Critical privilege studies: Making visible the reproduction of racism in the everyday and international relations

Abstract

Introduction

Racism is the oil in the system of colonial power that makes a sustained discrimination of and violence against certain people not only possible but also invisible and acceptable. (Rutazibwa, 2016: 196, emphasis added)

The world is undeniably in trouble. Crises and corollary insecurities are legible everywhere, marked by environmental degradation, healthcare panics, stark inequalities, militarized conflicts, and the rise of authoritarian movements and virulent alt-right populisms. That racism figures in producing and structuring these entwined crises is widely recognized, and, given its disciplinary remit, international relations is best positioned to examine ‘the link between race as a structuring principle and the transnational processes of accumulation, dispossession, violence and struggle that emerge in its wake’ (Anievas et al., 2015: 9). Yet international relations’ problematic engagement with race is now well-documented,¹ including the discipline’s ‘origin’ as an imperial racist project (Vitalis, 2015), the ‘willful amnesia’ that this encouraged (Krishna, 2001: 401), and the legacy of ‘racist epistemological assumptions that inform much of contemporary mainstream and even critical analyses of world politics’ (Sajed, 2016a: 168; see also Grovogui, 1996; Hobson, 2012; Gruffydd Jones, 2016). Revisiting points made in his 1997 book, Charles Mills (2015b: 542) concludes that ‘the racial contract is very much alive and well . . . and the “epistemology of ignorance” that now guards it is as active as ever’.

But the problem is larger. Despite abundant evidence of institutionalized racism, international relations persists not only in habitual neglect and a deeply flawed theorization of race, but also in actively resisting, marginalizing, depoliticizing, and hence devalorizing anti-racist research and those who produce it (Bhambra et al., 2020; Chowdhry and Rai, 2009; El-Malik, 2015; Shilliam, 2020; Vitalis, 2015). Given epistemological priorities, we might expect this resistance by conventionally ahistorical, non-reflexive mainstream scholars. But it is unexpected and poses fundamental questions when ardent resistance to critique is practiced by self-identified critical scholars, whose objectives presumably extend beyond the production of ‘more accurate descriptions’ to include the reduction, or at least mitigation, of structural violence. How is it possible for those who claim a critical orientation to be so ill-prepared, and evidently unwilling, to address ‘the daily, structural racism that unmistakably continues to plague our societies’ (Rutazibwa, 2016: 192)? What taken-for-granted premises and practices reproduce the invisibility of racism and the apparent acceptance of its harms? What are we failing to ‘see’, and how does this compromise what critical security studies and international relations scholars have to offer, especially in the face of mounting crises and the urgency of developing more adequate analyses?

Taking the social violence of systemic (structural, institutionalized) racism as its starting point, my essay assumes that race ‘is a central organizing feature of world politics’ (Zvobgo and Loken, 2020), that ‘epistemic racism is intrinsic to Western knowledge structures’ and pervades international relations theorizing (Howell and Richter-Montpetit, 2020: 4; see also Gruffydd Jones, 2016; Sabaratnam, 2020), and that ‘taking the problem of racism seriously in the field of [international relations] means viewing it not merely as an issue of stereotypes or cultural insensitivities, but as a colonial technology of life and premature death built on ideologies of whiteness and white supremacy’ (Rutazibwa, 2020). My forum intervention, then, takes up Olivia Rutazibwa’s (2016: 199) call ‘to contribute to a radically different, anti- or non-racist [international relations] and everyday’, and I do so by examining how the everyday and everywhere power relations of white privilege make the reproduction of racism ‘not only possible but also invisible and acceptable’ (Rutazibwa, 2016: 196). While I address the forum’s focus on racism, I note that more adequate critical theorizing is undermined if the reciprocally constructed phenomena of structural inequalities and systems of privilege are treated in isolation.

Why focus on privilege?

