Loveman is Race Essential

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Is "Race" Essential?Author(s): Mara LovemanSource: American Sociological Review, Vol. 64, No. 6 (Dec., 1999), pp. 891-898Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2657409Accessed: 12/11/2008 10:12

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COMMENT AND REPLYCOMMENTON BONILLA-SILVA,ASR,JUNE 1997

IS RACE ESSENTIAL?Mara LovemanUniversityof California,LosAngeles

In his recent article in the American Socio-logical Review, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva(1997, henceforward EBS) argued that thecentralproblemof the various approachesto

the study of racial phenomena is their lackof a structural heory of racism (p. 465). Heidentified several limitations of existing ap-proaches,including the tendency to treat rac-ism too narrowly: as psychological and irra-tional (as opposed to systemic and rational);as a free-floating ideology (as opposed tostructurallygrounded);as a historical legacy(as opposed to a contemporarystructure);asstatic and epiphenomenal (as opposed tochanging and autonomous); as evident onlyin overt behavior (as opposed to both overtand covert behavior). EBS believes that astructural heory of racism based on the con-cept of racialized social systems can over-come these shortcomings (p. 469).Although I agree completely with EBSabout the importance of improving our un-derstandingof the causes, mechanisms, andconsequences of racial phenomena, l I ar-gue that his structural heory of racism isdecisively not the best analytical frameworkfor accomplishingthis goal. The utility of histheoretical framework is undermined by

three critical pitfalls: (1) confounding cat-egories with groups, (2) reifying race, and(3) maintaining the unwarrantedanalyticaldistinction between race and ethnicity.These three flaws underminethe usefulnessof his racialized social system frameworkfor improving our understandingof histori-cal and contemporary meanings of raceand consequences of racism.To avoid these pitfalls and to understandmore fully how race shapes social relationsand becomes embedded in institutions,race should be abandonedas a category ofanalysis. This would increase analytical le-verage for the study of race as a categoryof practice.2To improve our understandingof racial phenomena we do not need astructural theory of racism but rather ananalytical framework that focuses attentionon processes of boundary construction,maintenance, and decline-a comparativesociology of group-making-built on theWeberianconcept of social closure.CONFOUNDING CATEGORIESWITH GROUPSThe first majorpitfall of the frameworkEBSproposes is that it treats as natural and auto-matic the move from the imposition of racialcategories to the existence of concretegroups that embody those categories.Racialized societies are defined as soci-eties in which economic, political, social,andideological levels arepartiallystructuredby the placement of actors in racial catego-ries or races (p. 469). Race thus seems tobe used as a synonym for racialcategories.EBS, however, does not maintain this ana-lytical usage of race. In his next paragraph,he argues: In all racialized social systemsthe placement of some people in racial cat-egories involves some form of hierarchythatproduces definite social relations between

2 Refering to race as a category of practicedoes not imply in any way that race is merelyepiphenomenal, just as recognizing that race sa social construction does not imply in any waythat it is not real in its consequences.

* Direct correspondence to Mara Loveman,UCLA Department of Sociology, 2201 HersheyHall, Box 951551, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551([email protected]). For their insightful com-ments and helpful suggestions, I thank RogersBrubaker, Rachel Cohen, Jon Fox, PeterStamatov,Lofc Wacquant,Roger Waldinger, andASR's anonymous reviewers. I gratefully ac-knowledge support received from the MellonFoundation's Programin Latin American Sociol-ogy.1It should be clear from this that I oppose theclaim made by some theorists that race is nolonger relevant and should not be a focus of so-ciological analysis.


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892 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWthe races (p. 469). Clearly, racial catego-ries and races have ceased to be synony-mous- racial categories have producedraces n an entirely different sense.

EBS thus uses the term race analyticallyto mean both racialcategory (p. 469) andracialized social group (p. 471). The prob-lem is not simply that the conceptual frame-work employs this dual analytical under-standingof race, but that it hinges upon theanalytical conflation of race as categorywith race as social group. This conflationappearswarranted,given the assumption thatracial categories both create and reflect theexperienced reality. According to EBS, cat-egorization into races --or racializa-tion -engenders new forms of human as-sociation with definite status differences.After racial labels are attached to apeople, race becomes a real category ofgroup association and identity (pp. 471-72).Although this may be the case in particu-lar contexts in particularhistorical periods,it is not axiomatic that membershipin a cat-egory will correspond directly to experi-enced group boundaries or social iden-tities.3 The extent to which categories andgroups do correspond,andthe conditions un-der which they do so, should be recognizedas important theoretical questions that aresubject to empirical research (Jenkins1994).4 By adoptinga conceptual frameworkthat fails to maintain the analytical distinc-tion between category and group, classifica-tion and identity, such potentially rewardingavenues of research and theorization areforeclosed.

