Managing racial risk in the U.S. university of the twenty-first century: racial theme parties, administrative management, and strategic resistance

Ramos, Teresa

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Description

Title

Managing racial risk in the U.S. university of the twenty-first century: racial theme parties, administrative management, and strategic resistance

Author(s)

Ramos, Teresa

Issue Date

2012-09-18T21:25:31Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Abelmann, Nancy A.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Abelmann, Nancy A.

Committee Member(s)

• Cacho, Lisa M.
• Lugo, Alejandro
• Parker, Laurence J.
• Rana, Junaid

Department of Study

Anthropology

Discipline

Anthropology

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Racial Theme Parties
• Higher Education
• Racial Risk-Management

Abstract

My dissertation investigated how incidents of racism were managed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the affect on students and administrators. I examined four ethnographic episodes on campus: 1) the racial theme party, Tacos and Tequila, 2) the retirement of Chief Illiniwek, 3) the “Next Dance,” an annual mock-Chief Illiniwek performance held on University Property by a registered student organization and 4) the vandalism of public art work by Hock E Aye VI Edgar Heap Of Birds (Cheyenne-Arapaho). I found that university administrators managed racism as racial-risk—that is the legal and financial liability that emerges from university governance dictated by the logics of corporate neoliberalism that influence U.S. law and culture. These observable racial-risk management strategies serve to control populations of student dissenters on campus by institutionalizing dissent in order to commodify it for profit.

Graduation Semester

2012-08

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Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2012 Teresa Marie Ramos.

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