Sociology Program and Dean of the College Present

Reckoning with Race: Concepts of Difference and Racial Inequality in Organizations

How do organizations fight for racial inequality? While discussions about the meaning of race are increasingly within the context of organizations, little is known about how they understand race as a category of difference. Based on 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews (N=47) at a diverse community health center (CHC), I show how organizational race concepts are critical to the fight for racial inequality. Where past research has pointed to individual socialization, education, and identity as predictors of race concepts, I argue that organizations are critical sites of racial sense making subject to a different set of factors. Influenced by meso-level factors, the CHC emphasized race as rooted in culture, despite organizational commitments to a structural approach to racial inequality. The cultural concept of race in turn constructed anti- racist action at the organization, limiting its work to culture-based interventions. This case illustrates why organizations may adopt courses of action related to race in contention with their stated aims, advancing theories of race and strengthening institutional approaches to inequality.

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For more information, call 845-758-7662, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Olin 102

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