Although EBS is correct in arguing thatthesocially constructednatureof race does notmake it less than real, his frameworkdoesnot recognize the variability and contingencyof the real consequences of race as, inBourdieu's (1990) terminology, a principle ofvision and division of the social world. Onthe one hand, EBS writes of the classifica-tion of a people in racial terms (p. 471) as ifa bounded, clearly demarcatedgroup existedobjectively, out there, before the process ofcategorization. Categories sometimes may besuperimposedon already recognized and op-erative social boundaries, and perhaps maychange their meaning without altering theircontent. But they also may create new divi-sions, making possible the emergence ofpeoples who had not previously recognizedthemselves, nor had been recognized by oth-ers, as such (Hacking 1986; Horowitz 1985;Petersen 1987).On the other hand, the extent to whichrace becomes a basis of group associationandidentity as a consequence of imposed ra-cial categorization is historically variable.Again, this point raises the question of therelationship between imposed categories, theidentity of the categorized, and experiencedgroupness (Jenkins 1994). EBS's analyticalframework may permit such contingencyduring the initial process of racialization;within a racialized social system, however,it provides no leverage for exploring thevariable relationship between categories,identities, and the groupness experiencedbecause the analytical distinction betweencategories and groups is not maintained.

EBS points out that races are sociallyconstructed,and therefore that themeaningand the position assigned to races in the ra-cial structureare always contested (p. 472).In this formulation, however, the groupnessof the actorsin a racialized social system isassumed. By definition, races exist as col-lective actors in a racialized social system(even if, at some moments, nonracial-classor gender-interests arethe primaryfocus oftheir attention). Contention occurs over themeaning (positive/negative stereotypes) andthe position (subordinate/superordinate)ofdifferent races, not over the existence oroperation of racial boundaries themselves(Barth 1969; Roediger 1991). Racial poli-tics entail strugglesover boundaries;this fact

3 This observation is not new. As Weber([1922] 1968) explained,It is by no means true that the existence of com-mon qualities, a common situation, or commonmodes of behavior mply the existence of a com-munalsocial relationship.Thus,for instance,thepossessionof a commonbiological inheritancebyvirtue of which persons are classified as belong-ing to the same 'race,' naturally mplies no sortof communalrelationshipbetween them. (P. 42)

Generations of Marxist scholars also havegrappled with this issue in efforts to theorize therelationship between class-in-itself' and class-for-itself.

4 In some cases, analysis of processes of cat-egorization may reveal more about the categor-izers than the categorized (Jenkins 1994:207;Stuchlik 1979).


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COMMENT AND REPLY 893is not brought nto focus by an analytical lensthat treats the existence of bounded, racial-ized collective actors-races-as the logical(natural?) outcome, as well as the definingcharacteristic,of racialized social systems.REIFYING RACEAfter conflating racial categories with racialgroups, it is only another small step to ob-jectifying races as races. In racialized so-cial systems-societies that are partiallystructuredby the placement of actors in ra-cial categories-races exist. Indeed, this is soby definitionin the conceptual language used(racial categories = racialized social groups= races). The analyticalframeworkproposedby EBS thus depends on the reification ofrace ;races are real social groups and col-lective actors.EBS seems to recognize this problematicaspect of his conceptual framework, whichaccounts for his comment in a footnote that''races (as classes) are not an 'empiricalthing'; they denote racialized social relationsor racialpractices at all levels (p. 472, fromPoulantzas 1982:67). This disclaimer, how-ever, is in profound tension with theconceptualization of races as social groupswith particular life chances and as collec-tive actors with objective racial interests(p. 470). As EBS explains, Insofar as theraces receive different social rewards at alllevels, they develop dissimilar objective in-terests, which can be detected in theirstruggles to either transform or maintain aparticularracial order (p. 470).

Preempting the criticism that racesthemselves may be stratified by class andgender, EBS argues, The fact that not allmembers of the superordinaterace receivethe same level of rewards and (conversely)that not all members of the subordinateraceor races are at the bottom of the social orderdoes not negate the fact that races, as socialgroups,are in either a superordinateor a sub-ordinateposition in a social system (p. 470).Yet this attemptto defend his framework ac-tually reveals a more profound analyticalshortcoming: Although his framework per-mits variability in individual life chanceswithin a race, the boundaries-and theboundedness-of the races themselves areassumed to be unproblematic.

