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Reviewed by:
  • Race and Racism in 21st Century Canada: Continuity, Complexity, and Change
  • Frances Henry
Sean P. Hier and B. Singh Bolaria, eds. Race and Racism in 21st Century Canada: Continuity, Complexity, and Change. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. 354 pp. Index. $37.95 sc.

This book is an edited collection of mostly Canadian work on race and racism. It is premised on the notion that the field of race/racism studies in Canada is built on a very slippery conceptual and methodological slope—so much so that according to the editors, “We cannot remain blind to the fact that the literature is filled with sloppy conceptualization, narrow research interventions, and excessive claims-making that is more politically charged than empirically and conceptually grounded” (31). They are disturbed by the seeming facts, although no real examples are provided, that various researchers come to differing conclusions: that either racism does or does not exist in Canadian society. (Almost immediately one should note that most research comes to different conclusions; otherwise, we would have a rather homogeneous body of research!) Their analysis of the literature on this subject in Canada leads them to insist that two major analytical orientations predominate in the entire literature. They call the first of these social critique, which emphasizes how the social world is configured. The second is social comment, which is apparently how people experience their social world. Regardless of the orientation, the editors seem to feel that most research of both kinds is flawed because of its lack of attention to conceptual understandings of what is meant by racism. For example, they argue that racism cannot be defined in terms of its functions and only on its representational content because otherwise the meaning of the term is “inflated,” “deflated,” or in other ways obscured. It seems quite contradictory, then, that despite their virulent critique, they have, nevertheless, chosen to include many examples of such presumably unsound research in their own collection! For example, the editors maintain that racism is usually defined in terms of its effects, and this leads to a dismissal of other factors that can influence outcomes. Yet they have selected for inclusion in this book, Hum and Simpson’s excellent study “Revising Equity and Labour” in which the data on income disparities among newcomers are disaggregated in many different ways and where, especially, the effects of the immigrant experience is controlled. These authors conclude that skin colour is, therefore, a misleading and, in fact, erroneous method of categorization. In fact, many of the sociological studies that have been done on income disparities and other areas that lend themselves to sophisticated statistical analysis systematically distinguish variables other than race or colour. Other chapters in this book, including Zong’s examination of Chinese migrant mobility and Trumper and Wong’s analysis of seasonal and migrant labourers, also demonstrate that differential occupational incorporation is a function of many variables in addition to race. [End Page 238]

Another argument presented by the editors, as well as in Carter’s chapter called “Prospects for a Post-Race Sociology,” is that studies on, for example, income disparities do not tell us “what racism actually is, what specific processes produce these outcomes, and how we can address the underlying cause of inequitable pay distributions” (30), but the objective of such studies is merely to show that disparities exist, not what causes them. Such questions lead to an entirely different form of research. Similarly, Carter’s chapter raises the issue of how racism research obscures the relationship between structure and agency. The author points to the way in which racial profiling by the police as an institution ignores the role of agency, as individual officers have substantial discretion in any interactive situation with the public. Nor does emphasis on structure tell us how to change police culture or individual police behavior. Most studies on racial profiling that I am familiar with, both here and in other countries, are very concerned with those facets of individual behaviour.

In Satzewich’s chapter, “Whiteness Studies: Race, Diversity, and the New Essentialism,” whiteness studies are categorized as comprising historical and experiential approaches to this field. The first approach focuses on the elasticity of...

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