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‘I Think it's Just Natural’: The Spatiality of Racial Segregation at a US High School

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  • Mary E Thomas

    (Department of Geography, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1341, USA)

Abstract

In this paper I consider the performativity of racial identities and difference at a southern US high school. I utilize Butler's performativity theory along with geographic theories of race, racial difference, and racism to argue that teenage girls reinstate racial difference through their everyday spatial practices. The paper has two substantive sections in addition to the introduction and the conclusion. The first explores the segregated high school lunchroom. Here I examine two girls' narratives and suggest that these girls encounter the spatiality of racial difference in the lunchroom and repeat the practices of segregated sitting. Thus, they reinscribe racialized difference and identity through their spatial practices of sitting with same-race friends. The second substantive section focuses on girls' practices of identifying others' racial identities. In this section I argue that these identifications are spatialized and that racial difference and categorization are achieved through spatial policing and boundary making. Throughout the paper I argue that racial identity and racial difference are performative, but that performativity must account for the normative spatiality of social and racial practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Mary E Thomas, 2005. "‘I Think it's Just Natural’: The Spatiality of Racial Segregation at a US High School," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(7), pages 1233-1248, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:37:y:2005:i:7:p:1233-1248
    DOI: 10.1068/a37209
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    Cited by:

    1. Lois Andre-Bechely, 2007. "Finding Space and Managing Distance: Public School Choice in an Urban California District," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(7), pages 1355-1376, June.
    2. Ruth Fincher & Kate Shaw, 2009. "The Unintended Segregation of Transnational Students in Central Melbourne," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(8), pages 1884-1902, August.
    3. Naomi Priest & Yin Paradies & Angeline Ferdinand & Lobna Rouhani & Margaret Kelaher, 2014. "Patterns of Intergroup Contact in Public Spaces: Micro-Ecology of Segregation in Australian Communities," Societies, MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-15, January.
    4. Mary E Thomas, 2008. "The Paradoxes of Personhood: Banal Multiculturalism and Racial–Ethnic Identification among Latina and Armenian Girls at a Los Angeles High School," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(12), pages 2864-2878, December.

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