Talking/not talking about race: The enregisterments of culture in higher education discourses

Abstract

In higher education 'diversity' discourses, culture routinely stands in for race, but its use is unevenly enregistered. Examination of three web pages at one college shows contrasting entextualizations ofculture: in promotional discourse, culture is loosely associated with diversity; in describing student organizations, culture is variously associated with race, ethnicity, nationality, language, and gender; for multicultural programs, culture is most tightly associated with racial markedness. Culture is most complexly enregistered in spoken discourse among students ofcolor, indexing racial markedness experienced as subjectivity, family, class, and location. Framing all these usages is a neoliberalization ofracial marked-ness, as in the idea of 'educating the community.' © 2009 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.