We need new words: on transatlantic translations of race and racialisation

ABSTRACT

A book review of Ann Morning and Marcello Maneri's An Ugly Word: Rethinking Race in Italy and the United States, which assesses their intervention into the difficult but developing field in comparative international sociology of race and ethnicity. They advance a model that would replace reference to “race” or “ethnicity” with a more encompassing notion of “descent-based difference”. The review suggests their empirical evidence for the ongoing effects of the Du Boisian “colour line” and its origins in Eurocentric racial theories, runs counter to their analytical model, which tends to sanction a proliferation of the term “racialization” beyond the clear historical narrative of racial capitalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Race
• racism
• racialization
• comparative sociology
• colour line

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Correction

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2023.2281178).