Politics of Respectability, Colorism, and the Terms of Social Exchange in Family Research

In this article, we consider the utility of social exchange theory when centering the material and cultural realities of people and families of color. We draw on critical race and intersectionality scholarship to argue that this work challenges some of the core assumptions of social exchange theory (while reifying others) and offers novel avenues of inquiry and expanded foci for family researchers employing a social exchange framework. We illustrate our points by focusing on existing research and offering new empirical evidence on African Americans, yet we note that our revisioning has broader relevance for relationships between and within other groups and positionalities.