The limitations of this reified conceptual-ization of race become readily apparentwhen EBS addresses the problem of racein Latin America. He suggests that in coun-tries such as Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico, racehas declined in significance, but that thesecountries still have a racial problem insofaras the racial groups have different lifechances (p. 471). Race is treated as athing in this formulation;in addition, it istreated as the same thing in each of theseplaces as in the United States. It is conceptu-alized as varying in salience or importance,but not in meaning. EBS himself criticizesother approachesfor failing to recognize thechange over time in the meaning of race nthe United States. Yet his own analyticalframework forecloses the possibility of com-parative analysis of the varied meanings of

race across time and place, and of the re-sulting variabilityin its consequences for so-cial organizationand domination.As one example, reification of race ob-scures the problematic nature of the claimthat in Brazil the racialgroups have differ-ent life chances and hence different objec-tive racial interests. This assumptionclashes with the experience of political ac-tivists of the movimento negro, whose firstand most challenging task in mobilizingpeople around race in Brazil has been tomake people think in racial terms so thatthey might see why and how race mat-ters in their lives. Central to this goal havebeen efforts to encourage Brazilians to cat-egorize themselves according to a dichoto-mous understandingof race -based on theU.S. model -that does not automaticallyor obviously resonate with their own experi-ence and understanding of race as muchmore flexible and subject to context(Hanchard 1994; Harris 1970; Nobles 1995;Wagley 1965).The assumption that races exist asbounded, socially determinedgroups is alsoproblematic in the United States, howeverwarranted t may seem for those accustomedto viewing race through the prism ofUnited States experience. The disjuncturebetween discrete, mutually exclusive racialcategories and the potential ambiguity andblurrinessof racial boundaries in people'sexperience in the United States has come tothe fore in recent political struggles over the


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894 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWinclusion of a mixed race category in thenext census.Once it is recognized that the boundariesbetween races, and hence the existence of

races, cannot be deduced from the exist-ence or imposition of racial categories,whether in Brazil or in the United States, theattribution of objective racial interests tothe putative races becomes all but mean-ingless. Even if racial nterests are definedin a nontautological manner, the notion thatsuch interests are objective and can be iden-tified from the struggles of races over theirposition in the racial hierarchy falls apartonce the existence of races per se is madeproblematic.The assumption that races exist as col-lective actors cannot be the starting point ifthe goal is to understandwhat race means,and how, and with what consequences, it op-erates as a principle of vision and division ofthe social world across time and place. Theanalyst should focus on the groupness itself,and hence on the processes of boundary-making and unmakingin relation to systemsof categorization and processes of social in-clusion and closure. This requiresan analyti-cal framework that is not built on a reifiedconceptualization of race.DISTINGUISHING ANALYTICALLYBETWEEN RACE AND ETHNICITYThe third analytical pitfall is the unfoundedinsistence on distinguishing analytically be-tween race and ethnicity, and the attemptto theorize the formerin intellectual isolationfrom the latter.5 Although EBS insists thathis conceptual frameworkis applicable onlyto racialized social systems, he does notmake clear the analytical bases for distin-guishing racialized systems from ethni-cized systems.The justification offered for distinguishinganalytically between race and ethnicity isbased on an empirical understandingof theirdifferences. According to EBS, ethnicity

5 Theorists have offered several reasons fordistinguishing analytically between race andethnicity ;some are more compelling than oth-ers. Space constraintsprevent a full considerationof this issue here. My comments explicitly ad-dress only the type of rationale EBS offers.

has a primarilysocioculturalfoundation, andethnic groups have exhibited tremendousmalleability in terms of who belongs, whileracial ascriptions (initially) were imposedexternally to justify the collective exploita-tion of a people and are maintained to pre-serve status differences (p. 469).This rationalization suffers from the samedefect as other attempts to distinguish ana-lytically between race and ethnicity byreference to the empirical differences be-tween them: Differences that are peculiar tothe United States at particular imes in its his-toryaretaken as the bases forconceptualgen-eralization.The position that race and eth-nicity are analytically distinct thus reflectsthe ingrainedNorthAmerican bias in the so-ciology of race. Commonsense understand-ings of these categories as they exist in theUnited States are elevated to the status of so-cial scientific concepts. The particular(andparticularly arbitrary) operation of raceversus ethnicity n the United States is thustreated as the norm, from which other mo-dalities of categorizationare consideredto bedeviations (Bourdieu andWacquant1999).6

