Racism,disadvantage and multiculturalism: towards effective anti-racist praxis

Measuring ethnicity in any society is a challenge. Given world immigration patterns, many countries face a growing dilemma in determining the cultural antecedents of their populations. A further complication is the reality that such determination occurs within the political and nationalistic settings where ethnic‐cultural groups may be potent forces in their own right. As societies mature and evolve, there is an increasing tendency for populations, especially those with many generations of residence in the country, to see themselves as ‘indigenous’ to the society in which they live. Canada is not alone in having to deal with the fluidity of the concept, ‘Canadian’, ‘American’, ‘Australian’, ‘Yugoslav’, and ‘Soviet’ are parallel concepts in other countries of multiple ethnic composition. Using 1991 National Census Test results, the article explores some of the parameters of the indigenous category ‘Canadian’. In particular, the location in Canada and mother tongue of respondents reporting ‘Canadian’ as the ethnic origin of their parents and grandparents or as their own ethnic identity are important indicators for this emerging ethnic category.     

Reflections on Racism,Class and the Racialized Outsider

Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider offers a sympathetic yet critical and scholarly re-examination of historical working-class politics through a detailed analysis of ‘race’. It follows the historiographical and theoretical trail of previous radical scholars, like Nairn on English nationalism and the groundbreaking but ‘race-blind’ work of heavyweight socialist labour historians like Hobsbawm and Thompson. While there have been many seminal studies of the English working class, this book points to the failure of such histories to explore the significance of class as articulated through the lens of race. In revisiting and reworking these influential works, the book critically appraises the significant part played by racialized elements of the working class, including Irish Catholics and Jews who are shown to have occupied centre stage, forming the vanguard of early socialist movements and labour organizations. This was no accident and fed into subsequent multiracial and socialist internationalist movements.     

‘Racism: From the Labour Movement to the Far-Right’

This report is a reflection on a recent conference, ‘Racism: From the Labour Movement to the Far-Right’, which was held at the University of Glasgow from Friday 5th to Saturday 6th September 2014. The authors discuss the main themes that the conference sought to address, consider the key highlights of the event including a summary of the opening address by Floya Anthias, and offer some suggestions as to how the initiative may be taken forward.     

Women social justice scholars: risks and rewards of committing to anti-racism

This article draws from the experiences of women, located in different countries, whose scholarship expresses a commitment to anti-racism and social justice. What are the challenges they face? How do they negotiate multiple commitments? Anti-racism scholars are border crossers and ethical leaders with a deep sense of care. Their experiences suggest that one does not necessarily have to engage in activism ‘out there’. The very commitment to anti-racism, as a scholar, becomes a form of social justice work. The ability to have a transformative impact both inside and outside of the academe enriches their sense of fulfilment as scholars.     

Challenging the empire

This paper considers how Paul Gilroy transformed hitherto dominant understandings of the relationship between race and class by developing an innovative account that foregrounded questions of racist oppression and collective resistance amid the organic crisis of British capitalism. The returns from this rethinking were profound in that he was able to make transparent both the structuring power of racism within the working class, and the necessity for autonomous black resistance. At the same time, significant lacunae in his account are identified, including the neglect of the episodic emergence of working-class anti-racism and the part played by socialists, particularly those of racialized minority descent in fashioning a major anti-racist social movement. The paper concludes with a lament for the disappearance of such work informed by a ‘Marxism without guarantees’ in the contemporary field of racism studies, and asks readers to consider the gains to be derived from such a re-engagement.     

Post-racial futures: imagining post-racialist anti-racism(s)

Abstract

Can the theoretical insights of post-racialism contribute to the development of a progressive anti-racism? Drawing on interviews with anti-racist organizations in London, this article explores the translation of the theoretical insights of post-racialism into anti-racist praxis. Theoretically informed and empirically engaged, this article argues that post-racialism faces its own set of paradoxes and practical dilemmas complicating the process of deriving post-racialist practice(s) from post-racialist theory. The article concludes that, in spite of the challenges, the powerful questions that post-racialism raises create a much needed ethico-political space for critical reflection on the concept and category of race. Ultimately, post-racialist insights may refine understandings of the discriminatory practices performed in the name of race and point towards a methodological approach of working with and against race in anti-racism.     

The problem of political blackness: lessons from the Black Supplementary School Movement

The Black Supplementary School Movement has a fifty-year tradition of resisting racism in Britain. Central to the movement is a construction of African Diasporic Blackness that is marginalized in British scholarship. ‘Political blackness’, based on the unity ethnic minority groups, is an important frame of reference in Britain. This article will examine the limitations of ‘political blackness’ in relation to research carried out in the Black Supplementary School Movement that involved interviews with key activists and an archival analysis of documents at the George Padmore Institute. Political blackness is based on an inaccurate understanding of the relationship between multiculturalism and anti-racism; a misreading of the complex and global nature of racism and a non-strategic essentialism. The concept also creates a form non-whiteism, which disempowers ethnic minority communities and works to delegitimize African Diasporic Blackness, which has a tradition of resisting racist oppression.     

Eliminating race obscures its trace: Theories of Race and Ethnicity symposium

ABSTRACT

Focusing on the chapters by Brett St Louis, Michael Banton, Matthew Hughey, and David Goldberg, I explore the contribution of Murji and Solomos’ volume, Theories of Race and Ethnicity, to ongoing debates on the meaning of the post-racial. I draw on Goldberg's interactive relationality as a means for thinking about the continued significance of race both for scholarship on its material effects and for developing practices of anti-racism.     

Rejoinder: race scholarship and the future

ABSTRACT

In this Rejoinder we seek to address the key issues raised by the four commentaries on our edited book. We focus on the question of the shifting boundaries of the field of race and ethnic studies, the absences and gaps in what is covered, the limits of the post-racial, and the whitening of sociology. In conclusion, we suggest some alternative ways in which we would seek to address them.