Hierarchies of White Advantage and Reciprist Epistemology

This article critically examines the legacy of Charles Mills’ concept of ‘white ignorance,’ raising concerns about the monolithic ways it frames white consciousness and advantage. I also examine conceptual problems with the wider field of ignorance studies. I suggest that critical engagement with the notion of ‘white ignorance’ helps to avoid re-fetishising racialized categories. It also helps to illuminate sometimes invisibilised cross-racial commonalities and reciprism among immiserated people of colour and immiserated white people across the world.