EBS's theory relies on commonsense un-derstandings of race and on circular defi-nitions to justify its exclusive application toracialized social systems. The key conceptof his analytical framework, racialized so-cial systems, is defined only in reference tothe concept of race tself. Thus, racializedsocial systems are societies that allocate dif-ferential economic, political, social, andeven psychological rewardsto groups alongracial lines; lines that are socially con-structed (p. 474). But what are raciallines ? How do they differ analytically fromethnic lines? The definitions offered are cir-cular: Racial lines are present in racializedsocieties buttressed by racial ideology, in

6 As Wacquant(1997) suggests,[T]he sociology of race all over the world isdominatedby U.S. scholarship.And since U.S.scholarship tself is suffusedwith U.S. folk con-ceptionsof race, he peculiarschemaof racialdivision developedby one countryduringa smallsegmentof its short history,a schemaunusual orits degreeof arbitrariness,igidityandsocialcon-sequentiality,has been virtuallyuniversalizedasthe templatethroughwhich analysesof race nall countriesandepochs are to be conducted.(P.223)


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COMMENT AND REPLY 895which racial contestation reveals the differ-ent objective interests of the races in a racial-ized system (p. 474).EBS is not alone among scholars of racein resorting to tautology to defend the uniqueanalytical status of race. In their racialformation perspective, Omi and Winant(1994) also rely on circular definitions andessentialist reasoning to defend the indepen-dent ontological status of race. They defineracial formation as the sociohistoricalprocess by which racial categories are cre-ated, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed(p. 55), but they never define racial catego-ries without referencing race. Their ef-forts to argue for a distinction betweenrace and ethnicity s based on a particu-lar readingof U.S. history ratherthan on anyanalytical foundation.Omi and Winant (1994) argue that theethnicity paradigm, developed in referenceto the experience of European [white] im-migrants, cannot comprehend the experi-ence of racial groups. They rule out thepossibility that European immigrants couldbe racialized because they were phenotypi-cally white. This position is not only histori-cally inaccurate,as demonstrated n work onthe racialization of Irish and Italian immi-grants (Ignatiev 1995; Roediger 1991), but italso contradicts their own contention thatrace has no fixed meaning, but is con-structed and transformed sociohistorically(Omi andWinant 1994:71).Thus the great difficulty of providing ana-lytic justification for isolating theories ofrace from theories of ethnicity is re-vealed in race theorists' recent, prominentattempts to prove otherwise. Historicallyspecific differences between the meaningand operation of race and ethnicity assystems of categorization in practice in onesociety cannot be the foundation for a gen-eral and generalizable analytical distinctionbetween race and ethnicity. Asserting theunique ontological status of race may ac-tually undermineattemptsto improve under-standing of the operation and consequencesof race, racism, and racial dominationin different times and places. The arbitrarytheoretical isolation of race from ethnic-ity discourages the comparative researchneeded to discover what, if anything, isunique about the operation or consequences

of race as an essentializing practical cat-egory, as opposed to other categorizationschemes that naturalize social differencesbetween human beings.RECONSIDERING RACEAccording to Wacquant(1997), from its in-ception, the collective fiction labeled 'race'... has always mixed science with commonsense and traded on the complicity betweenthem (p. 223). This complicity is intrinsicto the category race ; it undermines at-temptsto study race as a practical categoryby using race as an analytical category.7This is quite clear in the frameworkproposedby EBS, and in the framework of Omi andWinant (1994) as well. Neither racializedsocial system nor racial formation is de-fined without reference to race ; thereforea commonsense understandingof race isrequired to do the work of determiningwhena social system is racialized.Without a clear analytical definition, therealm of cases of racializationis presentedand understood as the set of contexts inwhich the language of race is operativeand has social consequences for particulargroups of people. The presence of racetalk, or racial terminology, and beliefs andinstitutionalized practices informed by thatterminology, indicates that racialized socialsystem or racial formation is the appro-priate conceptual framework.Relevant casesare identified by the existence of racialgroups (EBS, pp. 476-77; Omi and Winant1994); conversely, identification of racialgroups can be based only on commonsenseunderstandings of race because they arenever defined analytically without referenc-ing race. Case selection thus is governedby folk understandingsof race ratherthanby analytical criteria such as distinctivebases andprocesses of social closure.This analytical pitfall can be avoided mostsuccessfully by abandoning race as a cat-egory of analysis in order to gain analytical

7 Because of the extent of continual barterbetween folk andanalytical notions. .. of 'race, 'we need an analytical language that helps usavoid the uncontrolled conflation of social andsociological understandingsof 'race ' (Wacquant1997:222).


