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

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Ramos, Teresa

Contributors dc:contributor

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

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

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2012 Teresa Marie Ramos.

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34558

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34558