Polite Racism and Cultural Capital: Afro-Caribbean Negotiations of Blackness in Canada

Karine Coen-Sanchez ()
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Karine Coen-Sanchez: School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada

Social Sciences, 2025, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: Blackness, both as a racial identity and a marker of cultural difference, disrupts the hegemonic norms embedded in dominant forms of cultural capital. This article examines how first- and second-generation Haitian and Jamaican communities in Ontario and Quebec negotiate Blackness within a Canadian context. Drawing from international literature, it introduces distinctly Canadian concepts—such as polite racism, racial ignominy, and duplicity of consciousness—to illuminate local racial dynamics. Using Yosso’s (2005) framework of community cultural wealth, the study analyzes six forms of cultural capital—linguistic, aspirational, social, navigational, resistant, and familial—as employed by Afro-Caribbeans to navigate systemic exclusion. The article expands the limited Canadian discourse on Black identity and offers theoretical tools for understanding how cultural capital is shaped and constrained by race in multicultural democracies.

Keywords: Blackness in Canada; cultural capital; Afro-Caribbean communities; social mobility; racial discrimination; systemic barriers; multiculturalism; Ontario and Quebec; qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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