Privilege is always at someone else’s expense and always exacts a cost. Everything that is done to receive or maintain it – however passive and unconscious – results in suffering and deprivation for someone. (Johnson, 2006: 8)

Familiar structural inequalities – of race, gender, class, nationality – and corresponding systems of privilege constitute relations of domination and subordination that figure centrally in the social violence and multiple crises that international relations and security scholars struggle to address. These scholars, however, rarely engage a critique of privilege when interpreting these processes, which effectively perpetuates the invisibility (naturalization) of power relations and precludes more adequate critical theorizing. Privilege refers to socially conferred unearned advantages available to some by being constitutively denied to others. Two implications of this structural relationship: the privilege enjoyed by dominant groups is literally at the expense of subordinated groups, and systemic inequalities do not only harm those who are dominated but significantly benefit – every day and over time, intentionally and unintentionally, directly and indirectly – those who are privileged. Failing to ‘see’ this crucial, consequential and structural relationship – and its affective consequences – has enormous implications for how adequately we understand the reproduction of, and responses to, entrenched inequalities and the social violence they generate. Not least, we need to ‘see’ that conditions generating internalized inferiority in those who are subordinated have the effect of naturalizing internalized superiority in those who can, and typically do, assume that the advantages of privilege and their practices of domination are ‘just the way things are’.

Given the global expanse of harms, resentments, and violences that we confront, I argue that critical theorists – in security studies, international relations, and elsewhere – cannot afford to persist in neglecting privilege. This neglect perpetuates ignore-ance of consequential power relations and obscures how practices of privilege, every day and everywhere, operate to reinforce, normalize, and reproduce structural inequalities. I assume that critical security studies seeks to further a reduction in emotional and embodied harms produced by, and productive of, structural inequalities, and I argue that doing so requires accurately understanding and actively dismantling the power relations of privilege. Accordingly, I contend that failure to critically engage how privilege operates severely compromises both the quality of current theorizing and the future field of critical security studies.

My contribution, then, situates racism in the intersectional matrix of structural inequalities, foregrounds how systems of privilege operate to reproduce this matrix and its many harms, and examines the role of white privilege in reproducing the invisibility and normalization of racism (and its related inequalities). I present a condensed overview of what I call ‘critical privilege studies’² and indicate how this analytical framing contributes to ‘a radically different, anti- or non-racist [international relations] and everyday’ (Rutazibwa, 2016: 199). I argue that the systematic study of privilege shifts our attention, illuminates unfamiliar patterns, and enriches critical theorizing within and beyond international relations.

Critical privilege studies makes distinctive contributions, primarily by examining how those who benefit the most – every day and everywhere – participate in reproducing inequalities, sometimes intentionally but also – most often and most problematically – when not ‘consciously’ intending to do so (but doing so all the same). The specific orientation of critical privilege studies reveals how normalization reproduces – while concealing – the power relations and structural logics of dominant–subordinate relations, and how behaving ‘normally’ in unequal systems reinforces and reproduces their hierarchies, whether intentionally or not. Critical privilege studies clarifies how privilege works to entrench and amplify systemic inequalities, while enabling those with privilege to be unaware of, habitually ignore, and also deny how privilege tilts the playing field in their favor – a reality that fosters feelings of superiority for some and inferiority for others. And by recognizing that everyone occupies multiple social categories, critical privilege studies uniquely engages the complex dynamics of theorizing intersectionality and points to the inadequacy of critical projects that focus exclusively on a single vector of oppression.

Given complex arguments, an unfamiliar body of research, and space limitations, my goal in the following is both sufficient general coverage of critical privilege studies to convey its analytical framework and critical promise, and specific attention to racism – here, white privilege – in line with the theme of the forum.³ I summarize how critical privilege studies conceptualizes privilege, how key structural dimensions of privilege – invisibilization, normalization, entitlement – shape social relations every day and everywhere, and offer concluding reflections.

What is privilege?

