Open research questions in Race, History, and American Society
797 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 11,031 Race, History, and American Society papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
Further exploration into the role of religion in resistance and identity formation - More detailed analysis of the Haitian Revolution's impact on Black liberation
The paper identifies gaps in understanding the complex relationship between Christianity and resistance among African-descended communities. It addresses the need for more comprehensive analysis of religious practices as a form of liberation.
This study analyzes Michfest’s archive in order to trace the connections between the womyn-born-womyn policy and the festival’s racial politics, complicating existing narratives of the festival by foregrounding its understudied histories of trans and antiracist activism.
“Sisters Together”: Antiracist Activism and the Fight for Trans Inclusion at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival · 2025 · DOIBaijayanti Roy’s monograph, abbreviated Nazi Study, is a timely work on an understudied and sensitive topic — the Indo-Nazi linkages.
The Nazi Study of India and Indian Anti-Colonialism: Knowledge Providers and Propagandists in the ‘Third Reich’ · 2025 · DOIThere is little causal evidence as to whether peers influence high-stakes political and/or life decisions. The literature on polarization has highlighted partisan sorting, media biases, divergent economic situations, and cultural divisions as key drivers of political alignment, but less is known about the role of peers and social networks.
The book identifies a gap in understanding Roosevelt's relationship with Jews. The author highlights the need to explore Roosevelt's interactions with Jewish individuals. The book examines the historical context of Roosevelt's presidency and his policies affecting Jews.
The gap is the lack of consideration for transboundary entanglements and slow burning raciality. The gap is the need for a more nuanced understanding of racialization and racism.
There is a gap in understanding the perspectives of Black mothers on policy issues. The study addresses this gap by examining the visions and hopes of Black mothers for change within the first 100 days of a Harris presidency.
“The moms all Agree on one Thing:” Black Women’s Perspectives on Key Agenda Items for the Next President of the United States · 2026 · DOIThe present study has a few limitations worth highlighting. First, we only captured Black mothers’ hopes and visions for a future in which Kamala Harris was president. In asking what mothers wanted in a Trump Administration, we might have gathered different information that would have reflected their perspectives on what the world would look like under a different president than Kamala Harris. Future studies should continue to ask Black mothers what they want to see at the beginning (as well as throughout) any presidential administration. Second, we did not provide specific counts of how many Black mothers endorsed each theme because mothers frequently mentioned more than one theme. With a bigger sample size, future research could disentangle the most important issues areas Black mothers would like to see addressed. Third, although our study begins to paint a picture of political engagement and revolutionary mothering among Black mothers who made, on average, between $100,000 - $149,000 and live on the East Coast, future research would benefit from asking more mothers across the United States to share their experiences. While the goal of our work was not to generalize to all Black mothers, we believe that the level of transferability would increase even more with a bigger sample size that includes even more voices and perspectives. Although federal governments play a critical role in addressing the key issues outlined, states and communities can also greatly shape Black families’ access to and utilization of key resources (e.g. community based, culturally grounded prenatal and postpartum care, universal Pre-K, reproductive healthcare). Moreover, access and opportunities may not equally distributed across mothers of different socioeconomic statuses. Future research should broaden the scope of research to ask about state and community based initiatives that may be working in opposition to and/or in partnership with the federal government.
“The moms all Agree on one Thing:” Black Women’s Perspectives on Key Agenda Items for the Next President of the United States · 2026 · DOIThe paper identifies a gap in understanding the relationship between race and democracy. The authors highlight the need for a deeper understanding of the political significance of Reconstruction.
Examining Interpretations of Reconstruction in the Thought and Practice of W. E. B. Du Bois, James S. Allen, and Harry Haywood · 2026 · DOIThe study highlights the challenge of centering Black joy in discussions of collective effervescence. The research emphasizes the need to consider the cultural and racial specificity of emotional experiences. The study suggests that Black Collective Effervescence can be a means of resistance and liberation for Black communities.
The study identifies a gap in the literature on collective effervescence, which has largely been studied in universal terms without consideration of racial and cultural specificity. The research highlights the need to center Black joy in discussions of collective effervescence.
The study identifies a gap in understanding the role of racial resentment in shaping trust toward state and federal government in the South. Prior work has not fully considered the historical legacies of states' rights and anti-federal narratives in Southern political development.
The study identifies a gap in the understanding of how Black women navigate online dating apps and develop micro-strategies of impression management. The study highlights the need to consider the racialized and gendered labor that shapes Black women's online experiences.
The traditional conceptualization of subjectivity in abstract, physically untethered, and disembodied terms. The lack of consideration of embodied experience in political subjectivity. The need for a framework that prioritizes embodied knowledge and challenges dominant epistemologies.
