Race in the 21st Century takes an anthropological and ethnographic look at race and ethnicity and provides introductory students with a framework for comprehending the rapidly changing significance of those concepts in the United States today. By being exposed to recent qualitative social science research on race, students can develop new ways of thinking about why it continues to be an important aspect of their daily lives. In the process of surveying and summarizing this research, John Hartigan guides readers to both think through and pose basic, important questions about race in relation to their present circumstances and contexts. Using an ethnographic approach, the author shifts the focus of this discussion from general statements about race and develops an attention, instead, to the particular contexts where people actively engage and respond to racial meanings and identities. In this way, Race in the 21st Century encourages readers to think critically about the complexity of race.