"We're the Show at the Circus": Racially Dissecting the Multiracial Body. Issue 2 (29th April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Curington, Celeste Vaughan
• Is Part Of: Symbolic interaction. Volume 44:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 269
• Page End: 291
• Publication Date: 2020-04-29
• Subjects: multiraciality -- racialization -- dating and intimate relations -- intersectionality; Symbolic interactionism -- Periodicals; Interactionnisme symbolique -- Périodiques; 302
• DOI: 10.1002/symb.484
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0195-6086

Abstract

Abstract : This work illustrates how the meaning and consequence of multiraciality are formed within a racialized interaction order. Drawing from 76 interviews with single‐race and multiracial online daters, I argue that online daters reinforce racialized and gendered categorical differences through their examination of the mixed‐race body. I refer to this process as "multiracial dissection, " an intersubjective racialization process that invests bodies with racial and gendered meanings. Multiracial dissection may lead to feeling sexual interest on the part of the observer, but mixed‐race respondents' narratives illustrate how it is also a form of othering that reinforces stereotypes about monoracial femininities and masculinities in the racialized interaction order of online dating.