Steppin' out of Whiteness

Current paradigms of identity, especially those found in Whiteness Studies, do not sufficiently explain the complex interaction and intersection of race, culture, and identity. Drawing on two years of extended fieldwork in the Steppin' dance scene in Chicago, I extend Bourdieu's theory of practice, particularly the role of the body in culture, to the study of race and identity. This article presents an alternative model for explaining racial identity, grounded in the competencies and embodied knowledges that one enacts in practice. This novel approach opens up new anti-essentialist possibilities for theorizing race and an anti-racist politics based in cultural labor.