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896 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWleverage to study race as a category ofpractice.8 By adopting an analytical frame-work that focuses on essentializing schemasof categorization and processes of group-making generally, one can explore empiri-cally whether and to what extent a particularessentializing vocabulary is related to par-ticular forms of social closure and with whatconsequences. Thus it becomes an empiricalquestion whether, and to what extent, sys-tems of classification, systemic stratification,and social injustices buttressed by ideasabout race are historically distinct fromthose informedby a discourse of ethnicityor nationality. Empirical research on a spe-cific historical period in a particularnation-state could uncover importantdifferences inthe meaning andconsequences of race andethnicity ; consideration of such findingswithin a comparative historical perspectivecould clarify the extent of historical contin-gency involved.Such an approach is likely to discreditclaims that race s unique in its operationas an essentializing signifier (Guillaumin1995:30; Omi and Winant 1994), while fa-cilitating empirical research into the differ-ent meanings and consequences of race ndiverseplaces and times. It also permitsa rec-ognition of race, ethnicity, and nationas social constructions with real conse-quences without falling into the realm ofreification.Miles (1984) arguesthat because race ssocially constructed, there is nothing dis-tinctive aboutthe resulting relationsbetweenthe groups party to such a social construc-tion (p. 220). In contrast,the approachI de-

scribe here keeps open the possibility thatsocial relations constituted by the concept ofrace may entail distinct patterns, logic, orconsequences. Yet it avoids treating this his-torically contingent possibility as a timelesscharacteristicof race by (tautological) defi-nition. Rejection of race as an analyticalconcept facilitates analysis of the historicalconstructionof race as a practical categorywithout reification, and thus provides a de-gree of analytical leverage that tends to beforeclosed when race s used analytically.9TOWARD A COMPARATIVESOCIOLOGY OF GROUP-MAKINGA comparative sociology of group-makingfocuses analytical attention on the histori-cally contingent relationship between pro-cesses of categorization, forms of social clo-sure, and the constructionof collective iden-tity. By deghettoizing the studyof race andapproachingit as partof a larger field of is-sues related to processes and consequencesof symbolic boundaryconstruction, mainte-nance, and decline, one could avoid the ana-lytical pitfalls discussed above. In turn, thisperspective would furtherthe importantgoalof EBS's racialized social system ap-proach: to improve upon previous frame-works for the study of race n order to un-derstand more clearly how race shapes so-cial relations (p. 476).The conceptual foundation for a compara-tive sociology of boundaryconstruction andgroup-making already exists, set forth byWeber in his classic formulation of the con-cept of social closure. Social closure focusesanalytical attention on how groups come to-gether and dissolve through social interac-tion in diverse spheres of life. The conceptof social closure is inherently relational; itdraws analytical attention to the ideal and

8The distinction between categories of analy-sis and categories of practice is borrowed fromBrubaker(1996), following Bourdieu (1991). Ac-cording to Brubaker and Cooper (forthcoming):Reification is a social process, not only an intel-lectual practice.As such, it is centralto many so-cial and political practices oriented to nation,ethnicity, race, and other putative identi-ties. As analystsof these practices, we shouldcertainly try to account for this process ofreification, through which the political fictionof the nation -or of the ethnicgroup, race,or other identity -can become powerfullyreal-ized in practice.Butwe should avoid unintention-ally reproducing or reinforcing such reificationby uncriticallyadoptingcategoriesof practiceascategoriesof analysis. (Emphasis n original)

9For example, in her exemplary analysis of theracialization of slavery and slaves in the UnitedStates, Fields (1990) rejects the use of race asan analytical concept in orderto explain its emer-gence, utilization, and ideological function as acategory of practice in a specific historical mo-ment characterized by a particular,contradictoryideological configuration. Fields argues that at-tempts to explain racialphenomena in terms ofrace are no more than definitional statements(Fields 1990:100).


