Nor Here/Nor There: The Invisible Struggle of Being Between Shades

Neither Here/Nor There: The Invisible Struggle of Being Between Shades

Chryssochoou (2003) defines identity as the constructed set of knowledge about oneself and the world. Therefore, being seen as a cyclical process linking social regulations and psychological organizations to form social representations that mediate relationships between the individual and the social world. However, this definition overlooks the reality that not all individuals live in stable social worlds where their identities are affirmed by their communities. In this article I discuss the complications that racial ambiguity poses amidst identity formation, arguing that perceptions of race expose the tension between self-perception and external categorization. I conclude by showing that discussions of race and identity simultaneously reveal their socially constructed nature.

My argument is supported by Cleveland’s (2025) observation, highlighting the unique challenges of cultural diversity faced by multiracial individuals compared to their monoracial counterparts. Cleveland argues that external perceptions and labeling complicate how mixed-race people construct and express their racial and ethnic identities. The suggestion here is that this interception of race and identity creates a liminal space where many of us racially ambiguous individuals find ourselves in, provokes a profound sense of displacement, ambiguity, anxiety and alienation (Baumeister & Leary, 2017). The experience is insurmountable and exhausting, constantly having to justify one’s connection to a community, culture or country, constantly being asked if we are really sure if we belong to or are from that community, culture or country simply because we do not fit into the norm. These questions and doubts of our belonging become a track on a stuck record throughout our lifetime, echoing Cleveland’s (2025) point. Yet, to pursue this argument further racial gatekeeping adds to the burden of existing by making us feel like an imposter with an almost aching loneliness of never having a racial “home”, constantly feeling lost and out of place and being confused with our existence (Rush, 2024) until our authenticity is proved. In this way, racial ambiguity acquires a distinctly negative connotation, complicating Cleveland’s (2025) otherwise neutral framing. 

Formally racial ambiguity refers to the people whose outward presentations are inconsistent with preexisting beliefs about racial categorization (Nadrich, 2024)  and is therefore not to be mistaken for identifying as solely biracial or multiracial. It means living in a constant tango between expectations, cultures and identities due to the inability to fit neatly into a singular racial category with some features suggesting you are white/black and other features suggesting another racial background (Gaither, Babbitt & Sommers, 2018). It is in that space where we float, untethered attempting to balance the feeling of inadequacy and being socially incongruent. These challenges, rooted in phenotypical ambiguity, carry significant implications for belonging and identity formation (Vargas, 2012).

This is to emphasise that when you grow up racially ambiguous, identity development is shaped by a constant negotiation between how you see yourself and how others insist on seeing you, as mentioned in Nadrich’s work earlier. In my own experience, I evidently carry traces of my black heritage, but with skin that's too light to be trusted with its struggle. At the same time, I am too brown to be fully absorbed into whiteness, leaving me suspended between categories and social expectations. This paradoxical positioning has profoundly shaped my sense of belonging, producing both hypervisibility and erasure in different contexts. Therefore, I would argue that most racially ambiguous individuals develop intercultural competencies, cultural adaptation and negotiation (Root, 1996) which interplay with inclusion, exclusion and identity performance within various social contexts (Rockquermore & Brunsma, 2002). In this sense, the very skills of intercultural competence that emerge from negotiating multiple identities highlight a paradox: while racial ambiguity often carries negative connotations of exclusion, it simultaneously equips individuals with unique capacities to navigate diverse social contexts, underscoring how identity is socially constructed through both constraint and possibility. While the specific features of racial ambiguity vary across groups (for example, someone with an Asian mother and White father may navigate a different set of assumptions), the overarching psychological dynamics of inconsistent perception, misrecognition, and conditional acceptance remain underexplored. Coupled with minimal research on how these developmental tensions impact wellbeing, particularly in relation to common conflicts, coping processes, and sources of support (Saleem, 2023) our experiences continue to be flattened. This lack of attention not only obscures the complexities of our becoming but risks perpetuating the same gaps for future generations of racially ambiguous individuals. This is due to the significant gap in existing research with much of the current literature focusing on single mixed-race combinations most commonly Black–White pairings which restricts the generalizability of these findings to other multiracial identities (Cleveland, 2025).

