The Significance of Place, Space, and Race: Black Multiracial Individuals’ Experiences with Misracialization in the United States and Globally

This study examines how race, space, and place shape misracialization among Black multiracial individuals in the United States and abroad, integrating Critical Multiracial Theory and critical geography to foreground spatial power relations in racial ascription. Drawing on 17 semi-structured interviews with Black multiracial adults living across U.S. locations, the analysis asks (1) how place influences identity, (2) how place influences racialization, and (3) how identification and racialization relate. The article develops a paired framework of active and passive misracialization: passive misracialization occurs when others’ inaccurate racial/ethnic/national assumptions go uncorrected; active misracialization entails intentionally leaning into or performing a misassigned identity in context. U.S. encounters are marked by anti-Blackness and exclusion, with local racial schemas and local histories structuring how boundaries are policed; internationally, misracialization takes the form of misnationalization/misethnicization, affording some respondents greater agency to navigate belonging through active or passive strategies. This study advances multiracial scholarship by (1) introducing the conceptual distinction between active and passive misracialization; (2) demonstrating that misracialization is spatially contingent, shaped by local, regional, and national racial orders; and (3) challenging monoracial paradigms by centering Black multiracial experiences as critical to understanding anti-Blackness, colorism, and authenticity.