No matter what form privilege takes, it involves everyone in one way or another. (Johnson, 2006: 55)

In early work on privilege, Peggy McIntosh (1988) sought a better understanding of male resistance to recognizing gender privilege, white women’s resistance to recognizing race privilege, and how ‘invisible’ power relations shape entrenched inequalities. McIntosh realized that she ‘had been taught [to see] racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see’ how it put her at an advantage (McIntosh, 1988: 2, emphasis added). By exploring privilege in interlocking hierarchies, McIntosh laid the groundwork for understanding privilege as unearned, exclusive, and socially conferred: unearned because not due to anything one personally did or failed to do; exclusive because privilege for some groups literally denies it to other groups; and socially conferred because it is an effect of social arrangements and how one is identified by others as belonging to a culturally valued category.

Privilege as it operates in the real world is patterned, by structural subject-positioning in dominant–subordinate relations, and also complicated, by diverse sites of privilege and dynamically shifting contexts. Systems of privilege – and their organizing logics – differ most obviously in relation to the inequality referenced (race, gender, nationality, religion), and the inequalities referenced differ with respect to their histories, locations, harms, ideological legitimations, and social practices. Systems of privilege also differ in the array of advantages that are available to dominant groups (self-esteem, mental and physical well-being, embodied health and security, cultural and material resources). At the same time, all of us all of the time ‘occupy’ multiple social categories (age, ability, sexuality, race, caste, nationality) and their differential valorizations; depending on contexts, we may be privileged in some (white, male), and in others subordinated (black, gay), or both simultaneously (white, lesbian) – obviously with significantly varying effects. I note that experiencing both privilege and subordination in shifting contexts produces a ‘blurring’ of experiences that (further!) complicates awareness of privilege as structural power relations (Wildman, 1996: 29).

The pioneering work of black feminists has taught us that systems of inequality do not operate along separate tracks but intersect in complementary, complicating, and even contradictory ways.⁴ Patricia Hill Collins (2000: 18) aptly concludes there are ‘few pure victims or oppressors. Each individual derives varying amounts of penalty and privilege from the multiple systems of oppression which frame everyone’s lives.’ In short, while the structural logics of domination and subordination figure in all systems of privilege, lived experiences of, for example, sexual, religious, and racial oppression are not simply analogous. Importantly, our location in multiple categories in mutating circumstances belies mono-dimensional analyses, and the variation among forms of domination and the heterogeneity and hierarchies that exist within social categories caution against ‘comparing oppressions’. The paramount consideration when interpreting privilege is how specific contexts always and pervasively shape which forms of privilege ‘matter’ and how participants interact.⁵

Privilege is also paradoxical, which figures – like the ‘blurring’ noted earlier – in obscuring its power relations. You can be privileged, even extremely privileged, without feeling happy, successful, or even feeling advantaged. Because contexts include conflicting statuses and fluid interactions, outcomes are rarely foregone conclusions. When inequalities are systemic (sustained by policies, laws, ideological and institutional controls), being ‘privileged’ or ‘subordinated’ has less to do with individual agency, choice, or intention than with how one is structurally positioned within social systems and how social categories are differentially valorized. What matters is ‘which category we happen to be sorted into by other people and how they treat us as a result’ (Johnson, 2006: 35). Privilege, then, does not guarantee only positive outcomes to the privileged or only negative outcomes to ‘the oppressed’. Contexts always and decisively matter.

What is guaranteed is that those who are privileged can, and typically do, take for granted unearned advantages that are at the expense of those who are not privileged. This effectively, inevitably, and often dramatically tilts the playing field, so that (by definition) those who are subordinated must participate in a relentlessly uphill struggle, in a game not of their choosing, and with fewer advantages or resources. At the same time – and this is a crucial, fundamental point – the tilt of the playing field necessarily shapes the conduct of all of the players and all of the results.

