Shades of Change: Changes to racial imagery in cultural products and traditions reflect and shape Europeans’ understanding of racial inequality

Enzo Cáceres Quezada (Utrecht University)

Abstract: White Europeans have propagated their subordinating views regarding the colonised peoples and their descendants through packaging of products (e.g., coffee) and blackface traditions. Public debate increasingly links colonialism to such imagery in products and traditions (artefacts); concurrently, these artefacts are increasingly blurred or removed. Changes to artefacts are often premised on tackling racial inequality, and yet we know little about how these changes relate to Europeans’ understanding of racial inequality. Across three studies, we examined how Europeans’ understanding of racial inequality features in their views, preferences, and engagement with changes to artefacts. In Study 1, using Thematic Analysis of 22 focus groups in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Croatia (N=104), we identified opposition to, support for, and questioning of blurring and removal. Opponents unliked colonialism from the artefacts and refrained from elaborating on their ethno-racial implications. Supporters and questioners linked colonialism to the artefacts, while they differed on artefacts’ ethno-racial implications: supporters advocated preventing their imagery from reinforcing racial inequality, whereas questioners advocated repurposing the artefacts to foreground racial inequality (through education). In Study 2, using a survey that included blurring, removal, and repurposing as options of change with Dutch participants (N=634), we found that most supported changes. Supporters of changes (vs preservers) more strongly linked colonialism to, and supported colonial reparations for, current racial inequality. Removers and repurposers did so more strongly than blurrers. In Study 3, using a survey experiment with Dutch participants (N=206), we focused on blurring, removal, and repurposing options of the Dutch blackface tradition “Black Pete”. We found that engaging with the blurred (vs traditional) version weakened people’s linkage of colonialism to current racial inequality, thereby reducing their support for colonial reparations. We conclude by discussing how Europeans manage colonialism’s enduring consequences as they engage with changes to artefacts and the implications of these findings.

The seminar will take place in the cescup seminar room and online.