By Gurnam Singh | Opinion |
I love Infographics and this one on ‘white privilege’ is really good. However, the downside of this kind of pedagogical method is that it can oversimplify what are often very complex and contingent ideas. White privilege is real but whiteness is a social construct. That means that whiteness functions as a kind of floating signifier that has no meaning for or of itself.
Floating signifiers have a wide range of meanings and can be easily manipulated or filled with different connotations based on the context in which they are used. They lack fixed or stable meaning and depend on the interpretation of the audience or users. First introduced by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and later developed by scholars in fields like semiotics, cultural studies, and critical theory, floating signifiers are seen as key elements in the construction of meaning and the dynamics of power, as they enable the creation of narratives, ideologies, and symbolic systems that shape social reality.
Whiteness as a floating signifier has been explored and critiqued by scholars in fields like critical race theory, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies. By examining how whiteness operates as a floating signifier, these scholars seek to unveil the ways in which race is constructed, racial hierarchies are maintained, and social injustices are perpetuated. In this context, whiteness, can operate in multiple ways, but most typically as a synonym for ‘normality’, ‘goodness’, ‘beauty’, ‘rationality’, ‘purity’, ‘entitlement’, etc.
The flexibility of whiteness as a floating signifier allows it to serve various functions. It can be used to reinforce existing power dynamics, maintain social hierarchies, or uphold systems of privilege. At the same time, it can be deconstructed to reveal the arbitrary nature of racial categorisations.
And so whilst I mostly agree with the conception of ‘white privilege’ offered in the infographic, I feel there are five questions that I would pose for reflection on the use of the concept of white privilege more generally:
1: It is focussed mostly on behavioural and attitudinal concerns/remedies without helping us to understand the production and reproduction of privilede within political and economic structures of society. In other words how ‘white privilede’ functions at a structural level.
2: It doesn’t offer any theory of history and culture that can help us to make sense of the discursive aspects of white privilege and dominance.
3: It assumes we know what is meant by ‘white people’ and who is a ‘white person’!
4: It fails to help us situate ‘non-white’ privilege and the historic role of black/brown elites and whiteness.
5: I doesn’t really address the way whiteness or more actuators ‘coulourism’ operates across and within racialised groups as well as caste and class based discrimination, for example in India
Gurnam Singh is an academic activist dedicated to human rights, liberty, equality, social and environmental justice. He is an Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Warwick, UK. He can be contacted at Gurnam.singh.1@warwick.ac.uk
* This is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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