Patterns of migration and the forces of globalization have brought the issues of mixed race to the public in far more visible, far more dramatic ways than ever before. Global Mixed Race examines the contemporary experiences of people of mixed descent in nations around the world, moving beyond US borders to explore the dynamics of racial mixing and multiple descent in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Okinawa, Australia, and New Zealand. In particular, the volume’s editors ask: how have new global flows of ideas, goods, and people affected the lives and social placements of people of mixed descent? Thirteen original chapters address the ways mixed-race individuals defy, bolster, speak, and live racial categorization, paying attention to the ways that these experiences help us think through how we see and engage with social differences. The contributors also highlight how mixed-race people can sometimes be used as emblems of multiculturalism, and how these identities are commodified within global capitalism while still considered by some as not pure or inauthentic. A strikingly original study, Global Mixed Race carefully and comprehensively considers the many different meanings of racial mixedness.
Rebecca C. King-O’Riain is a Senior Lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. She is the author of Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese American Beauty Pageants.
Global Mixed Race is a comprehensive compilation of world mixed-race identities, histories, and issues. The editors have expertly prepared for comparison and intrinsic interest contemporary and timely discussions of mixed race as an increasingly recognized dimension of racial and ethnic diversity in the 21st century. From post-modern popular culture to academic race theory, this exciting, ground-breaking collection will be a standard resource and reference for general readers, multidisciplinary scholars, and specialists of race, ethnicity, culture, and mixed race.
~Naomi Zack,author of Race and Mixed Race
Global Mixed Race is a very welcome addition to the literature on race and mixedness. Its vibrant case studies, comparative frame and historical grounding offer a useful guide for understanding what contemporary concepts and experiences of 'mixed race' owe to global trends and local specificities. A must-read for anyone interested in racialization in its many forms.
~Kimberly Dacosta,author of Making Multiracials: State, Family, and Market in the Redrawing of the Color Line
This superb volume lays the groundwork for an emergent and exciting global comparative framework for understanding mixed race categories and identities. By decentering U.S. mixed race histories and experiences, these essays make us attentive to how notions such as nation and class, and processes such as colonization and migration, are fundamentally complicit in shaping the very definition and meaning of 'mixed race.'
~Michael Omi,co-author of Racial Formation in the United States
Mixtureracial, national, ethnicwhile not a new phenomenon is increasingly evident in todays globalized world. The authors of these 12 absorbing essays examine and discuss the status, identity, and life experiences of mixed-decent individuals and communities in different cultural and political environment. . . . This fine book makes valuable contributions to the study of race, ethnicity, and gender in a period of unprecedented global change.Summing up: Highly recommended.
~Choice
