INTRODUCTION: OF EMBODIMENT AND RACIALIZATION
GEORGE YANCYABSTRACT. In this special issue of Knowledge Cultures my objective is to engage the question of race or racialization through the prism of embodiment. This approach to questions of embodiment and racialization is what I refer to as the “density project” vis-à-vis race. By density (from Latin, densus, meaning “thick”) I denote the muck and mire of being-in-the-world, especially within the context of the ways in which bodies are raced or undergo processes of racialization. To undergo racialization points to processes of interpellation or hailing, history, sedimentation, alliances, and discursive forces. Racialization, on this score, describes embodiment as always already linked to a form of investiture, etymologically, “to clothe.” pp. 20–23
Keywords: embodiment; racialization; body; density project