White Innocence

Wekker, Gloria

doi:10.1215/9780822374565

Cited by 406 publications

(44 citation statements)

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“…Although there is hardly a debate about this normative question of conceptual engineering (see footnote 6) in Germany, it has been occasionally endorsed by German academics who are influenced by American race discourses (Arndt 2009;Barskanmaz 2011). Analogous issues of negative effects of European colorblindness through elimination of racial discourses have been raised in other countries including France (Balibar 1992;Bessone 2013;Simon 2008) and the Netherlands (Schaap 2014;Wekker 2016). According to Hardimon, this global concept of race can be specified in terms of a ''logical core'' of three minimal biological requirements of (a) patterns of visible features (b) common ancestry (c) distinctive geographical ancestry. 4 Unfortunately, Hardimon simply suggests the global applicability of his ''logical core'' without providing empirical evidence.…”

Section: Unification Through a Minimalist Concept Of Racementioning

confidence: 99%

How race travels: relating local and global ontologies of race

Ludwig

2018

Philos Stud

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This article develops a framework for addressing racial ontologies in transnational perspective. In contrast to simple contextualist accounts, it is argued that a globally engaged metaphysics of race needs to address transnational continuities of racial ontologies. In contrast to unificationist accounts that aim for one globally unified ontology, it is argued that questions about the nature and reality of race do not always have the same answers across national contexts. In order address racial ontologies in global perspective, the article develops a framework that accounts for both continuities and discontinuities by looking beyond the referents of narrowly defined core concepts. By shifting the focus from narrow concepts to richer conceptions of race, racial ontologies become comparable through globally related but nonetheless distinct mappings between conceptions and property relations. The article concludes by showing how this framework can generate novel insights in case studies from Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

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Section: Unification Through a Minimalist Concept Of Racementioning

confidence: 99%

How race travels: relating local and global ontologies of race

Ludwig

2018

Philos Stud

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“…Recently, Gloria Wekker has criticised the Dutch self-representation of a good and tolerant people, and an associated attitude of not thoroughly interrogating racial discrimination, under the banner of white innocence. 29 Debates on what is sometimes called 'Dutch tolerance' have in recent years centred on the heavily racialised figure of Black Pete, but have a much longer history. In the early 2000s, in the wake of the murders on politician Pim Fortuyn and filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the subsequent increase of electoral support for far-right political parties, the Dutch self-image as an exceptionally open and tolerant country was intensively discussed.…”

Section: Postcolonial Fremdkörper: Wolfstonenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anxious about a Changing World: Twenty-First Century Low Countries Gothic Novels

Amelsvoort

2018

Dutch Crossing

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As the representation of Western modernity's dark undercurrent, the Gothic novel has since its inception in the 1760s developed and transformed alongside that modernity. This paper looks at two contemporary Gothic novels from the Low Countries, Herman Franke's Wolfstonen (2003) and Saskia de Coster's Wat alleen wij horen (2015), which are occupied with contemporary globalisation and immigration to the Netherlands and Belgium. Both novels cast the apartment buildings that are central to their plots as Gothic spaces fraught with images of modern, globalised society, as well as widespread anxiety over societal cohesion in ethnically and culturally diverse cities. An interdisciplinary reading constituted by gothic and postcolonial reading practices brings to the fore new elements of the Dutch and Flemish cultural imaginary. It reveals the continuous renewal of the gothic itself, but also into the changes brought to the Low Countries as a result of globalisation and immigration. These have their effect on the construction of community, a process that is articulated in both the form and the content of the novels' narratives. Ultimately, I argue, the gothic is put to work in these novels as a way of dealing with the anxieties about and uncertainties of a postcolonial world.

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“…The Dutch tend to think of themselves as the happy members of 'a small, but just, ethical nation (…) being inherently on the moral and ethical high ground, thus serving as a guiding light to other folks and nations.' 23 Typically, they congratulate themselves with their progressive liberal mind-set, tolerant towards minorities and taking a particularly enlightened and pragmatic approach towards drugs, abortion and euthanasia. 24 Purportedly too powerless to play a decisive role on the global scale, the Dutch usually see themselves as the innocent witnesses of historical events rather than accepting their full responsibility for their role as active participants in it.…”

Section: Identity Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%