BJS article accepted Sept 2017.pdf (726.48 kB)
Brexit, Trump, and ‘methodological whiteness’: on the misrecognition of race and class
The rhetoric of both the Brexit and Trump campaigns was grounded in conceptions of the past as the basis for political claims in the present. Both established the past as constituted by nations that were represented as ‘white’ into which racialized others had insinuated themselves and gained disproportionate advantage. Hence, the resonant claim that was broadcast primarily to white audiences in each place ‘to take our country back’. The politics of both campaigns was also echoed in those social scientific analyses that sought to focus on the ‘legitimate’ claims of the ‘left behind’ or those who had come to see themselves as ‘strangers in their own land’. The skewing of white majority political action as the action of a more narrowly defined white working class served to legitimize analyses that might otherwise have been regarded as racist. In effect, I argue that a pervasive ‘methodological whiteness’ has distorted social scientific accounts of both Brexit and Trump’s election victory and that this needs to be taken account of in our discussion of both phenomena.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
British Journal of SociologyISSN
0007-1315Publisher
WileyExternal DOI
Issue
S1Volume
68Page range
214-232Department affiliated with
- Geography Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2017-10-11First Open Access (FOA) Date
2019-11-08First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2017-10-11Usage metrics
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