A Relational Approach to Comparisons of Race and Racism in the Americas and Beyond

Studies of race in the Americas have been driven by explicit or implicit nation-based comparisons. This contrastive approach to comparison has enhanced our understanding of differences across national racial systems and supported challenges to racism. However, by treating specific cases as separate bounded units, notable primarily for their differences, this approach has produced blind spots, including the neglect of historical connections, parallel processes of racial formation, and internal variation. In this article we advocate for a relational approach to comparisons of race and racism in the Americas (and globally) – one that emphasizes interconnections, the porosity of geographic boundaries and common ground, and views differences as contextual and shifting. We illustrate the utility of a relational approach through an examination of race-class intersections and comparative anti-racisms. We conclude by highlighting how a relational approach beyond the Americas might identify additional patterns of racial inequality and encourage new forms of anti-racist struggle.