Race Equality in Scotland : Challenges and Opportunities

This IPPI Policy Brief sets out why race equality matters in Scotland and highlights examples from which the rest of the UK could learn in the aspiration for race equality and a successful approach to citizenship. It identifies two ways through which Scotland can better improve public policy on race equality. The first is a more systematic approach to data collection on ethnic monitoring across the public sector. (Ethnic monitoring is currently common practice in some areas but entirely absent in others; a best practice approach would level this upwards). Secondly, how existing statutory commitments could be more consistently put into practice, especially in terms of the Equality Duty, by making fully operational use of existing instruments, rather than calling for new legislation

What will happen to race equality policy on the Brexit archipelago? Multi-level governance, ‘sunk costs’ and the ‘mischief of faction’

AbstractThis article considers how one of the ‘archipelago of contradictions’ raised by Brexit is the prospect of unconventional policy change, in so far as it includes – amongst other options – ‘returning’ to prior conventions that were scaled up from the UK to the EU, and then returned to the UK through EU directives. To explore this, the paper divides UK equality legislation into three types: (a) that which was created in the UK (b) that which flows from membership of the European Union and (c) that which reflects an outgrowth of the two. The translation of this into social policy has typically taken a patchwork approach, including a discursive public function which addresses the rights of distinct groups as well as their modes of interaction. The scope and scale of existing equality approaches have therefore become central to the kinds of social and political citizenship achieved by Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Britons. While the dangers of Brexit rhetoric are apparent to see, we do not yet know how withdrawal from the EU revises (a), (b) or (c). The article makes a tentative attempt to shed light on these entanglements by focusing on public policies enacted to pursue race equality in particular.</jats:p

W. E. B. Du Bois, double consciousness and the ‘spirit’ of recognition

The purpose of this article is to unpick and explore Du Boisian ideas of minority consciousness and double consciousness, to elaborate why they are of value, and to situate them in relation to the Hegelian phenomenology. The article shows that while an understanding of Hegel’s master–slave dialectic is helpful in grasping how Du Bois conceives of the power held by a dominant group to afford status, Du Bois was keenly aware that no less important was the ability to invoke complicity or use coercion in denying recognition. To this end the article refuses the view that Du Bois straightforwardly adopted a Hegelian approach in a manner that minimises how this aspect of Du Bois’ work also reflected remarkable intellectual originality. The article goes on to demonstrate how Du Bois’ concept presents sociology with something of normative category that captures the dual character of unrecognised minority subjectivities and their transformative potential, alongside the conditions of impaired status that are allocated to racial minorities.</jats:p

Islamophobia and postcolonialism:Continuity, Orientalism and Muslim consciousness

In this article, Meer tentatively delineates three ways in which he understands that the concept of Islamophobia is being informed by postcolonial scholarship. The first functions as continuity, in so far as it is claimed that historical colonial dynamics are reproduced in contemporary postcolonial environments, broadly conceived. The second involves translation. This is related to the first but different in that it focuses in particular on the utility of Orientalist critique for the concept of Islamophobia. The third concerns an account of Muslim consciousness, in so far as it is argued that ‘the making of Muslims’ is signalled by the emergence of the concept of Islamophobia, part, as one view has it, of a wider ‘decentring’ of the West. Meer argues that this third framing rests on terrain that is also populated by scholarship beyond the postcolonial tradition. This is because it expresses a story of how Muslims have contested and sought revisions to existing citizenship settlements, not least the ways in which approaches to anti-discrimination are configured. This is a story that is observable within imperfect liberal democratic frameworks that contain some institutional levers through which to challenge Islamophobia

A ‘Jeffersonian’ wall or an Anglican establishment: the US and UK’s contrasting approaches to incorporating Muslims

Drawing on their recent research Nasar Meer and Tariq Modood consider whether the British or American social compact is conducive to the incorporation of Muslims, and find that while the US may be more of a secular state, the UK is a more secular society and with a more secularist political culture. They argue that both can offer meaningful routes to not only political participation, but also meaningful incorporation of Muslim minorities

Migration and cultural diversity challenges in the 21st century

In this discussion we will consider some of the literature that seeks to take stock of the challenges and opportunities for liberal citizenship regimes that follow processes of migration; a body of thought that has variously centred on ways to reconcile political unity with ethnic, cultural and religious difference (e.g., Young, 1990; Taylor, 1992; Kymlicka, 1995; Parekh, 2000; Modood, 2007). In addition to this prevailing ‘canon’ there is a sustained and interdisciplinary body of theory and research exploring configurations of national membership, within and across a number of European polities, especially in terms of citizenship and national identity (e.g., Brubaker, 2001; Joppke, 2004; Koopmans et al, 2005; Banting and Kymlicka, 2006; Jacobs and Rea, 2007; Uberoi; 2008; Joppke, 2009; Meer, 2010; Faas, 2010; Triandafyllidou et al, 2011; Modood, 2013). We begin by noting the perpetual role that migration plays in unsettl ing existing configurations, before elaborating a rationale for remaking forms of collective memb ership in a manner that includes new groups too. Multiculturalism, we argue, is the foremost example of this even though its political fate remains uncertain. To support our reading we positively contrast it with categories such as interculturalism and superdiversity