DOI: 10.1525/sp.2009.56.2.357. “Are You an African?” The Politics of Self-Construction in Status-Based Social Movements

Current debates over identity politics hinge on the question of whether status-based social movements en-courage parochialism and self-interest or create possibilities for mutual recognition across lines of difference. Our article explores this question through comparative, ethnographic study of two racially progressive social move-ments, “pro-black ” abolitionism and “conscious ” hip hop. We argue that status-based social movements not only enable collective identity, but also the personal identities or selves of their participants. Beliefs about the self create openings and obstacles to mutual recognition and progressive social action. Our analysis centers on the challenges that an influx of progressive, anti-racist whites posed to each movement. We examine first how each movement configured movement participation and racial identity and then how whites crafted strategic narratives of the self to account for their participation in a status-based movement they were not directly implicated in. We conclude with an analysis of the implications of these narratives for a critical politics of recognition. Keywords: identity politics, social movements, race, self, hip hop. Demands for recognition and respect have become core components of social justice cam-paigns over the last quarter century. Such concerns and the identity-based movements they have given rise to also occupy a central place in debates among social scientists. Theorists, for example, grapple with how to best calibrate the significance of cultural forms of injustice