[SOC Seminar] Racecraft in psychological science
Speaker
Joel E. MartinezLocation
Psych East, 3834Info
Research practices used by social scientists to understand and dismantle the psychological foundations that uphold racist hierarchies can backfire when they rely on racecraft methodology, which assumes the reality of race(s) and reifies them to the detriment of theoretical and practical goals. In considering how to study racism without reifying race, I generally explore how racecraft ideology can manifest throughout the research process (i.e., study design, analysis, and theoretical interpretations), as well as experiment with preliminary ideas for counter-practices. Specific practices that are interrogated include the use of racialized stimuli meant to represent specific "racial groups", attempts to summarize the psychologies of "racial groups" through average analyses, and essentialist theorizations of race categories.