Further research should consider the application of critical race theories to other areas of study. The importance of intersectionality and feudal-colonial roots in understanding systemic racism should be further explored.
The field of American Political Economy needs to engage with critical race theories to study systemic racism. There is a lack of consideration of intersectionality and feudal-colonial roots in understanding systemic racism.
The paper identifies a gap in the recognition and support for scholars in the field of race, ethnicity, and politics. The authors note the limited resources and lack of recognition for this field of study.
Commemorating the 30 th Anniversary of the APSA Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section and the 10 th Anniversary of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics · 2026 · DOIThe paper suggests that future research should consider the increasing ecological precarity of the Gulf South and its impact on Black, Indigenous, and poor communities. The paper implies that future research should explore the possibilities of community-led initiatives and desire-based pedagogy.
The paper identifies a gap in the literature on community-led initiatives and desire-based pedagogy. The paper highlights the need to consider the material and spiritual relationship between Black life and the lands of the Gulf South.
The essay suggests that future research should continue to explore the lessons that thread through McKittrick's oeuvre. The essay suggests that future research should consider the importance of itinerant practices of Black study in imagining more livable futures
“The Word Black Has Geographic Power”: Itinerant Practices of Black Study in Five Movements · 2026 · DOIThe essay identifies a gap in understanding Black study and its potential to imagine more livable futures. The essay identifies a gap in the literature on itinerant practices of Black study
“The Word Black Has Geographic Power”: Itinerant Practices of Black Study in Five Movements · 2026 · DOIHow racialization interacts with shifts in the distribution of power. The possibility of racial equality and interest convergence in the international sphere.
Racial Hierarchy and the Balance of Power: Race War in Merze Tate’s International Thought · 2026 · DOIThe marginalization of race and ethnic politics in IR. The lack of recognition of early twentieth-century black women thinkers.
Racial Hierarchy and the Balance of Power: Race War in Merze Tate’s International Thought · 2026 · DOIThe paper identifies the challenge of addressing systemic racism and state violence. It notes the difficulty of eliminating structural inequality through legal reform. The study highlights the need for continued collective resistance and intellectual activism.
African American Literature as Resistance: An analysis of the Civil Rights Struggle in the United States · 2026 · DOI
Most-cited papers in Race, History, and American Society
- Whiteness as Property · Harvard Law Review · 1993 · 3,617 citations
- From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor · Signs · 1992 · 1,081 citations
- Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology · Signs · 1988 · 1,060 citations
- Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America* · Ethnic and Racial Studies · 1979 · 1,019 citations
- Under the shadow of Tuskegee: African Americans and health care. · American Journal of Public Health · 1997 · 938 citations
- On plantations, prisons, and a black sense of place · Social & Cultural Geography · 2011 · 917 citations
- Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference: Notes on Racism and Geography · The Professional Geographer · 2002 · 753 citations
- The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought · Signs · 1989 · 658 citations
- African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race · Signs · 1992 · 582 citations
- Changes in the Segregation of Whites from Blacks During the 1980s: Small Steps Toward a More Integrated Society · American Sociological Review · 1994 · 537 citations
Most recent work
- Whiteness as property: re-assessing the convergence of race and property in U.S. history · Ethnic and Racial Studies · 2026
- The Emerging Field of Singlehood Studies: Centering Single People and Surfacing Systems of Inequality · Sociology Compass · 2026
- Bowl By Bowl: Black Women, Food Selling, and Survival in the Antebellum North · Journal of Social History · 2026
- Rethinking racism again? Assessing conceptual deadlocks and innovations in race theory · Critical Sociology · 2026
- ANGELA RUTH HOBART (1939–2025) · Anthropology Today · 2026
- The Ballot, The Bullet, and the Colonial Unchanged: A Prophetic Scholar's Reading of Malcolm X's 1964 Diagnostic and Its Sixty-Year Receipt · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
- Peer influence on West Point cadets’ Civil War allegiances · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2026
- The internal colony: race and the American politics of global decolonization · The Global Sixties · 2026
- The racial architecture of belonging: Du Bois and the boundaries of the nation · Ethnic and Racial Studies · 2026
- Bridging Literature and Civic Inquiry through Zora Neale Hurston: An Interdisciplinary Approach · Social Education · 2026
Find a gap in your own Race, History, and American Society sub-topic
This page shows what the Race, History, and American Society literature already flags as unresolved. To narrow it to your specific question, run the guided finder — it searches the gap library on demand and checks candidates against 250M+ OpenAlex works.
Open the Research Gap Finder →