Structural patterns of privilege

We need to identify the key dimensions of privilege: the invisibility of privilege by those who have it; the power of the privileged group to determine the social norm; the naturalisation of privilege and the sense of entitlement that accompanies privilege. (Pease, 2010: 9)

I begin by noting that individualist, meritocratic, and liberal ideologies that are prevalent in whitened/Europeanized cultures effectively foster the invisibility of privilege (and much else) by discounting structural power relations. A structural, systemic perspective understands individual conduct as continuously shaped by and shaping the systems we inhabit; neither exists without the other, and neither can be reduced to the other. In complex ways, our positioning and participation within social structures implicate us in perpetuating, resisting, and/or reconfiguring these power relations. This constitutive premise, which a systemic perspective makes visible, must be recognized for those with privilege to recognize their participation in reproducing oppression, even – indeed, especially – when claiming not to.

Critical privilege studies foregrounds the invisibility of privilege as a singularly powerful mechanism for reproducing dominant–subordinate relations. On the one hand, invisibility ‘permits’ those with privilege to be unaware of, habitually disregard, and/or deny responsibility for how they systemically benefit from and variously contribute to oppressive conditions. Reproducing this core problem is the common assumption that harmful effects depend on willful intent; that oppressive conditions are caused solely by ‘bad’ people consciously intending to harm, discriminate, or exclude. This familiar reasoning confuses intentions with consequences. In systems based on structural inequality, simply adhering to societal norms – acting as culturally expected – reproduces harms and oppression whether they are intended or not (Diangelo, 2018: xiii).⁶ This common assumption has the insidious effect of encouraging those with privilege to presume that they are neither ‘being oppressive’ nor implicated in reproducing oppression unless the intention to harm (discriminate, exclude, oppress) is present. Most people – and presumably critical theorists – deny this intention, and, when a systemic sensibility is absent, will ardently defend themselves against any claim of their implication in or responsibility for perpetuating oppressive conditions.

On the other hand, invisibility not only disables privileged group awareness but also shapes how those without privilege understand and respond to oppressive social practices – including internalized inferiority as well as intense resentments and extensive resistance. The point here is that blindness to privilege by those who have it shifts responsibility for explaining, criticizing, and transforming oppression to those who suffer the most from it and have the fewest resources to fight it. We have abundant evidence that critics and protesters meet myriad forms of resistance, including not only opposition to specific proposals for change but also personal, sociocultural, and physical attacks on those who persist in challenging the status quo.⁷

These dynamics exemplify how structural positioning matters: while those experiencing subordination cannot afford to ignore oppressive conditions – and pay numerous ‘costs’ for protesting – those with privilege enjoy what Allan Johnson (2006: 22) calls the ‘luxury of obliviousness’ – the extraordinary advantage of being free to ‘choose’ whether and to what extent they ‘notice’ injustice, engage in critical reflection, and/or participate in ways that challenge status quo inequalities. I submit that this ‘luxury’ is particularly present among multiply privileged academics and figures in the ‘masking’ of power relations, ‘acceptance’ of racialized inequalities, and persistent marginalization of dissenting, critical voices.

The invisibility of power relations reflects processes of normalization, the second key dimension of privilege. The argument here is that qualities, characteristics, and priorities of dominant groups become systemic norms that shape everyone’s participation in unjust systems (Wildman, 1996). This includes habituated ways of identifying, thinking, and acting, and written and unwritten societal ‘rules’ that establish patterned social expectations. The latter constitute ‘paths of least resistance’ that most of us follow most of the time, and mostly unconsciously, because to do otherwise is literally ‘unexpected’ and meets varying forms of resistance – from curious stares, verbal challenges, and threatening behavior to physical and even lethal attacks (Johnson, 2006: 80). In effect, what dominant groups deem normal and preferred becomes the systemwide expectation and the presumed standard of comparison – the basis for measuring success and failure – for everyone.

This means that all participants, including the majority who are denied the advantages of privilege, are measured against – and expected to prioritize and conform to – the characteristics and expectations that are taken for granted as normal (and preferred) by the dominant, privileged, and advantaged group. Educational institutions epitomize this process of centering and reproducing norms and ‘knowings’ that elites have prioritized, including what constitutes appropriate inquiry, credible research, and quality scholarship. As referenced in the introduction, the obvious example in security studies and international relations is the dominance of Eurocentric/Western/white paradigms of knowledge production, the ahistorical, non-reflexive and reductive scholarship this cultivates, and the gatekeeping practices that sustain, while masking, racist epistemologies (Sajed, 2016a) and the ‘Eurofetishism’ of even critical international relations theory (Hobson and Sajed, 2017). And, of course, claiming as superior what is ‘normal’ for the dominating group repeats a naturalization of social hierarchy familiar in Eurocentric narratives of developmentalism, social Darwinism, and ‘modernization theory’.⁸

Similarly, what is marginalized – outside of the ‘center’ – is rendered at best secondary and literally of marginal significance, as we repeatedly witness in international relations’ Western/white-centric worldview that discounts interest in or knowledge of ‘the rest’. Two problems here: this worldview fosters willful ignorance of and failure to learn from variations in what globally diverse people do, think, and care about, which significantly distorts and impoverishes our understanding of social, including global, realities; and it occludes alternative visions, knowledges, experiences, and belief systems that matter in constructing, making sense of, and (especially) thinking otherwise about world politics.⁹ These patterns of privilege consciously and unconsciously underpin expectations and policies that demand conformity with, and even allegiance to, dominant group norms – as evidenced, for example, in citizenship tests, loyalty oaths, and criteria for academic publications and promotions. In this sense, the price of ‘recognition’, validation, or inclusion is assimilation, with the implicit and often explicit expectation that alternative ways of thinking, identifying, and doing – even if personally preferred – are best kept private or eliminated altogether.

These points bring us to the third dimension of privilege: superiority and entitlement. A sense of entitlement – feeling that one’s advantages are earned and therefore favorable treatment is deserved – is a predictable effect of being privileged.¹⁰ For dominating groups, having privilege is normal; it is invisible to them because it is just ‘the way things are’ (for them), and advantages can simply be taken for granted. Given socialization and societal norms, dominant groups understand their lives as not only ‘normal’ but ‘better, valued, superior’ lives – indeed, the standard of comparison for everyone. And, as already noted, those with privilege are unlikely to think of themselves as being oppressive or implicated in reproducing oppression unless a conscious intention to discriminate or harm is present. Finally, the presumption of superiority is further buttressed by relentless centering of privileged groups and their priorities, which encourages believing their disproportionate share of power is solely due to ‘natural’ superiority, without reference to violent histories, entrenched ideologies, and unjust power relations.

As McIntosh (1988: 2) observes, privileged groups are actually taught not to notice systemic inequalities, their role in reproducing them, and the benefits they gain. Noticing entails paying attention, which takes energy and time, and privileged groups have both the luxury of obliviousness (not noticing) and the corollary ‘freedom’ to choose whether and when they might notice and whether and how they might actually challenge systemic oppression. For those who are multiply privileged, moving through life is indeed easier; they are rarely subjected to the questioning, disparagement, disrespect, and other forms of social violence that burden the lives of subordinated groups. This immunity from experiencing ‘marked status’ treatment is a consequential advantage of being privileged, not least with regard to self-esteem and feeling entitled. It also suggests how little multiply privileged elites actually ‘know’ about the everyday conditions and lived experiences of those who are subordinated, and, by extension, how little they know of majority lives and systemic power relations. Being so uninformed, those with privilege habitually mistake how dramatically the field is tilted, how significantly they benefit from this, and how inadequately prepared they are to substantially advance critical theorizing.

Concluding reflections

Whites spend a lot of time trying to convince ourselves and each other that we are not racist. A big step would be for whites to admit that we are racist and then to consider what to do about it. (Wildman, 1996: 20)

I conclude with a brief review of how members of dominant groups typically respond to critiques of their privilege. I believe it confirms the validity and illustrates the implications of substantive points made throughout this essay, and especially how little those with white privilege actually know about majority lives and structural power relations. In one sense, it depicts patterned responses that are at best exasperating and at worst fatal for those experiencing subordination and taking risks to challenge the status quo. In a second sense, it prefigures ‘what must be done’ if self-proclaimed critics of racism are serious about accurately understanding and actively dismantling the power relations of privilege, including the seductions of feeling entitled.

