MONDAY NIGHT LECTURE SERIES | PERSONHOOD | FALL 2023

Races of Property: Property Relationships and Divergent Racial Formation

Bethany Berger • University of Connecticut

November 27th @ 6pm • Daniel Family Commons   

How do property relationships shape the distinct racial imaginations and restrictions affecting different groups? Race and property are both social creations creating power relations with respect to things of value. They both organize access to legal and social personhood. But the forms racism and property take shift with time, place, and—even within the same time and place—with respect to different racialized groups. This talk argues that property relationships powerfully influenced the forms racism took for different racialized groups in the United States. In particular, whether a group is primarily a source of labor, possessor of desired land, or potential competitor for wealth or status transforms the controlling images and legal and social restrictions affecting the group. The property relationships attached to marriage and childbearing further help to explain the distinct gender images facing racialized groups. Focusing on African Americans, Indigenous peoples, ethnic Chinese, and racialized “off-White” ethnic groups as paradigmatic examples, this talk explores the crucial role that a group’s relationship to valued resources plays in its trajectory of racism.

Personhood
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