What is Racism?

Authors

  • Ramon Grosfoguel Department of Ethnic Studies University of California at Berkeley

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2016.609

Abstract

This article provides a definition of racism inspired in the work of Frantz Fanon, Boaventura de Sousa Santos and contemporary Caribbean Fanonian Philosophers. It discusses racism in relation to zone of being and zone of non-being. Racism is discussed as a dehumanization related to the materiality of domination used by the world-system in the zone of non-being (violence and dispossession) as opposed to the materiality of domination in the zone of being (regulation and emancipation). The approach shows how intersectionality of oppressions work differently for oppressed people in the zone of being as opposed to oppressed people in the zone of non-being. While in the zone of being oppressions are mitigated by racial privilege, in the zone of non-being oppressions are aggravated by racial oppression.

Author Biography

Ramon Grosfoguel, Department of Ethnic Studies University of California at Berkeley

Ramon Grosfoguel is Associate Professor in the Deparment of Ethnic Studies at UC-Berkeley. He has published extensively on Decolonizing Knowledge and Power, Political-Economy of the World-System and International Migration.

References

Crenshaw, K., 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43 (6), 1241-1279.

Davis, A., 1983. Women, Race and Class. New York: Vintage.

De Sousa Santos, B., 2006. Renovar la teoría crítica y reinventar la emancipación social (encuentros en Buenos Aires). Buenos Aires: CLACSO.

______. 2007. Beyond abyssal thinking: From global lines to ecologies of knowledges. Review, 30 (1), 45-89.

______. 2010. Epistemologias del Sur. Mexico: Siglo XXI.

Fanon, F., 1967. Black skin, white masks. New York: Grove Press.

Gordon, L.R., 2006. African-American philosophy, race, and the geography of reason. In: L.R. Gordon and J.A. Gordon, eds. Not only the master’s tools: African-American studies in theory and practice. Boulder and London: Paradigm, 3-50.

Grosfoguel, R., 2011. Decolonizing post-colonial studies and paradigms of political-economy: Transmodernity, decolonial thinking and global coloniality. Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World. 1 (1), 1-38.

Maldonado-Torres, N., 2008. Against War. Durham: Duke University Press.

Wynter, S., 2003. Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation–an argument. CR: The New Centennial Review, 3 (3), 257-337.

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Published

2016-03-22

How to Cite

Grosfoguel, R. (2016). What is Racism?. Journal of World-Systems Research, 22(1), 9–15. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2016.609

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 1 (2016): Special Issue: Ireland in the World-System

Section

Symposium: Race in the Capitalist World-System

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