Introduction: US Gun Culture and the Performance of Racial Sovereignty

This introduction examines gun culture in the United States and argues that it is a product of the longstanding practices of settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, and misogyny that have shaped life in the United States. Invoking an anthropological definition of culture, it argues that gun violence is...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lindsay Livingston, Alex Trimble Young
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cultural Studies Association 2020-04-01
Series:Lateral
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.25158/L9.1.5
Description
Summary:This introduction examines gun culture in the United States and argues that it is a product of the longstanding practices of settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, and misogyny that have shaped life in the United States. Invoking an anthropological definition of culture, it argues that gun violence is a central facet of US political and social life and that performances of gun use and ownership, particularly when enacted by white men, embody a kind of 'racial sovereignty,' or a violent limitation of the practical applicability of citizenship to those who promulgate whiteness, maleness, and violence as primary markers of full belonging in the civic community.
ISSN:2469-4053