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COMMENT AND REPLY 897material motivations for constructing bound-aries between us and them (Weber[1922] 1968:43). In doing so, it gives prior-ity to analysis of the relational constructionor dissolution of boundaries, ratherthan tothe substance on either side of the bound-aries (Barth 1969).10 The concept of socialclosure also implies that the degree ofgroupness can vary along differentdimen-sions; at a given time, for example, a particu-lar us-them distinction may profoundly in-fluence spouse selection but may have littleeffect on hiring practices.The concept of social closure highlightshow social groups are constituted (to vary-ing degrees) by the constructionof symbolicboundaries (categorization) by collectivitieswith varying degrees of prior groupness,and how such collectivities become groupswith the potential to recognize and act uponcollective intereststo generatesocial change.Boundaries constructed through social clo-sure may representthe interests of those ononly one side, but they have implications forthose on both sides. They may even becomea resource for those whom they were meantto exclude or dispossess (Parkin 1979;Wallman1978).In the approach proposed here, I acceptWacquant's 1997) claim that to understandhow andwith what consequences the 'collec-tive fiction' of 'race' is actualized, the ana-lyst must study thepractices of division andthe institutions that both buttress and resultfrom them (p. 229). For the study of thesepractices, Wacquant (1997:230) proposes ananalyticalframework hat focuses on five el-ementary forms of racial domination : cat-egorization, discrimination, segregation,ghettoization, and racial violence. Althoughhis descriptionof these practices as forms of''racial domination seems to be in tensionwith his sustained and insightful critique oftheproblematicnatureof race and racismas social scientific concepts, the substance ofhis framework could be conceptualized eas-ily, if not more prosaically, as elementaryforms of social closure based on imputed

10Although his substance emains elevantandimportantor empiricalanalysisof specificcases of socialclosure, ts relevance s second-ary n that t mattersonly insofaras it both re-flects and influencesthe motivations or socialclosure.

essential characteristics. Therefore, Wac-quant's framework is a promising startingpoint for a comparative sociology of bound-ary construction and group-making hat couldimprove our understandingof race as wellas ethnicity and nation ) as social con-structions with real consequences by incor-porating them into a common framework.This is not to suggest that social closureis the only concept needed to understandpro-cesses of group-making, nor, much less, thatsocial closure is itself a sufficient or com-prehensive sociological theory of group-making. Rather,I emphasize how the conceptof social closure can serve as a primaryfoun-dation for sociological inquiry into the con-struction, reproduction, or decline of sym-bolic boundaries.An explanatoryframeworkbuilt on such a foundation would providemore analytical leverage for improving ourunderstanding of race than is offered byEBS's structural heory of racism.A comparative historical approach to thestudy of race as a category of practice,constitutive of social relations in given con-texts, has far greater analytical and theoreti-cal potential than a racialized social sys-tem approach. Even if such a perspectivecould avoid the reification of race, the em-pirical and theoretical justifications for iso-lating the study of race are tenuous at best.Moreover, comparative analysis of socialprocesses involved in the construction,main-tenance, and decline of symbolic boundariesin diverse contexts promises to yield signifi-cant insights clarifying why particular sys-tems of symbolic differentiationemerge andaresustained(or not), and are salient to vary-ing degrees, at particularpoints in history.A comparative approach to the study ofboundary construction and group-makingbuilt on the Weberianconcept of social clo-sure also could facilitate identification offorms of closure associated with particularsymbolic-boundary dynamics (emergence,maintenance, decline). Such a frameworkcould permit identification of the patternsofrelations between particularsocial processesand particularstructuralconditions that trig-ger certain boundary dynamics; conse-quently, it could improve social scientificunderstanding,explanation,and theorization.These promising research avenues areforeclosed by approachesthatreify race n


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898 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEWtheir attempt to employ it analytically.To in-vestigate and explain the causes, dynamics,and consequences of race as a category ofpractice, social scientists would be better offeliminating race as a category of analysis.Mara Loveman is a Ph.D. Candidate in the De-partment of Sociology at the University of Cali-fornia, Los Angeles, and a Mellon Fellow in LatinAmerican Sociology. Her current research exam-ines the mutual constitution of race and na-tion through state-building activities in nine-teenth century Latin America,focusing on Brazilin comparative perspective. Her research inter-ests include race, ethnicity and nationhood incomparative perspective, categorization and cog-nitive sociology, social movements in repressivestates, political sociology, and comparative his-torical methodology. She recently publishedHigh-Risk Collective Action: Defending HumanRights in Chile, UruguayandArgentina (Ameri-can Journal of Sociology, 1998, vol. 104, pp.477-525).

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