Whiteness as a sociohistorical formation: Contemporary entry points for psychological research

Abstract

This article contributes to critical psychological scholarship by proposing a framework through which psychologists might study whiteness not as a personal characteristic but as a sociohistorical formation that continues to organize social interactions, spaces, emotions, and conceptions of personhood. We begin by profiling emergent scholarship premised on theories of sociohistorical whiteness and extend this perspective by offering a tripartite conceptualization grounded in whiteness’s original economic and legal justifications. We then present a series of illustrative contemporary outcroppings, or observable social phenomena, in which the legacy of sociohistorical whiteness becomes visible in its present-day cultural operations. We suggest that these moments comprise a metaphorical archive of practices and spatial arrangements through which whiteness is reproduced—and which psychologists are well positioned to investigate using qualitative and critical methods. Ultimately, such lines of inquiry can serve to deepen our understanding of the operations of whiteness in everyday life, which in turn promises greater insight into the social and relational processes by which racial meaning takes shape.