domination, and exploitation of racial distinctions (Hall 1980, p. 306). While issues of race or ethnicity are more likely to be viewed as social or cultural feature Hall held that “racial structures cannot be understood adequately outside the framework of quite specific sets of economic relations” (Hall 1980, p. 308). As such, it can be seen that Hall’s social and economic approaches to race are interrelated. In his views on racism and ethnicity Hall was immensely influenced by Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, the theory of articulation, and Althusser’s notion of ideology and interpellation. While Hall employed Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to show ‘the relationship between culture and power’ and how culture plays a pivotal role in establishing and reproducing ‘social and political domination’, he convincingly postulated how the specific meanings attached to a particular race or class culminate in the ‘reproduction of a specific social and economic order’ (Hancock & Garner 2009, pp. 190-192). It has also been pointed out by Hall that race operates and structures both dominance and resistance in the society. Instances of hegemony can also be seen in institutional racism where even organizations are governed by the racist attitudes that haunt the society as a whole. In the same way, the philosophical work of Louis Althusser and his philosophical notions of ideology and interpellation also influenced Hall in unearthing the relationship between race and the dominant ideologies of society. It has very well been pointed out by Hancock and Garner (2009, p. 197) when the authors observe that “racial domination is an historically specific racism not a unitary or trans-historical phenomenon with a universal structure” and that “racism is one of the dominant modes of ideological representation through which groups link their relations to other groups and to capital and class.” Hall’s strong believe that ‘societies are structured in dominance’ forms the basis of his approach to race and his analysis of the logic of racial domination (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 196). Hall postulates that racial inequality and racially structured formations are the outcome of the economic and the social factors. The economic factors contributing towards racism comprise of “development, which includes colonization, imperialism without colonies, underdevelopment based on the exploitive extraction of minerals or mono-crop production (such as rubber, cotton, peanuts, coffee, and so on), and industrialization” (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 196). It can also be observed that these economic factors in turn would result in various social formations as well. In the same way, from a sociological point of view both cultural differences and racial distinctions pave way for racism and structures of racial dominance. Hall also argues that power mechanisms and consequent classification or hierarchies play their parts in the construction of racism. Various racial groups are classified based on the meanings that are attached to them and for Hall this sort of classification is never neutral but a mechanism of power. For him, “power generates meaning and hierarchies, and it structures the social organization based on domination and subordination” and as such these classifications are merely forms of power and social control (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 196). Thus, classifications are formed based on power relations and theses hierarchies are maintained in order to keep the society structured in dominance. For hall race as a system of classification ascribes certain characteristics to a particular race or group whereby these characteristics are shown to be normalized, fixed, naturalized, and validated. These characteristics form the underlying fundamental assumptions governing the classification of such groups. However, Hall also exhorts his readers to be aware that social relations are already constructed and that the society is “socialized into them and take them for granted, thereby perpetuating the existing ideologies” (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 196). Hall thus reminds that the human mind mirrors the structure of social relations around it thereby reproducing the already constructed social relations. One tends to perceive these constructions as natural rather than caused by powerful sociological and economic tendencies. Hall’s another significant approach to race is that he regards race as a floating signifier, “a constantly changing set of relational differences of meaning taking on different new meanings and value” which do not possess any permanence or essentiality (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 198). However, the very notion of race stems from a system of classification that prevails in the society whereby certain physical characteristics, values or meanings are associated with either superiority or inferiority. For Hall the concept of race becomes a floating signifier as it ‘works like a language’ and ‘takes on meaning within the field of relations’ (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 198). Hall purports that just like language the meaning of race is related to the structure of social relations that govern the society. As such, the very meaning of race gets changed as and when social processes get altered. As pointed out by Hancock and Garner (2009, p. 198), shifting social relations and processes “shift meanings and create instability in racial classifications and assumptions” and as such the term ‘race’ can be perceived as a floating signifier. Similarly, hall also cautions that various discourses, ideas, strategies and socio-economic consequences have the potential to bring about changes to the meaning of this floating signifier. Similarly, unlike many theorists Hall never regarded the problem of race as an outcome of the post-war wave of immigration. On the other hand, he held that racism could not be separated from the specific social, economic