This structural approach to race avoids essence - paying attention rather to how bodies are
socialised constructed perceived and treated rather than assuming an essential homogenous
nature to groups. Using the example of what is constructed as 'whites' to further explain this
it has been argued by writers such as Hartigan Jr (1997) that whites will for example take
individual actions as informed by their habitus that collectively places them at the top of the
racial hierarchy. Thus it is that a neighbourhood watch organisation may be predominantly white
not necessarily because members have consciously set out to be racially discriminatory or
prejudiced (Lewis 2004). Rather their racial habitus combined with their capital historically
informed has led to the individuals making choices that collectively place them at the same
schools bars neighbourhoods and so on to the exclusion of others (Lewis 2004). This
structural approach to race then - specifically whiteness - means that the reproduction of
social relations also need not be consciously done (Lewis 2004 Swartz 1997). Such an
approach also argues that different contexts provide different opportunities for those who have
the requisite habitus and capital valued in a place. Thus in the example provided above about
the neighbourhood watch there may be a few black people who have acquired some elements valued
in whiteness such as wealth social and cultural capital to be part of the neighbourhood watch.
These blacks may be considered white in the sense that they have some aspects of whiteness
valued in neighbourhood context as argued by Twine (1997) whose work is further discussed in
chapter three. However this does not preclude feeling alienated and excluded by these
self-same blacks when those who are white claim more social goods on the basis of being
phenotypically white. Whiteness - like blackness is thus not a zero-sum game but rather a game
of gradations as discussed further in chapter three and as this book ultimately argues.
