Compared to What?: Some (Cautionary) Thoughts on Comparative Critical Race Theory.

Taking a certain agnosticism toward the assumed benefits of comparative method as its point of departure, this paper offers an account of some potential costs of comparativism for the study of race, racisms and racial politics in contemporary democracies. It argues that a sufficiently critical comparative critical race theory must above all resist the allure of what might be called "race fundamentalism". The paper seeks, as well, to explore a few of the pitfalls of an unquestioned faith in "travelling theory" as a conceptual compass for mapping racial formations in democratic political societies, particularly in those societies where racialized power struggles often take place in terms that never address the question of race, or do so by way of other discourses ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]