Marked and managed: performing a "good" White identity in non-White spaces.

As dominant group members, Whites tend to experience race as a low salience identity, particularly in interactions in White settings with other Whites. Using data collected from in-depth interviews with White partners in interracial relationships, this paper analyses what happens when Whites enter non-White settings and become racially marked. How do Whites understand the meaning of their Whiteness in these settings and what strategies do they use to manage others' impressions? White participants reported experiencing hypervisibility, a sharp awareness of their racial identity, and heightened apprehensions about being perceived as potentially racist and culturally inept. Consequently, participants made conscious changes to their behaviours (e.g. body language, food consumption), speech, and appearance as a means of signalling a "good" White identity and establishing belonging in spaces where they were marked as racial and cultural outsiders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]