and political situations that prevail in the nation. Similarly, Hall was against the general assumption that race, racism, and racial relations are themselves problematic. He regarded race as not a crisis in itself, “but rather ‘the lens’ through which fear and anxiety are distorted and refracted away from the root causes of economic crisis and projected onto a stigmatized community” (Davis 2004, p. 101). Therefore, one can never regard racism as a set of false perceptions. On the other hand, the problem of race stems from real material conditions and from real concrete issues of various groups and classes in the society. As originally pointed out by Hall (1978, p, 35) and cited in Davis (2004, p. 101), “racism represents the attempt ideologically to construct those conditions, contradictions and problems in such a way that they can be dealt with and deflected in the same moment.” Thus for Hall very often the real concrete problems and conditions faced by white and black people in an economy of recession are projected away through race. In this respect, Hall also observes that racism has played a key role in the production and reproduction of capitalist classes in Britain and that “young black people are objectified by this process and find themselves ethnically and socially marginalized and victimized” (Davis 2004, p. 117). It is also worthwhile to analyse the views of Garner (2010) in relation to Hall’s approach to race. Garner (2010, p. 18) is of the opinion that “racism tries to explain the social world by reference to the natural world” and one cannot but take into account the economic and sociological tendencies in the natural world. At the sociological level, racism can be regarded as “a multifaceted social phenomenon, with different levels and overlapping forms” which “involves attitudes, actions, processes and unequal power relations” (Garner 2010, p. 18). Social relations, classifications, hierarchies and forms of discrimination exert their influence on the construction of race and racists attitudes. Hall has also made some remarkable observations on the characteristics of British racism today. Ethnicity plays a crucial role in the racism that prevails in Britain; to quote the words of Stuart Hall (1996, p. 447) himself: “ethnicity, in the form of a culturally constructed sense of Englishness and a particularly closed, exclusive and regressive form of English national identity, is one of the core characteristics of British racism today” (Hall 1996, p. 447). The author goes on to elucidate that racism operates itself in the nation by manipulating the ‘impassable symbolic boundaries between racially constituted categories’ and by attempting “to fix and naturalize the difference between belongingness and otherness” (Hall 1996, p. 446). Racism reaches at its peak when these racially constituted groups in their attempts to survive would try to marginalize, dispossess and displace other ethnicities. It can also be noticed that Stuart Hall believed in the power of mass media and public discourses in shaping and altering racist outlooks. Hall makes it clear that the media not only constructs various definitions of race for viewers they also divide people based on their appearance and perceived notions. On the other hand, Hall also believes in the potential power of the media to promote multiculturalism in the nation. For Hall the media today perpetuate both overt racism and inferential racism. While overt racism is the open coverage and publicity offered to racist arguments and positions , inferential racism, on the other hand, is the “apparently naturalised representations of events and situations relating to race, whether ‘factual’ or ‘fictional,’ which have racist premises and propositions inscribed in them as a set of unquestioned assumptions” (Hall 2000, p. 273). According to Hall, inferential racism is more dangerous and it spreads so easily due to its invisibility. Conclusions To conclude, it can be stated that Stuart Hall’s approach to race is quite convincing and comprehensive as it addresses such issues as race, ethnicity, culture, media, political hegemony, mass media, classifications or hierarchies, power mechanisms, social and economic relations that trigger racism. For Hall, the problem of race is a multifaceted social phenomenon and floating signifier that perpetuate constantly changing set of relational differences and values. For Hall, one needs to abandon ‘a politics of both racism and anti-racism’ as both would emphasise race in the same mode with opposite signs (Hancock & Garner 2009, p. 199). Hall also points out that race plays a double role in the society as it is through race that many of the racial minorities “live’, experience, make sense of and thus come to a consciousness of their structured subordination” (Davis 2004, p. 117). One can therefore conclude that Hall’s approach to race is capable of offering a comprehensive picture of how racism is at function in the modern era and these theoretical insights are equally useful for multiculturalism as well. References Davis, H 2004, Understanding Stuart Hall, London: Sage. Dua, E., Razack, N & Warner, J.N 2005, ‘Race, Racism, and Empire: Reflections on Canada’, Social Justice, vol. 32, no. 4, viewed 31 October 2012, Garner, S 2010, Racisms: An Introduction, London: Sage. Hall, S 2000, “Racist Ideologies and the Media.” Media Studies: A Reader. Eds. P. Marris and S. Thornham. 2nd edn, New York: New York University Press, pp. 271-282. Hall, S 1996. “New ethnicities.” In Critical dialogues in cultural studies. Ed. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing chen. London, Routledge. viewed 31 October 2012, http://wxy.seu.edu.cn/humanities/sociology/htmledit/uploadfile/system/20110213/20110213135536108.pdf Hall, S 1980, "Race, Articulation, and Societies Structured in Dominance." Sociological Theories: Race and Colonialism. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 305-345. Hancock, B.H & Garner, R 2009, Changing Theories: New Directions in Sociology, University of Toronto Press. Read More