Historical methodology and theories of social and historical formations, the history of racism and racial formation in the U.S., pre-colonial and colonialist economic history, and race and world history
Gary Y. Okihiro (October 14, 1945 – May 20, 2024) was an American author and scholar. Before he moved to Yale,[2] he was a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia UniversityinNew York City and the founding director of Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Okihiro received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1976.[3]
Okihiro earned a B.A. in history from Pacific Union College in 1967.[4] He earned his M.A. in history from UCLA in 1972.[5] Okihiro earned his Ph.D. in African History at UCLA in 1976.[5] His dissertation was titled "Hunters, Herders, Cultivators, and Traders: Interaction and Change in the Kgalagadi, Nineteenth Century."[6]
Okihiro was the originator of "social formation theory," which he defined as the forms and processes of power in society to oppress and exploit. By forms, he meant the discourses and practices of race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation, and by processes, he referred to the articulations and intersections of those social categories. Power is agency, while oppression is the restriction of agency, and exploitation, the expropriation of land and labor. Okihiro has also proposed a field of study that he called "Third World studies" from the "Third World curriculum" demanded by students of the Third World Liberation Front in 1968. Third World studies, he contended, is the correct name for the field now known as "ethnic studies." He explained that name switch and some of its consequences in his book, "Third World Studies: Theorizing Liberation" (2016).
Okihiro was the author of twelve books, six of which have won national awards, and dozens of articles on historical methodology and theories of social and historical formations, and the history of racism and racial formation in the U.S., African pre-colonial economic history, and race and world history. Among his books are:
Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865-1945 (ISBN0877229457);
Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture (ISBN0295973390);
Okihiro also wrote on African history, including A Social History of the Bakwena and Peoples of the Kalahari of Southern Africa, 19th Century (ISBN0773478396).
