White Euro-Canadian Women in Transracial/Cultural Families: Lived Experiences of Race and Difference
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White Euro-Canadian Women in Transracial/cultural Families: Lived Experiences of Race and Difference by Willow Allen M.P.P.A. Concordia University, 2008 B.A. McGill University, 2003 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Languages, Cultures and Literacies Program Faculty of Education Willow Allen 2017 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2017 Approval Name: Willow Allen Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title: White Euro-Canadian Women in Transracial/cultural Families: Lived Experiences of Race and Difference. Examining Committee: Chair: Kumari Beck Associate Professor Dr. Dolores van der Wey, PhD Senior Supervisor Assistant Professor Dr. Roumiana Ilieva Supervisor Associate Professor Dr. Özlem Sensoy Supervisor Assistant Professor Dr. Elise Chenier Internal Examiner Professor Department of History Dr. Katerina Deliovsky External Examiner Assistant Professor Department of Sociology Brock University Date Defended/Approved: December 14, 2016 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract How do we come to know difference? How do we transform our conceptualizations of difference? This qualitative research study explores the experiences and practices of white Euro-Canadian women in transracial/cultural families with black African new immigrant partners in the Canadian socio-political context. Drawing on critical race feminisms, critical whiteness studies, and antiracism theory, I analyze the interlocking subjectivities of these women in relation to histories of colonialism and nation-building (Carter, 1997; Razack, 2002; Thobani, 2010; Ware, 1992). I examine how the women conceptualize, negotiate, reproduce, and resist dominant ideologies of difference in their lives. I complicate the construct of white femininity, and posit that white women have a distinct responsibility to resist and disrupt white supremacy, and that they can play a key role in doing so (Deliovsky, 2003; Moon, 1999; Najmi & Srikanth, 2002). I consider how white women in transracial/cultural families can be imagined as agentive actors, who can be part of broader social and political change through literacy practices they perform in the everyday learning spaces of their lives (Collins, 2000; Frankenberg, 1993; hooks, 1990, 1992; Twine, 2010). Throughout the study, I problematize the nature of multiculturalism, the notion of ‘culture,’ the construct of whiteness, and dominant conceptions of ‘Africa’ and ‘Africans’ in Canadian and postcolonial African contexts (Dei, 1996; Fleras, 2014; Frankenberg, 1993; Mayer, 2002; Walcott, 1997). I posit that through their transgressions across multiple forms of difference, transracial/cultural families come to occupy spaces of ‘inbetweenness,’ in which new ways of knowing and being in the world are possible (Brah, 1996; Luke & Luke, 1998). I assess how these women and their families can help us reimagine constructions of difference, which I argue is imperative for the future of diverse western societies, as tensions increase regarding how to "manage diversity" (Essed, 2007; Steyn, 2015; Vertovec, 2015). I seek to contribute to the limited scholarship on white women in multiracial families, and to add to antiracism theory and critical whiteness studies by shedding light on issues of race and antiracism in the home and community. Keywords: Transracial families; multiracial families; white women; white femininity; antiracism; antiracism parenting iv Dedication This work is dedicated to the disruptive moments of possibility that can take place in the everyday spaces of our lives: in kitchens, in living rooms, in parks, in community centres. It is in moments of disruptive possibility that our current frames of reference can be challenged and we can be pushed to recognize that what we do not know is more important than what we think we do know. This work is dedicated to those who are willing to face themselves, and to name their limits of knowing while remaining committed to learning/unlearning. This work is dedicated to women’s labour-to women who wake up early, who stay up late, and everywhere in between, to resist in whatever way they can. Their labour matters, their labour is political, and it is the labour that will make or break a nation. v Acknowledgements I acknowledge my senior supervisor, Dr. van der Wey, for her supervision, mentorship, and so much more over the past six years. Thank you for being committed to this journey with me, and for continuing to challenge and push me intellectually to move beyond my knowing, while enabling me to recognize that there is much I will never and cannot know. I thank my committee members for their critical feedback on my work and for pushing my thinking forward. For my partner, who lives racialized difference in ways I never will, and who understandably does not want to intellectualize issues of difference everyday, all day. Thank you for hearing, supporting and encouraging me, even when it has been challenging to do so. Thank you for sharing the understanding that passion and purpose must be pursued, and that grateful happiness is living a life in which one’s labour has both. Most of all, thank you for struggling with me through layers of internal colonization, through lives of difference, and through different epistemologies and ontologies. Finally, thank you for calling me out, for naming colonization, privilege and whiteness, and for forcing me to reflect and (continue to) figure it out myself. I gratefully thank my sister, as well as my mother, who have passionately loved and cared for my daughter and who have taken care of me while I wrote this thesis. They ensured that even at seemingly impossible moments, this work would be completed and I could negotiate the competing forms of labour in my life. I thank the participants in this study, or co-creators of knowledge, for investing in this collaborative research process with me; and for sharing their experiential knowledge and personal experiences with me, through the most intimate of mediums-the personal narrative. I thank them for introducing me, and the readers of this text, to rich pieces of their social worlds in an effort to create greater understanding and expanded conceptualizations of transracial/cultural families in Canada. vi Table of Contents Approval .......................................................................................................................... ii Ethics Statement ............................................................................................................ iii Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iv Dedication ....................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vi Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 Situating the self: Impetus and embodied knowledge ...................................................... 1 Transracial/cultural families ............................................................................................. 5 White Euro-Canadian women .......................................................................................... 7 Colonial ideologies of difference ...................................................................................... 9 Study overview .............................................................................................................. 13 Chapter 2. Literature Review ................................................................................... 17 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 17 Multiracial families ......................................................................................................... 17 Multiracial individuals and families: Key themes in the literature .................................... 20 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 32 White women of European-descent in mixed-race families: Overview and key themes ................................................................................................................. 34 Overview .............................................................................................................. 34 Key themes and issues in the literature ................................................................ 39 Summary .............................................................................................................. 54 My contribution to the literature ..................................................................................... 55 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 3. Theoretical Frameworks ....................................................................... 61 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 61 Whiteness Studies .......................................................................................................