Race and Southern identities of resistance

Race and Southern Identities of Resistance

The United States has been for centuries now an example of historical struggle in creating a homogenous nation, with combining cultures and regional identities. There are discusiions among scholars related to the segregation that may exist at the level of the states, regardless any racial or regional identities. Such an aspect has been noted between the "South" and the rest of the American territory. From historical points-of-view, the South has undergone severe transformations, starting with the Civil War. However, at the moment, there are debates over this differentiation between this part of the country and the rest.

In the article "Racialization and "Southern" Identities of Resistance: A Psychogeography of Internal Orientalism in the United States" by David Jansson, the author addresses this particular issue, by following different ideas, identities, and interviews aimed at answering the question on whether there is a different identity for the people in the South as opposed to those in Virginia and the rest of America.

The main point of the article focuses on the way in which the South has created a particular identity in the American culture; this is not to say that the author agrees with such a stand, but, through scientific means, he tries to assess the level in which such a specific identity exists. The basis of his argumentation focuses on the fact that, given historical changes and events, the South has often been considered as different from the rest of America. This in turn, according to the author has created "an essentialist binary of the imagined spaces of "America" and "the South," such that representations of "the South" inform the mean- ing of "America," and I consider this binary an in- stance of internal orientalism." More precisely, the term Orientalism can be seen as the reaction of the community to a particular intent of becoming occidental. More over, the need to resist the uniformity or the strive of uniformity by the few has determined a different stand and therefore a new regional identity, the Southerners. The author tries to assess the degree in which resistance plays a part in creating a new identity. Moreover, Jansson underlines in his study the role stereotypes play in distributing a new identity for Southerners, both black and white.

The article is very comprehensive in providing the necessary information, especially theoretical information needed to explore the subject from an academic point-of-view as well as from a practical one. More precisely, the author points out the need to clearly specify the academic background and the discussions that have been ongoing by different scholars. In this sense, Jansson makes clear reference when defining the term "internal orientalism." Despite the fact that such terms have been further discussed in previous studies, the author brings a different stand on the term and offers it a new dimension when combined with the term "the other" and psychogeography. Therefore, his aim is to further discuss not necessarily the role and meaning of internal orientalism but also to undergo an analysis of the factors that may influence them and may determine different outcomes of the debate.

Aside from the academic background and the information received from previous studies, Jansson also makes use of the interview technique in order to have a better sense of the realities on the ground for the areas under analysis. More precisely, the interviews undertaken for the study include members of the "Southern" nationalist organization League of the South, and with African-Americans in the Lynchburg, Virginia, area." The aim was to have sufficient information for a conclusion of the study to be drawn. These sets of interviews are used extensively for creating several logic statements and conclusions, reason for which they are extremely relevant for the study.

For this article there was a limited amount of statistical information used. This is largely due to the fact that the subject of the article implied important sociological analysis and therefore the interview method was a better method of gathering information.