Abstract

Using 42 in-depth interviews with rural, Southern whites in Mississippi, I examine the intra-racial boundary work respondents use to construct their regional and racial identities in relation to other whites in their communities, particularly rednecks. I find that rednecks are defined and categorized in multiple ways based on the respondents' conceptions of Southerners, social statuses (i.e., age, gender, class and residential history), and intra-racial comparisons around these social characteristics. Primarily, they draw intra-racial distinctions to separate themselves from negative characterizations and to claim positive associations with being rural, Southern whites. Nonetheless, the multi-faceted intra-racial boundary work around redneck maintains the general hegemony of whiteness by marginalizing "lesser whites" and forms of whiteness and claiming an ideal type of whiteness that is considered untainted, normative and superior.

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