Emergent Bodies: Rethinking Race and Racialization Through Materialities

Abstract

Introduction A ccording to Saldanha (2010), “all politics ultimately seek ways of reorganizing the social for there to be justice and peace, however defined” (p. 283). Recently, the National Art Education Association (NAEA) has harnessed the energy surrounding collective organizing and protesting into conversations about racism that are part of producing socially just possibilities using art and education. NAEA highlights racism as discriminatory and exclusionary, as well as a practice that is normalized, institutionalized, and systematized for the benefit of one group over another, with narratives and images that support its painful fictions (Rolling, 2020a; Rolling & Bey, 2016). Critical race theory is the main framework associated with these conversations. Introduced in the 1970s, critical race theory was developed by legal scholars and others to further understand why race-based oppression and White privilege continue to exist, and how the law could serve emancipatory actions and change. They point to how race is socially constructed, made normal, used to exploit and oppress people of color, and functions to create inequities (Price, 2010). Moreover, they address intersectionality, structural injustices, hate crimes, and voting rights, among other issues, and how placing people in racial categories has material effects in relation to power and wealth (Nash, 2003). In using critical race theory for insights into racism, scholars connect race to diverse discursive concepts with cultural representations of race, and they use narrative or counterstory to question the status quo and rework racialized injustice. They also encourage teachers and students, among others, to be aware of their privileges, biases, beliefs, values, stories, and the stereotypes that they hold, so they can understand how this affects the work that they do and how they interact in the world (Desai, 2010; Kraehe et al., 2018; Lee & Lutz, 2005; Rolling, 2020a, 2020b; Rolling & Bey, 2016).