Those with privilege obviously vary in the degree to which they are aware of and/or think consciously about structural inequalities and their effects. This suggests a continuum: ardent minimizers claim there is no ‘real’ problem, or diminish its seriousness, or declare they are tired of hearing about it when they too are suffering (or are victimized), or even contend that those who are subordinated actually benefit. Others are willing to acknowledge that forms of inequality exist but deny being implicated, usually by blaming the problem on those suffering from it and holding them responsible for fixing it. When such denials are challenged, responses include claiming that protestors are unnecessarily (unreasonably, irrationally) angry, complaining, whining, or exaggerating actual harms, given the presumption that protestors ‘cause’ the problem by their (abnormal, inferior, disturbing) behaviors. It is then the exclusive responsibility of those dominated to be aware of, analyze, and be able to explain the problem – calmly, logically, respectfully – if they expect to be ‘heard’, validated, or supported.

Awareness of serious problems may prompt ‘well-intended’ individuals to ‘help’ by reducing especially offensive practices, perhaps increasing ‘charitable’ efforts, or, more frequently, invoking an elite (superior, patronizing) analysis of what those who are dominated need to do to fix the problem. Those who claim a commitment to ‘fighting injustice’ tend to mistake a critique of their privilege as a personal attack and respond with an emotionally intense defense that confuses intentions with consequences and (re)focuses on the individual rather than the systemic problem.¹¹ For example: I am not racist/sexist/homophobic! Why are you attacking me? I am the one who is victimized! I am one of the good ones, an ally; I love or live/work/socialize with members of subordinated groups; I contribute to radical causes; I am not a ‘bad’ person (intending harm, exclusions), so I am clearly not being oppressive.

Unfortunately, and for reasons explored in this essay, when white privilege is challenged, responses rarely feature what is most needed: taking the problem seriously; forgoing self-defense; paying attention; listening; learning; relinquishing privilege; practicing humility; committing to personal change; working toward systemic transformation.

My contribution to the forum foregrounds how the everyday and everywhere power relations of white privilege make the reproduction of racism ‘not only possible but also invisible and acceptable’ in the everyday and international relations (Rutazibwa, 2016: 196). I support this claim by introducing ‘critical privilege studies’ as a necessary framework for ‘unmasking’ – making visible – the structuring logics of dominant–subordinate relations that constitute and sustain social inequalities. I argue that persistent neglect of privilege in the field of critical security studies necessarily compromises how adequately we understand the reproduction of, and responses to, entrenched inequalities and the social violence they generate. And I conclude that engaging a systematic critique of the power relations and structural logics of privilege is an urgent matter for the future of all fields of study that profess a critical orientation.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Security Dialogue reviewers for their helpful comments, to academic allies who tirelessly respond to my untimely requests, and to the fabulously smart and laffter-loving ‘transnational electro-fusion feminist septet of Zistas’ whose positive influence occasionally succeeded in improving my attitude toward 2020 – and other stuff of personal-global significance. Most importantly with regard to this article, a special thanks for unexpected, extraordinarily generous, enormously helpful and crucially heartening feedback from John Hobson. It made a difference I cannot adequately explain, but will not soon forget; I am deeply grateful.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

V Spike Peterson

Notes

Author biography

V Spike Peterson is Professor of International Relations in the School of Government and Public Policy, and affiliated faculty in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Institute for LGBT Studies at the University of Arizona, USA. Her cross-disciplinary studies explore how structural inequalities of gender, sexuality, class, race and nation are historically produced, intersectionally constituted, ideologically normalized and potentially transformed. She is currently researching sexual and racial logics shaping intimate-international relations, global political economy, citizenship regimes, alt-right nationalisms, and the politics of im/migration in our fraught neoliberal, neo-imperial present. Email: spikep@email.arizona.edu.

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