Uploaded June 2017 | Updated September 2026, 12 hours ago
7th Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium
Whiteness As Property: A 20-Year Appraisal
Whiteness as Property and the Construction of Identities (October 4, Saturday)
Sonia Katyal argues that in order to reimagine the regulation of sex and gender, it might be helpful to explore a parallel type of affiliation between property and intellectual property. Katyal presents a reconceptualization of gender, both descriptively and normatively, through the lens of property and intellectual property theory. Nancy López examines the politics of racial and ethnic guidelines and measurements in the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and the Census as sites of macro-level racial formations. She argues that abstract liberal discourses that conflate race (master social status) with ethnicity (cultural background), national origin (nationality), or ancestry (distant lineage) contribute to hegemonic colorblind and neoliberal racial projects that undermine Civil Rights monitoring, enforcement and equity-based policy-making across a variety of policy arenas including housing, education, criminal justice and employment. López provides conceptual models and use-inspired questionnaire formats for racial and ethnic measurements that are anchored in the need to contextualize data collection for equity-based policy making. Lisa Pruitt analyzes whiteness as historical and contemporary property in Debra Granik’s 2010 award winning film, Winter’s Bone (based on Daniel Woodrell’s 2007 novel). Pruitt seeks to move beyond abstract discussion of whiteness by referencing the lived realities of socioeconomically disadvantaged whites and to ground and situate whiteness in ways that ultimately complicate its meaning within critical race theory. Karen Gaffney unites the works of Cheryl Harris and Joyce Carol Oates, a literary writer so that we can better understand the way whiteness has been socially constructed and re-constructed throughout American history, how its borders are vigilantly patrolled, and what happens when the property of whiteness becomes haunted.
Moderator: Lisa Pruitt, Professor of Law, UC Davis
Panelists:
Sonia Katyal, Associate Dean for Research and Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law, Fordham Law School, New York; The Intellectual Properties of Gender
Nancy López, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of New Mexico; Colorblind & Neoliberal Racial Projects in Federal Data Collection: Why we Need Two Questions on Hispanic Origin & Race in the U.S. Census & Beyond
Lisa Pruitt, Professor of Law, UC Davis; (Re)Assessing the Value of Whiteness as Property: Lessons from Winter’s Bone
Karen Gaffney, English Professor, Raritan Valley Community College, NJ; Whiteness as Trespassed Property: Uniting Cheryl Harris and Novelist Joyce Carol Oates in Challenging the Status Quo
7th Annual Critical Race Studies Symposium
Whiteness As Property: A 20-Year Appraisal
Whiteness as Property and the Construction of Identities (October 4, Saturday)
Sonia Katyal argues that in order to reimagine the regulation of sex and gender, it might be helpful to explore a parallel type of affiliation between property and intellectual property. Katyal presents a reconceptualization of gender, both descriptively and normatively, through the lens of property and intellectual property theory. Nancy López examines the politics of racial and ethnic guidelines and measurements in the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and the Census as sites of macro-level racial formations. She argues that abstract liberal discourses that conflate race (master social status) with ethnicity (cultural background), national origin (nationality), or ancestry (distant lineage) contribute to hegemonic colorblind and neoliberal racial projects that undermine Civil Rights monitoring, enforcement and equity-based policy-making across a variety of policy arenas including housing, education, criminal justice and employment. López provides conceptual models and use-inspired questionnaire formats for racial and ethnic measurements that are anchored in the need to contextualize data collection for equity-based policy making. Lisa Pruitt analyzes whiteness as historical and contemporary property in Debra Granik’s 2010 award winning film, Winter’s Bone (based on Daniel Woodrell’s 2007 novel). Pruitt seeks to move beyond abstract discussion of whiteness by referencing the lived realities of socioeconomically disadvantaged whites and to ground and situate whiteness in ways that ultimately complicate its meaning within critical race theory. Karen Gaffney unites the works of Cheryl Harris and Joyce Carol Oates, a literary writer so that we can better understand the way whiteness has been socially constructed and re-constructed throughout American history, how its borders are vigilantly patrolled, and what happens when the property of whiteness becomes haunted.
Moderator: Lisa Pruitt, Professor of Law, UC Davis
Panelists:
Sonia Katyal, Associate Dean for Research and Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law, Fordham Law School, New York; The Intellectual Properties of Gender
Nancy López, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of New Mexico; Colorblind & Neoliberal Racial Projects in Federal Data Collection: Why we Need Two Questions on Hispanic Origin & Race in the U.S. Census & Beyond
Lisa Pruitt, Professor of Law, UC Davis; (Re)Assessing the Value of Whiteness as Property: Lessons from Winter’s Bone
Karen Gaffney, English Professor, Raritan Valley Community College, NJ; Whiteness as Trespassed Property: Uniting Cheryl Harris and Novelist Joyce Carol Oates in Challenging the Status Quo
