“As it explicates these meanings culturally and historically, Odd Tribes becomes a provocative, nuanced understanding of whiteness specifically and race generally, and a productive re consideration of the value and efficacy of cultural analysis.” — Daniel Gustav Anderson, Rocky Mountain Review
“Hartigan contributes creatively to “whiteness” studies. . . .” — Bruce Baum, Journal of American Ethnic History
“Recommended.” — J. A. Fiola, Choice
“Wide-ranging and often insightful. . . .” — Anthony Harkins, Journal of Southern History
"[A]n important and critical engagement with what is sometimes called 'whiteness studies.' . . . Using his research in Detroit, Hartigan convincingly traces the varied and varying way in which race is lived in a context that is highly racialized, and yet not all social encounters are necessarily about race." — Bridget Byrne, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
"Illuminating. . . . There is a lot in Odd Tribes that will appeal to readers interested in general discussions of race and American social life. It's a good read for Detroiters interested in how a white minority manifests itself as a cultural anomaly and those wondering how urban demographics are tending in the early 21st century." — Eric Waggoner, Metro Times (Detroit)
"Hartigan's sophisticated and knowledgeable observations about the confluences of race and class among working class whites are invaluable for those in Appalachian studies who take seriously the complex challenge of interpreting whiteness in a context of regional dispossession."
— Barbara Ellen Smith, Journal of Appalachian Studies
“Beautifully written, theoretically sophisticated, and passionately iconoclastic, Odd Tribes should be required reading for anyone interested in the study of race and social inequalities. Its difficult lessons—for both liberal academics and antiracist practitioners—need to be absorbed and understood.” — Matt Wray, coeditor of The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness
“For John Hartigan Jr., race is not a fixed, abstract social fact but a fluid, heterogeneous, situated field of racializing practices. Odd Tribes deftly develops this approach through a series of lively accounts of how lower-class whites have been racialized in ways that simultaneously normalize whiteness. An elegant, fresh, provocative, often surprising, and ultimately hopeful work that argues forcefully for a cultural perspective on racial matters.” — Susan Harding, author of The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics