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In Racial Care, James McMaster studies the forms of care that Asian Americans have taken up to survive the suffering they experience under neoliberal capitalism and white supremacy in the United States. He shows that racialized labors of care can cut multiple ways: sustaining life for its recipients, draining life from its performers. Uplifting examples of this dynamic from Asian American theater, performance art, visual culture, film, poetry, protest, and everyday life, McMaster advances a racialized ethics and politics of care forged from the insights of feminist, queer, and disability theory. He argues that racial care in the Asian American case must respond both to the specific sort of neglect Asian Americans face as a consequence of model minority racialization and to the urgent needs for care that exist among other racialized and colonized peoples. Following the lead of artists and writers like Kristina Wong, Mark Aguhar, Kimberly Alidio, Julia Cho, kt shorb, and Jess X. Snow, Racial Care provides a path forward for all seeking to sustain multiply marginalized Asian American life in times of overlapping crisis.
Price: $25.95
Pages: 184
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Publication Date:
04 November 2025
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781478032830
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
“James McMaster elegantly and bravely offers a trenchant and unyielding analysis of what he calls ‘racial care,’ which are the myriad ways by which vulnerable racialized subjects wade and work through their sufferings in an oppressive world in order to survive, sustain, and flourish. Laboring thoughtfully through artistic works in performance as well as in movement organizing, he exposes the complex and contradictory ways Asian Americans are located within the late capitalist and settler colonialist United States and how their care practices are vital to envisioning and molding alternative futures.”—Martin F. Manalansan IV, Rutgers University
“Rendered with elegant prose and written for an era of crisis born from histories of colonial and racial violence, James McMaster’s Racial Care offers necessary theorization of racial care’s many labors. Studying scenes of care that range from the aesthetic to the everyday, this gripping book invites us to consider how performances of care within Asian America can sustain racialized life through suffering while forging conditions for the realization of ‘mutual aid and mutual defense.’”—Joshua Chambers-Letson, author of, After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life
“Rendered with elegant prose and written for an era of crisis born from histories of colonial and racial violence, James McMaster’s Racial Care offers necessary theorization of racial care’s many labors. Studying scenes of care that range from the aesthetic to the everyday, this gripping book invites us to consider how performances of care within Asian America can sustain racialized life through suffering while forging conditions for the realization of ‘mutual aid and mutual defense.’”—Joshua Chambers-Letson, author of, After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life
James McMaster is Assistant Professor of American Studies and English at The George Washington University.
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. Racial Care: March 2020 1
1. Revolting Self-Care 29
2. The Racialized Holding Environment 57
3. Racial Emotional Labor 77
4. Dehumanist Care 101
Conclusion. Racial Care: June 2020 125
Notes 135
Bibliography 153
Index 163
Introduction. Racial Care: March 2020 1
1. Revolting Self-Care 29
2. The Racialized Holding Environment 57
3. Racial Emotional Labor 77
4. Dehumanist Care 101
Conclusion. Racial Care: June 2020 125
Notes 135
Bibliography 153
Index 163