Visible whiteness: coming to terms with white racial identities

Abstract

[Abstract]: White racial identities are a largely unrecognized identity location. With race having become one of the key defining features of contemporary society, a considerable body of work has recently emerged exploring white dominant racial identity and identification. This paper reports on work undertaken with a group of middle-years high school students in Queensland Australia, and charts a course for understanding and coming to terms with whiteness. Emphasis is placed upon the description and critical analysis of signifiers of race present in the physical environment and how these come to provide reference points for understanding race. Through the application of a visual ethnographic methodology that engaged the research participants as active creators of knowledge, this paper explores some of the implications of race and whiteness and offers ideas for how an emancipatory view of race might be achieved.