Exploring the New Configurations of Whiteness

Critical studies of Whiteness have typically concentrated on the Black/White nexus, particularly in North America and Europe, examining European subjectivity and its relationship to power, and the hierarchies it constructs. Du Bois, Roediger, and more recently Shilliam, for example, have examined the ‘wages of Whiteness’, especially the privileges accorded to poor Whites enabling them to fight against what they see as ‘White diminution’ of status and power. For this session we invite papers on critical studies of Whiteness around the world which explore the new configurations of Whiteness. Submissions might, for example, include research on groups who are ‘subaltern’ yet who are able to align with hegemonic Whiteness in their own countries or regions (e.g. White Turks, White Indians), or as diasporas in the Global North (e.g. White Afghanis in Europe or White Iranians in the USA, or White Arabs in Australia) whereby subaltern identity is transformed, diffusing the wages of Whiteness but also accruing power and status. We are interested in research papers that examine such negotiations, allyship, tensions and contradictions vis a vis Whiteness globally.