(Postracialism, racist denial and white crisis)

Focusing on the postracial drive to undermine racism through its purported universalization, the paper is aimed at analyzing, from a critical race studies perspective, how the ‘racial eliminativist’ demands, that underlie postracialist projects, paradoxically, crystallize into new forms of racial deniability, which I study through the contemporary expressions of ‘not racism’. Thus the argument is not about the existence of race as a factor determining social and political relations, hence ‘anti-racialism’, but rather about the establishment of definitions of racism that either sideline or deny race both as an historical phenomenon and as experienced by racialised people, on the one hand ; push for a dominant interpretation of racism as a moral one which sutures it to assessments of individual character, on the other hand. Three key facets of this ‘not racism’ will be put under scrutiny : the tendency to oppose race and class ; the alleged ‘unhelpfulness’ of racism; and the so called ‘elitism’ of antiracism

Postcoloniality without race? Racial exceptionalism and south-east European cultural studies

The black Dutch feminist Gloria Wekker, assembling past and present everyday expressions of racialized imagination which collectively undermine hegemonic beliefs that white Dutch society has no historic responsibility for racism, writes in her book White Innocence that ‘one can do postcolonial studies very well without ever critically addressing race’ (p. 175). Two and a half decades after the adaptation of postcolonial thought to explain aspects of cultural politics during the break-up of Yugoslavia created important tools for understanding the construction of national, regional and socio-economic identities around hierarchical notions of ‘Europe’ and ‘the Balkans’ in the Yugoslav region and beyond, Wekker’s observation is still largely true for south-east European studies, where no intervention establishing race and whiteness as categories of analysis has reframed the field like work by Maria Todorova on ‘balkanism’ or Milica Bakić-Hayden on ‘symbolic geographies’ and ‘nesting orientalism’ did in the early 1990s. Critical race theorists such as Charles Mills nevertheless argue that ‘race’ as a structure of thought and feeling that legitimised colonialism and slavery (and still informs structural white supremacy) involved precisely the kind of essentialised link between people and territory that south-east European cultural theory also critiques: the construction of spatialised hierarchies specifying which peoples and territories could have more or less access to civilisation and modernity. South-east European studies’ latent racial exceptionalism has some roots in the race-blind anti-colonial solidarities of state socialist internationalism (further intensified for Yugoslavia through the politics of Non-Alignment) but also, this paper suggests, in deeper associations between Europeanness, whiteness and modernity that remain part of the history of ‘Europe’ as an idea even if, by the end of the 20th century, they were silenced more often than voiced

Introduction: speaking of racism

It has never been easy, but speaking about racism in the western political climate of the first decade of the twenty-first century is more difficult than ever before. There is a feeling in post-colonial and post-immigration societies that the blatant, overt racism of the past is no longer as pressing. We hear more and more talk of euphemisms such as discrimination, intolerance or the challenges of living with diversity than of the bluntness of racism. Racism evokes times past: the extermination of the "racially impure", the trade in captured slaves, the lynchings, the injustices of Apartheid... It is unimportant that the legacies of these histories continue to define societies in many areas of the world. What is important is that "we" can relegate these horrors to times and peoples past. Anything that reminds us of them - the chanting neo-nazi "thugs", their excrement through letter boxes, the jokes in bad taste - are written off as ingnorance at the margins, psychologically challenged individuals to be either helped and educated or written off

Racism: a beginner's guide

Despite the long struggle to eliminate racism, it is still very much with us. In fact, since 9/11, racism appears to be on the rise, making it more important than ever before to understand the meaning of race and the effect it has on society. Alana Lentin maps the emergence and development of ideas about race through political history right up to modern debates about multiculturalism and Islamophobia, and considers the implications of a ‘post-racial’ society at a time when science has placed genetics over culture. Provocative and intelligent reading for the newcomer and expert alike, this invaluable resource exposes the roots of racial thought and demonstrates why it has remained crucial to our everyday lives

[Review] Mike Marqusee (2000) Redemption song: Muhammad Ali and the spirit of the sixties

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Wherever it raises its ugly head : anti-racism and the public political culture of the nation state : a political sociology of European anti-racist discourse and praxis

Examining board: Prof. Zygmunt Bauman (University of Leeds) ; Prof. Peter Wagner (EUI - Supervisor) ; Dr Cathie Lloyd (University of Oxford) ; Dr Barnor Hesse (University of East London)Defence date: 10 October 2002PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 201

[Review] Paul Gilroy (2004) After empire: melancholia or communal culture?; Paul Gilroy (2004) Between camps: nations, cultures and the allure of race

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Mirage of cosy diversity takes a hammering

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Shilpa Shetty and Celebrity Big Brother

The experience of a Bollywood actress subjected to racism on a British "reality TV" show reveals more about the country that its government would like to acknowledge, says Alana Lentin

Anti-racism in Ireland

This book will be crucial reading for students of Irish sociology, social policy, environmental studies and gender studies.¿ Bryan Fanning, School of Applied Social Science, University College Dublin Social movements and Ireland is an innovative new text which aims to provide a comprehensive introduction and critical analysis of collective action in Irish society. Participation in social protest in Ireland has become a widely utilised form of political expression and has played a profoundly important role in generating the wideranging cultural, political, social and economic changes which have shaped Irish society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book combines a broad overview of social movement activity in Ireland with an integrated introduction to the major theoretical forms of social movement analysis, and is ideally suited to the needs of students from a wide range of disciplines. By adopting an integrated approach, this landmark text provides new perspectives on international social movement theory, based on the Irish experience. At the same time, a distinct account of the development of Irish society and ongoing social change is provided through the focus on substantive questions ¿ gender, civil rights, rural development, consumerism, environmentalism, language, sectarianism, sexuality, war, globalisation, racism, ethnicity and immigration