Biracial lived experience: From encapsulated to constructive self

Abstract

This chapter presents an interpretive study of the biracial experience in contemporary America. Twenty adolescents and young adults, who have one Black parent and one White parent, participated in life history interviews exploring their lifelong racial experiences and the creative nature of self. The cultural isolation of living betwixt and between racial categories initiates an existential journey of self-reflection and identity adjustment. Several themes in their lives are repeated: the experience of oneself as something other than an assigned racial identity, a tension between internally perceived and externally imposed definitions of self, the desire to be authentic in one's self definitions, and the will to create one's own racial identity. To resolve the dilemmas of race, the biracial individual moves from an encapsulated to a constructive self. The biracial experience of negating conventional racial formations offers the possibility of a more universal meaning of race.

Citation

Hardesty, M. (2001), "Biracial lived experience: From encapsulated to constructive self", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 113-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(01)80034-X