Title: From the Bottom up: A Grounded Theory Approach to the Social
Construction of Race
Author: Catherine Veninga
Affiliation: College of Charleston
Abstract: In this paper I argue that grounded theory methodology can invigorate
studies that explore the social construction of race and ethnicity. Whereas much
of the existing scholarship has shown how racial categories are produced from
the top down through the work of the state, this approach works from the bottom
up to show what racial categorizations mean in terms of everyday life – how they
produce social action. A grounded theory approach seeks to build theory
through inductive, empirical research, and usually entails a method that provides
the researcher direct access to the lived-world such as participant observation,
ethnographies, and in-depth interviews. Because it has its roots in symbolic
interactionism, grounded theory gives primacy to the ways in which people
construct meaning and social reality through interaction with other individuals.
This theoretical approach is imminently compatible with an ontological position
that regards race as socially constructed because to say that race is a social
construction is to say that what we call race and the meanings we assign to it are
produced through social interaction. Race is “made” through the deployment of
symbols to which a complex set of meanings are attached. If we want to
understand the ways in which racial meanings are created and how those
meanings constitute social identities, then we must pay attention to the everyday
practices through which such realities are constructed. Grounded theory
provides an accessible and suitable methodology for such research endeavors.