Arthur Scarritt
Bio
Arthur Scarritt is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Boise State University. He earned his bachelor’s at The Evergreen State College and his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined Boise State in 2007 and achieved the rank of Professor in 2016. He has taught a wide variety of courses, including classes on race, inequality, social change, social theory, and methods.
Scholarship
Scarritt studies how people challenge and reproduce the multiple forms of inequality that make up their lives. His book, Racial Spoils from Native Soils, looks at how Peruvian neoliberal reforms exacerbate the racist coloniality that keeps indigenous Andeans oppressed. More recently, in “Tripartheid: How White Supremacy Triumphs through Neoliberalism,” Scarritt compares the US and Peru, showing how recent political economic reforms have globally exacerbated colonially originating racism. Scarritt also investigates higher education. For instance, in “Selling Diversity, Promoting Racism,” JCEPS 16:1, he explains how a university’s commercially oriented diversity efforts end up bolstering campus racism. This latter research comes out of the Intermountain Social Research Lab (IMSRL). The lab employs intensive undergraduate research training as part of its investigation into the privatization of public higher education. Eight cohorts of undergraduates have successfully wrestled with the rigors of IMSRL to become scholars in their own rights. Research from the project has shown how the neoliberal university trains students to embrace the inequalities, limited learning, sexism, and racism that undermine the value of their educations. Scarritt has given several public presentations and interviews on various forms of racism and inequality, has had his work recommended by the Boise chapter to Black Lives Matter, and published short explanatory pieces on different web outlets.
Learn More about this Community-Serving Scholar’s Work
- Article by Scholar: How Commercializing Diversity Promotes Racism
- Article by Scholar: Boise Black Lives Matter
- Article by Scholar: The Rationality of the Malheur Gunmen: Fighting for the White Future of This Country