Nonetheless, this struggle between identity and race is further magnified for individuals living in diaspora as we attempt to connect ourselves culturally to both the hostland and homeland (Bhattarai, 2025). Bhattarai argues that it can be extremely difficult to navigate issues of identity when most racial socialization is negative, such as in the hostland, forcing individuals to internalize the stigma and stereotypes normalized within/outside family systems (Saleem, 2023). This emphasises how identity, as Chryssochoou (2003) defined earlier, is not an innate essence but a socially constructed set of knowledge. In diasporic contexts, negative racial socialization demonstrates that both race and identity are produced and reinforced through external perceptions, stereotypes, and community narratives rather than existing as stable or self-contained realities. For instance colloquial phrases such as “if you are yellow, you are mellow, if you are black stay back, if you are white you are right” or the historical use of terms “mulatto/ mullata” to express stereotypes and systems of oppression (Steele, 2016) and the favourable display of lighter toned individuals in the media can reinforce ideas of being a minority in society (Sutton, 2022). Sutton's notion is further backed by media representations that often stylize or aestheticize racial suffering, contributing to distorted public narratives about race and identity (Edison, 2007) which validate the argument posed by Steele highlighting the construction of race through the use of language and media in expressing systems of oppression. Such portrayals obscure the reality of lived racial ambiguity and further complicate the developmental processes through which individuals attempt to construct stable and affirming identities, complicating Cleveland’s definition of identity. The paradox of being racially ambiguous also lies in the crevice of not being viewed as its own unit of analysis regardless of it being a heavily growing population (Rush, 2024).

However, I believe these personal tensions echo larger histories of how race has been weaponized and defined differently across cultures and centuries.As argued by Rush (2024) the implications of never having a racial home and the need to prove ones authenticity has been expressed by the racial categorization in South Africa during and post- apartheid where racial categories were the locus of racial privilege and discrimination,  the principle used to allocate resources and opportunities, the basis of social interaction and spatial demarcation (Posel,2001) highlighting the socially constructed nature of race used to leverage power, justify exclusion and control.This is also observed with the one-drop rule in America which was a system used to classify anyone with African ancestry as Black, enforcing segregation and exclusion thus indicating the construction of race (Race, 2013) this evidence supports the notion by Chrysshochoou (2003) who disregarded any innate aspect of race. Africans, Indigenous people, people of Asian and African descent continue to live in the shadow of the consequences of colonialism- enduring racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (Eze,2011). These experiences further solidify the argument posed by Vargas (2012) relating to the challenges faced in identity formation and belonging due to phenotypical ambiguity 

Perhaps the racially ambiguous gives the world a glimpse into a mirror and wound that reflects the artificial nature of race itself. This is evident from the unaddressed developmental tensions in coping, support and wellbeing as alluded to by Salem (2023).This dissonance produces alienation in real life, highlighting how a socially constructed system continues to stratify individuals based on skin color (Adames, 2023). From a post-structuralist perspective, identity is never innate but socially produced (Bhattarai, 2025), and racial ambiguity makes this construction particularly visible. This is undeniable with examples from South Africa’s apartheid and the one drop rule in America where race was used to control resources, exclude and segregate (Race,2013; Posel,2001). Although most scholars agree that race is historically constructed, never innate, lacking biological significance, and shaped by law, science, and state policies (Omi & Winant, 2014; Obach, 1999; Pierce, 2014). Others contend that the fluidity of race does not always destabilize categories; rather it has refined the understanding of identities: in some regions, racial boundaries have hardened, and certain racial identities are policed more strictly than others (Davenport, 2020). This notion however would be contradictory to the intercultural competencies, cultural adaptation and negotiation formed by the racially ambiguous as suggested by (Root, 1996) .This tension illustrates a central paradox of racial ambiguity: while it exposes race as a social construct, it simultaneously reveals how deeply racial categories continue to govern belonging, value, and social recognition.

With a reflection that confuses people on where to place you, do we, the racially ambiguous,  listen to science which believes we are proof of connection or do we listen to society that insists we are proof of confusion? Our identities reside in this crevice, belonging everywhere and nowhere at once, an enduring negotiation of self, society, and history.

                   An ode to those who belong everywhere and nowhere at once

References

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