Award-Winning Author Amy Steinbugler on How Race Shapes Relationships

CARLISLE, Pa. - Oct. 15, 2014 - PRLog -- In Beyond Loving: Intimate Racework in Lesbian, Gay and Straight Interracial Relationships, Amy Steinbugler, assistant professor of sociology at Dickinson, says one of her main goals for the book was to examine more carefully how race shapes intimate relationships. She looked at the array of actions and strategies that interracial couples—black/white couples in particular—use to negotiate race in everyday life. Steinbugler says that her reading of popular media accounts—and even some social science research—on interracial intimacy is that interracial couples are commonly portrayed as racial mavericks who have somehow gotten beyond the ugliness of racism. The idea is that the complexities of racial inequality melt away in the context of loving relationships.

To Steinbugler that notion seems fundamentally wrong-headed. “We know, for instance, from generations of feminists and family scholars that gendered roles and expectations between women and men do not disappear in the context of heterosexual unions. People who love each other still struggle over housework, childcare and who pays the bills. Gender shapes intimate relationships in important ways. And so too does race.”

The book also clarifies what Steinbugler says are common misunderstandings about racial dynamics in same-sex and heterosexual couples, such as the assumption that all interracial couples are straight. She says that most studies on interracial intimacy take heterosexual couples as the focus whereas hers is one of very few that considers the experiences of lesbian and gay couples.

“To be clear: We should study what interracial life is like for heterosexual black/white couples in the U.S. because of the history of racial and sexual violence associated with these pairings. But when we ignore same-sex couples and allow the experiences of heterosexual couples to stand in for everybody, we get some important things wrong. We mistakenly assume that partners on the street or in a restaurant are recognized immediately as an interracial couple. We expect that a couple’s racial difference is the main thing that sets them apart from the everyday image of a ‘regular couple.’ Or we suppose that in public spaces, interracial couples are most attuned to racial dynamics. But these things are not universal characteristics of interracial couples—they just describe what it’s like to be a straight black/white pair.”

She says that for lesbian and gay interracial couples, things are a little different. Heterosexism shapes what it feels like to be a black/white couple. Lesbian and gay partners often feel that their relationship is unrecognizable to strangers in public places, and they’re constantly reading both racial and sexual cues in order to know whether it might be OK to hold hands or exchange a kiss. In many ways, their experiences are qualitatively different from their straight counterparts. Their lives tell us important things about what it means to love and create families outside of the mainstream.

Her book has been well received by fellow sociologist and won two awards from the American Sociological Association—the Distinguished Book Award from the Sexualities Section and the William J. Goode Book Award from the Family Section.

Steinbugler’s current project is an ethnographic study of an economically diverse Philadelphia neighborhood. The basic logic within ethnographic methods suggests that to understand a social setting, the best strategy is to observe carefully that space. What sorts of interactions take place? What is the nature of social relationships there? What are the rules of the game? It is the kind of work that can’t be done from a desk or office computer. It requires getting out, talking to people, watching and listening. "I have had to start small, with a few organizations in this area of Philly, and try to understand how people work together (and when they don’t) to try to improve their community.”

As to whether or not growing up in a particular neighborhood affects one’s chanes in life, Steinbugler says it’s an important question and having the opportunity to think more deeply about these issues—in my research and in class with her students—has been illuminating.

She says that a big part of understanding the influence of a neighborhood is recognizing its impact, independent of the individuals who live there, and that social opportunities and constraints are organized spatially. If you look at public schools as an example, because they are funded largely by local property taxes, schools in wealthy neighborhoods are able to spend much more money per child than schools in economically depressed neighborhoods. The quality of public amenities like parks, libraries and recreation areas also are dependent on the economic status of a neighborhood.

“I think that many Americans understand these patterns intuitively, and middle-class folks regularly try to maximize as much of the good stuff as possible with their home-buying dollars. The key, though, is not to help everyone move away but to improve the most impoverished neighborhoods (and the institutions within them) so that they are safe and healthy places to live,” says Steinbugler.

www.dickinson.edu