Abstract
In Beyond Loving: Intimate Racework in Lesbian, Gay, and Straight Interracial Relationships, Amy Steinbugler explores interracial relationships through the lens of “racework”: a term that refers to the everyday actions and strategies that individuals in interracial relationships use to maintain closeness and intimacy across lines of racial stratification. This is a welcome contribution to the literature for a number of reasons. First, interracial marriages are increasing. As of 2010, interracial relationships account for only 6.9 percent of all marriages, yet 15.1 percent of new marriages, defined as individuals that married within 12 months of being surveyed, are interracial (Fitzgerald 2014). Second, this work expands on previous research on interracial couples in that it includes same-sex couples in addition to heterosexual couples. This strategy allows Steinbugler to not only explore previously neglected interracial intimacies, but to scrutinize intersecting systems of oppression, to “analyze how everyday racial practices are shaped by sexuality and gender” (p. xiv). While most scholars see the importance of understanding systems of and experiences of privilege and inequality through the lens of intersectionality, it is still difficult to find really good research that captures the lived reality of intersecting systems of oppression. This work manages to do just that. Finally, Steinbugler’s reliance on qualitative research highlighting the voices of her interviewees, and the use of the concept of racework, allows us to understand how interracial couples navigate racially homogeneous worlds as well as partner’s differing levels of power and privilege. She looks at the ways racework operates within public spaces, intimate interactions, and identities. Forming the core of her work, she explores four specific types of racework: boundary work, visibility management, emotional labor, and navigating racial homogeneity.
One of the best examples she offers for how racework differs between heterosexual interracial couples and same-sex interracial couples involves visibility management. Her research finds that heterosexual interracial couples struggle with contrasting visibility issues: hypervisibility and invisibility. Their mere presence often generates strangers’ attention, ranging from curious to hostile. Other times, they struggle with invisibility; strangers seem incapable of viewing them as a couple. Same-sex interracial couples face a much more profound sense of invisibility, according to Steinbugler, but the invisibility varies by gender. For instance, gay male interracial intimacy is more visible than lesbian interracial intimacy. A black man and a white man together in public are more likely to be recognized as a couple than a female interracial couple, particularly if both women appear stereotypically feminine. Ultimately, Steinbugler argues that the “joint workings of sexism, racism, and heteronormativity privilege certain bodies and marginalize others” (p. 59). Interracial couples engage in visibility management where they embrace strategies for dealing with prejudices such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. She continues, “Depending on their sexuality and gender, interracial partners experience marginalization through strangers’ overt stares, sighs, or comments, or through the inability of others to recognize their relationship. In other words, prejudice can visually connect two people, making their marginalized identity hypervisible, or it can dislocate partners, rendering their intimacy invisible” (p. 72).
A limitation of this work is that she explores black–white relationships only and ignores the myriad other interracial combinations possible. The author justifies the decision the way most researchers who study interracial relationships do: by emphasizing that these are the relationships that have been defined as the most deviant and thus, have been the most prohibited. Yet while she acknowledges that this methodological design contributes to a false binary understanding of race as black/white, it is time to stop limiting research of interracial relationships to black–white relationships. Including Latino-white, Asian-black, Native-white, and so on, relationships with black–white relationships will expand our understanding of racework and the ways systems of oppression intersect. For instance, we know that interracial marriage rates vary along gender and group lines; Asian American women tend to marry interracially more than Asian American men, and white and black women show more racially exclusive dating patterns than white and black men (Robnett and Feliciano 2011; Yancey and Lewis 2009). It would be beneficial to know more about the experiences behind these patterns; an understanding of the lived experiences of individuals in such relationships would provide a deeper understanding of the intersection of gender and race. This limitation notwithstanding, Steinbugler has given us a smart sociological analysis of interracial intimacies.