Unseeing Racism: Naming Whiteness at the Intersections of Regimes of Data and Participation

Abstract

Pairing data-driven and participatory processes is an alluring approach for contentious urban issues. However, within these processes, the ongoing role of whiteness – an unnamed norm that privileges White people – is understudied and undertheorized. I examine how data and participation were positioned within conversations of gentrification in Lexington, KY. Beyond considering who participates, I analyse how the expectations and burdens of engagement associated with these processes were racialized. I argue that surfacing and problematizing racialized expectations of engagement disrupts how whiteness produces a strategic recognizing and disavowing – an unseeing – of racial oppression and thus diagnoses the whiteness of urban planning.

Keywords:

• American South
• gentrification
• digital geographies
• race
• whiteness

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to everyone in Lexington who made this project possible. I am grateful for the generous comments and support from Matthew Wilson, Sara Safransky, and Amber Bosse. Thanks also to the three anonymous reviewers, and the editorial assistance of Jill Grant, Heather Campbell, and Ellie Phillips.

Disclosure Statement

The author has no conflict of interests, financial or otherwise.

Notes

1 While political and ethical conventions for racial categories are debated, I capitalize White/Black/Colour when describing a person, or group of people. I do this to recognize that although racial categories denote superficial markers of skin color, they can also represent shared social or political identities. I do not capitalize other racial descriptors or processes, like whiteness, to recognize that processes of racialization are incomplete, multi-faceted, and mutable.

2 Previous local roundtables did include a discussion of race. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first event directly sponsored by Lexington’s urban-county government.

3 For individuals who did not publicly state their identity, I make assumptions based on superficial markers of presentation. Though flawed, assumed identities play an integral, though overlooked, component in participatory processes (Drew, 2012; Padley & Gökarıksel, 2021).

4 See https://www.rootcauseresearch.org/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emily Barrett

Emily Barrett is a doctoral student in the Community Research and Action Program at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include the politics of data-driven and participatory urban planning, the racial logics of municipal budgeting and urban development, and justice movements in the American South.