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RECONSTITUTING RACIAL HISTORIES AND IDENTITIES: THE NARRATIVES OF INTERRACIAL COUPLES
Author(s) -
Killian Kyle D.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of marital and family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.868
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1752-0606
pISSN - 0194-472X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2001.tb01137.x
Subject(s) - silence , narrative , social psychology , negotiation , psychology , white (mutation) , perception , gender studies , construct (python library) , resistance (ecology) , developmental psychology , sociology , ecology , social science , philosophy , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , neuroscience , biology , computer science , gene , programming language , aesthetics
This study explores the process by which interracial spouses construct narratives about their racial histories, identities, and experiences in their relationship together. Ten black‐white couples were interviewed individually and conjointly. The results reflected interracial spouses' experience of their life together, their perception of others' perceptions of them, and their unique processes of negotiating racial, gender, and class differences. Black spouses, compared with white spouses, demonstrated a greater awareness of and sensitivity to social resistance to interracial couples, and black spouses' familial and personal histories were sometimes relegated to silence in the couple relationship. I discuss recommendations for marriage and family therapists working with interracial spouses.