Mechanisms and Mechanics of Racial Hierarchy

Recent efforts to advance conceptualisations of racial hierarchies have led to the emergence of new debates about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of racism and racial domination. The chapters in this book address these questions by identifying both the mechanisms that produce racial hierarchies and the actors that keep these hierarchies operational, thereby anchoring the domination in its material manifestations, rather than subscribing to traditional theorisations.

Featuring contributions from leading scholars and emerging voices in critical race scholarship, this volume offers innovative theoretical frameworks for understanding structural racism. This book examines critical subject areas including family structure as the cause of inequality, the maintenance of intra-group ethnoracial hierarchies as a barrier to group solidarity, geography and histories of racial violence, and whiteness in organisations. Drawing on empirical research from the United States and Australia, the collection provides concrete examples of how racial domination operates across different contexts and scales.

This book is essential reading for scholars, students, researchers, and practitioners of race and racism studies, colonialism studies, critical race studies, family studies, organisational studies, political science, and anthropology. It offers new ways to name and theorise racial structure whilst providing actionable insights for those working towards racial justice. The essays in this volume were first published in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies.