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Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory provides a critical analysis of the main areas of scholarly research and debate about racial and ethnic relations over the past few decades. The book covers substantive areas of scholarly debate in this fast-changing field, including race and social relations, identities and the construction of the racial other, feminism and race, the relationship between race and nationalism, antisemitism, the evolution of new forms of racism, race and political representation and, more generally, the changing debates about race and ethnicity in our global environment.
The book argues that there is a need for more dialogue across national and conceptual boundaries about how to develop the theoretical tools needed to understand both the historical roots of contemporary forms of racialised social and political relations and the contemporary forms through which race is made and re-made. A key argument that runs through the book is the need to develop conceptual frameworks that can help us to make sense of the changing forms of racial and ethnic relations in contemporary societies. This means developing more dialogue across national research cultures as well as empirical research that seeks to engage with the key issues raised by contemporary theoretical debates.
The book will be of interest to both students wanting to develop a deeper understanding of this area of scholarship and to researchers of race, ethnicity and migration working in various national and disciplinary environments.
John Solomos is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK. He has researched and written widely on the history and contemporary forms of race and ethnic relations in Britain, theories of race and racism, the politics of race, equal opportunity policies, multiculturalism and social policy, race and football, and racist movements and ideas. His most recent books are Race and Racism in Britain (Fourth Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and The Unfinished Politics of Race: Histories of Political Participation, Migration and Multiculturalism (Cambridge University Press, 2022). His most recent edited books are Race and Ethnicity in Pandemic Times (Routledge, 2022), An Introduction to Sociology (SAGE, 2022), Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader (Third Edition, Routledge, 2022), and Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Racisms (Routledge, 2020). He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Ethnic and Racial Studies journal, co-editor of the Racism, Resistance and Social Change book series (Manchester University Press), and General Editor of the online The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Race and Racism series.
‘John Solomos is the too-often unacknowledged uncle of UK race and ethnic studies. This work brings together insights from his field-making career, reflecting his often stated belief that a commitment to teaching is central to the responsibilities of a serious scholar. It is destined to become a core work in the field, encouraging new generations of antiracist scholars to learn to think with the seriousness and generosity of the author’.
Gargi Bhattacharyya, Professor of Sociology, University of
East London, UK
‘Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory is a politically astute, empirically grounded, conceptually sophisticated and open-ended contribution to our understanding of race and ethnicity at a moment when it is most needed. As popular movements and a new generation of activists embrace black lives matter, as statues of slavers and colonists are toppled, as universities grapple with what decolonising the curriculum might mean, and the racial inequalities of everyday life are as entrenched as ever, there couldn’t be a better moment than now to take stock of how we got to where we are today and how we might move forward into a more racially just future. This is simply a superb book. It provides a rigorous, intelligent and accessible pathway through the last half a century of race thinking, debate, politics and the racialisation of social relationships, in the UK and beyond. Most importantly, it provides an invaluable resource with which to develop intelligent public conversations about race’.
Caroline Knowles, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
‘Nobody in the world but John Solomos could write such a great book, based on empirical research, theoretical clarity, a solid experience of teaching and an unbelievable knowledge of both academic production and controversies, and the public debates on racism and antisemitism. In a time when huge transformations affect these key issues, which are so central in the political and social life, John Solomos brings to bear a more accurate, precise, and up-to-date analysis. This book will be a classic point of reference for years to come’.
Michel Wieviorka, Professor of Sociology,
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France
The right of John Solomos to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Solomos, John, author.
Title: Race, ethnicity and social theory/John Solomos.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021061911 (print) | LCCN 2021061912 (ebook) | ISBN 9781857286328 (hardback) | ISBN 9781857286335 (paperback) | ISBN 9780203519141 (ebook)
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061911
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061912
ISBN: 978-1-857-28632-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-857-28633-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-51914-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780203519141
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CONTENTS
Preface viii
Introduction 1
Origins and trajectories 1
Political and policy context 6
Situating this book 9
Race relations and social theory 12
Structuring the argument 17
References 21
1 Theoretical frameworks and perspectives 25
Concepts and analytical frames 25
Sociologies of race in Britain 27
Sociological perspectives in America 34
Critical and interdisciplinary theories 36
Globalisation of scholarship and research 37
Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives on race 41
Rethinking the boundaries of race and ethnicity 44
References 46
2 Race and social relations 53
Race, social relations, and class 53
Genesis and development 57
From race to class, and back again 61
Reconceptualising racism and social relations 66
Racism and society 69
Locating race and ethnicity in the social world 71
References 74
3 Constructing identities and the racial other 81
Identities, boundaries, and racialisation 81
Culture, identity, race 83
Whiteness and the racial other 88
Intersectional approaches to race and ethnicity 93
Living with difference 94
References 98
4 Reframing feminism, rethinking race 103
Race and feminist theorising 103
Limitations of feminist theories and race 104
Whiteness and feminist theorising 109
Black feminist perspectives 112
Intersectionality, culture, and racial politics 116
Minority women, mobilisation, resistance 120
Reframing the boundaries of feminism 122
References 124
5 Nations, cultures, identities 129
Nationalism, race, and nation 129
Constructing nations through race 130
Race, nation, and gender 134
Englishness, Britishness, and beyond 138
Remaking the nation after colonialism 142
Race, culture, and national identity 144
Nationalism and race in the global environment 147
References 150
6 Antisemitism, racism, and modernity 155
Background and context 155
Changing perspectives 157
Historical forms of antisemitism 158
Sociology and antisemitism 161
Antisemitism and the politics of racism 167
Political and cultural expressions 173
References 176
7 New racisms or beyond race? 181
What kind of racism? 181
From racism to racisms 182
Multiculturalism, diversity, and post-race 187
New racial orders 189
Political languages and race 191
Culture, race, and whiteness 194
Racism, populism, and post-race 198
References 200
8 Race, representation, and difference 205
Political inclusion and exclusion 205
Race, ethnicity, and politics 206
Representation, pluralism, and mobilisation 208
Migrants, mobilisation, and citizenship 212
Political identities and social movements 214
Looking to the future 218
References 223
9 Racism and ethnicity in a changing world 227
Race making in the present 227
Reframing the field of study 230
Emerging issues and questions 232
Racism and migration 236
Race and global inequalities 240
Comparative research cultures 243
Rethinking research priorities 245
References 250
Bibliography 255 Index 295
PREFACE
This book is being published at a time when questions about racial and ethnic relations are very much at the centre of both political and policy debates and broader conversations in society. The issues that it addresses are, therefore, both the subject of intense interest and often seen as sites of controversy, both within specific societies and more globally. This is evidenced in the growing number of both scholarly and more popular books that have been published over the past few years that address both the long and messy histories of race and racism and the role that political and social identities framed by racial and ethnic categories play in contemporary societies. Given this wider context and the timing of its publication Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory is both an effort to bring together an account of this evolving area of scholarship and research and an intervention in ongoing political and policy debates about how questions about racial and ethnic inequalities and divisions can be addressed in the contemporary environment. It is written, however, in a style that seeks to analyse key areas of scholarly curiosity and research rather than as a programmatic statement that seeks to convince readers to see these questions through a specific theoretical frame. This is because it seems important in this environment to be open to different ideas and perspectives, to maintain a degree of curiosity, and to ask difficult questions about both the historical background and the present.
Although questions about racial and ethnic studies are controversial for some commentators, as evidenced in controversies about the issues of critical race theory in the United States (Cobb 2021; Stewart, Cobb and Keith 2020; The Economist 2020, 2021), there can be little doubt that both in the academic sphere and in the wider civil society discussions about these issues have become an integral part of wider societal preoccupations about social justice, inequality, and social change. Indeed, both in the mass media and social media platforms, these are issues that have become central to current societal preoccupations and often
the subject of intense controversy and tension. One can see this both in scholarly and research-based monographs and in the broader range of more popular texts that seek to address the changing role of race and racism in contemporary societies (Coates 2015; DiAngelo 2021; Eddo-Lodge 2017; Greenfield-Sanders 2019; Kendi 2017; Morrison 2019). We shall engage with some aspects of these controversies throughout this book, although our main concern will be to provide an overview of the evolution of scholarly and research agendas in the contemporary period. The substantive chapters of the book are framed around key areas of scholarly research and debate and aim to provide readers with an accessible guide to current research agendas as well as to help situate current preoccupations within a broader historical context.
The style and tone adopted in the book lie in its origins, which go back to two sources that have helped to shape both the structure of the arguments developed in it and the style in which the key themes are presented. The first source goes back to my efforts to teach various cohorts of students at Aston, Warwick, Birkbeck, Southampton, London South Bank, City, and again at Warwick the basics of theoretical debates about race, racism, and ethnicity. In my efforts to engage students with these debates, it became clear that there were few texts that provided an overview of the origins and the trajectories of both historical and contemporary discussions in sociology and in the social sciences and humanities more generally. Partly because of my own frustrations at the relative dearth of accessible overviews of these theoretical debates and perspectives, I have felt a need for some time to produce a critical account of contemporary theoretical trends and debates. But without the actual experience of trying to engage students with these theories over time I doubt whether this book would have developed in the way that it has. I found that the need to provide students with the tools to access and discuss often esoteric conceptual debates forced me to try to make sense of debates and discussions to engage in meaningful conversations about them with my students. The dialogues and debates with various groups of students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, helped me to think differently about the key theoretical debates addressed in this book. So, thank you to all the students who have helped me, often without directly knowing it, along the way by discussing ideas, sharing criticisms, and expressing various degrees of enthusiasm. I hope that the effort to engage students’ curiosity about how we can make sense of both the histories and the present forms of racial and ethnic relations comes through in the various parts of this book. I hope to hear from future cohorts of my own students and others as they engage with the key ideas and concepts that are the subject matter of the book.
The second source lies in the empirical research projects and writing projects that I have undertaken over the years that have forced me to think about the connections between theory, history, and contemporary empirical research. My key research projects over the past five decades or so have focused on a wide range of issues, such as the evolution of policy agendas about black youth, changing
forms of black and minority political mobilisation, cultures of racism in football, transnational families and social capital, and the development of new forms of political mobilisation and race. These projects have led to a number of books that sought, to different degrees, to bring theory and empirical research together, including Black Youth, Racism, and the State, Race, Politics and Social Change ; The Changing Face of Football and Transnational Families (Goulbourne, Reynolds, Solomos and Zontini 2010); and The Unfinished Politics of Race (Back, Keith, Shukra and Solomos 2022). These empirical projects have helped me to understand the need to link the analysis of specific social issues and phenomena with broader theoretical frames and debates and have allowed me to develop my own approach to these theories that is reflected in the various issues that are covered in this book. Although there is often an absence of conversations between empirical researchers and theorists in this field of scholarship, as well as in other fields, a key argument that we emphasise in this book is that it is precisely through such an engagement that we can move forward to understand the changing dynamics of racial and ethnic relations in the contemporary conjuncture. All these projects have involved working closely over specific periods with several colleagues, and I have benefitted greatly from discussions with all of them.
Given these sources Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory can be seen as both an effort to write an accessible overview of key current debates and controversies in this field and a contribution to these important conversations. Although it is not written in the style of a theory book as such, my main hope in writing it is that it will be of interest to readers who want to engage with the key strands of theoretical debates in this field over the past few decades. This is something that has always been a challenge, particularly since over the past few decades, we have seen a proliferation of theoretical paradigms that have sought to provide a theoretical frame for the analysis of both historical and contemporary forms of racism and ethnicity. This is a development that is to be welcomed, in many ways, though it can also be argued that as a result, we have seen a series of conceptual approaches that engage in little dialogue with each other and make somewhat exaggerated claims about their scope and reach. This is evident in the relative absence of any sustained dialogue about key concepts and ideas, including the basic question of what it is that we are researching when we see ourselves as studying race, racism, ethnicity, or related phenomena. Rather than engaging in dialogues about key concepts and ideas, it can be argued that we have seen the emergence and development of several paradigms that have sought to claim the whole field of scholarship and research as theirs. It is also clear in the silences that seem to have replaced any conversation between scholars working on these issues in the United States and those based in other parts of the world, including scholars embedded in the British academic communities or other scholarly environments. In writing this book, part of my aim has been to engage in dialogue about the kind of theory we need today to help better understand the changing dynamics of race, racism, and ethnicity in the current conjuncture. Although I
am embedded in the research and scholarship about these issues that are going on in the British context, I have also consciously engaged with the work of scholars working in other national contexts to highlight the possibilities for a broader dialogue. The importance of cross-national dialogues and conversations is something that we shall address at various points in the substantive chapters of the book.
I have also benefitted from working over the years on edited collections that enabled me to engage with key areas of conceptual and theoretical debate. The first of these collaborations goes back to my involvement in the Race and Politics Group of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. This led to the publication of The Empire Strikes Back (Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies 1982). Over an extended period, my collaborations with Les Back, Martin Bulmer, Patricia Hill Collins, David Theo Goldberg, and Karim Murji on various edited collections, readers, and handbooks have proved to be very beneficial in allowing me to develop my thinking on emerging theories and perspectives (Back and Solomos 2000, 2009; 2022; Bulmer and Solomos 1999a,b, 2004; Collins and Solomos 2010; Goldberg and Solomos 2002; Murji and Solomos 2005, 2015; Solomos 2020). Such collaborations have helped me see more clearly that there are often parallel and somewhat disconnected bodies of scholarship in various national contexts that have something to contribute to emerging research agendas. They have also helped to introduce me to new ideas and perspectives and have therefore fed into much of the thinking that went into crafting this book.
In addition to these sources, a book such as this one tends to be the product of a constant dialogue with colleagues, friends, and students. I have inevitably accumulated a host of debts that I am glad to be able to acknowledge here, although words are not enough to indicate my real debts. I would like to thank Claire Alexander, Leah Bassel, Alice Bloch, Manuela Bojadzijev, Martin Bulmer, Adrian Favell, Paul Gilroy, Michael Keith, Marco Martiniello, Nasar Meer, Yasmeen Narayan, Sarah Neal, Therese O’Toole, Steve Pile, Liza Schuster, Satnam Virdee, and Aaron Winter. All have taken time from their own demanding work to meet up for a chat, a gossip, a coffee, a drink, and to offer advice and guidance along the way. For that I am grateful, and I look forward to discussing more about their work as well as mine! I am particularly grateful to Martin Bulmer for giving me the opportunity to co-edit the international journal Ethnic and Racial Studies back in 1995. We edited the journal together for a period of over 25 years, and that experience has been a deeply enriching one. His generosity and support have been important to me throughout this period, and the experience of editing the journal with him has been invaluable to me. Martin’s generosity in welcoming me out of the blue, so to speak to co-edit the journal with him helped me to see the importance of being open and supportive of others in an academic environment that often puts a priority on competitiveness. Editing the journal has given me a unique insight into the evolution of
research agendas all over the world in this field over an extended period. This insight has been enriching for me and I am sure it has had an impact on key aspects of this book. It has highlighted for me the importance of being open both to different theoretical frameworks and to the value of empirical research on race and ethnic relations.
It is also important to acknowledge the ways in which my thinking about the issues that are covered in this book has inevitably been influenced, if not shaped, by the lived experience of growing up in the environment of Camberwell, Peckham, and Brixton in South London when my family came from Cyprus as migrants. My teachers at Kennington Secondary Modern, particularly Mr Patel and Mr Hussey, helped to teach me English and at the same time introduced me to ideas and values that helped me make sense of a new society. My friends and peers at the school also helped me settle into an environment that was both new and challenging, and I learned much from growing up with them during a difficult time in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Mr Patel was instrumental in encouraging me to go to university, and indeed to visit the University of Sussex, at a time when I knew little about higher education and his passionate efforts to teach me the rudiments and both economic history and politics were the beginning of my journey. Mr Hussey introduced me to the importance of reading literature and poetry from all over the world, and his passion for poetry remains an important inspiration for me to this day. So, thank you so much for welcoming me and nurturing me, and for believing in me. I really owe everything to you, who taught me what thinking critically can lead to.
I am also grateful to my publishers at Routledge, in particular Gerhard Boomgaarden, Rebecca Brennan, Diana Ciobotea, and Christopher Parry for their patience and support over the years. They have been supportive of this book project over a long period of time, and I hope the wait has been worth it. In supporting this project over a period, they have allowed me the opportunity to write the book that I wanted to and have been encouraging throughout.
Christine, Nikolas, and Daniel have done more than they know to sustain me through the process of writing this book. At the same time, I have been lucky enough to follow with passion the fortunes of West Bromwich Albion throughout the period of writing this book, and I am grateful to my friends from the London Baggies who have allowed me to be ‘Prof’ on our various trips up and down the country. Thank you to Max, Lana, Dave, and Glenn for being such good company on many trips following the Baggies over land and sea. Those of us lucky enough to be Baggies know what our team means to us. It is indeed more than a football team. The arrival of Spotify in my life has allowed me to listen to my favourite music as I write, walk, run, and think and I am grateful for the inspiration it gave me to continue writing. The walks around Alexandra Park, Priory Park, Queen’s Wood, Highgate Wood, and Hampstead Heath have helped me to relax and think things through as I was writing.
John Solomos Crouch End, London
References
Back, Les, Keith, Michael, Shukra, Kalbir and Solomos, John (2022) The Unfinished Politics of Race: Histories of Political Participation, Migration and Multiculturalism Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Back, Les and Solomos, John (eds.) (2000) Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader First Edition London: Routledge.
Back, Les and Solomos, John (eds.) (2009) Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader Second Edition London: Routledge.
Back, Les and Solomos, John (eds.) (2022) Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader Third Edition London: Routledge.
Bulmer, Martin and Solomos, John (eds.) (1999a) Ethnic and Racial Studies Today London: Routledge.
Bulmer, Martin and Solomos, John (eds.) (1999b) Racism Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bulmer, Martin and Solomos, John (eds.) (2004) Researching Race and Racism London: Routledge.
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (1982) The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain London: Hutchinson.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi (2015) Between the World and Me New York: Spiegel & Grau.
Cobb, Jelani (2021) ‘The Limits of Liberalism’ The New Yorker 20 September, 2021: 20–26.
Collins, Patricia Hill and Solomos, John (eds.) (2010) The SAGE Handbook of Race and Ethnic Studies London: SAGE.
DiAngelo, Robin J. (2021) Nice Racism: How Progressive White People Perpetuate Racial Harm Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Eddo-Lodge, Reni (2017) Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race London: Bloomsbury Circus.
Goldberg, David Theo and Solomos, John (eds.) (2002) A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies Oxford: Blackwell.
Goulbourne, Harry, Reynolds, Tracey, Solomos, John and Zontini, Elisabetta (2010) Transnational Families: Ethnicities, Identities and Social Capital London: Routledge. Greenfield-Sanders, Timothy (2019) Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. https://www.greenfield-sanders.com/toni-morrison-the-pieces-i-am-2/
Kendi, Ibram X. (2017) Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America New York: Bold Type Books.
Morrison,Toni (2019) A Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches and Meditations London: Vintage. Murji, Karim and Solomos, John (eds.) (2005) Racialization: Studies in Theory and Practice Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Murji, Karim and Solomos, John (eds.) (2015) Theories of Race and Ethnicity: Contemporary Debates and Perspectives Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Solomos, John (ed.) (2020) Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Racisms Abingdon: Routledge.
Stewart, Q.T., Cobb, R.J. and Keith,V.M. (2020) ‘The Color of Death: Race, Observed Skin Tone, and All-Cause Mortality in the United States’ Ethnicity & Health 25, 7: 1018–1040. The Economist (2020) ‘Race and Liberal Philosophy’ The Economist 11 July: 53–56. The Economist (2021) ‘Race in America’ The Economist 22–28 May: 9, 1–11.
Introduction
Origins and trajectories
Although the origins of social scientific writings on race, racism, and ethnicity can be traced back more than a century, certainly in the context of the social sciences in America, it can be argued that the period from the end of the twentieth century to the current conjuncture represents an important turning point in the study of race, racism, and ethnicity. It is during this latter period that we have seen the development of new theoretical and conceptual paradigms, both within specific disciplines and across disciplines, alongside a noticeable expansion of empirical research and policy interventions. In this sense the period since the 1980s can be seen, following Michael Banton’s terminology, as a turning point in the study of race relations that has led to a flowering of both scholarly paradigms and policy-focused debates (Banton 1974). There have no doubt been previous turning points as the study of racial and ethnic relations evolved and developed but the past few decades have seen important developments in both theoretical paradigms and empirical research agendas that have helped to make the study of these issues a key feature of both disciplinary and interdisciplinary agendas. The focus of much of the substantive examples and trends we shall discuss in what follows will be on this period and this will allow us to provide an account that tells us something about the origins and trajectories of key areas of research.
As we shall argue later in the book the study of race and ethnic relations is a more recent phenomenon in the context of British society, but the general point that we have seen a massive transformation of this field of research over the past few decades remains true in our specific circumstances as well. It is over the past few decades that we have seen both the institutionalisation of race and ethnic studies within universities and continuing political and civil society conversations about key dimensions of racial inequalities and processes of discrimination.
So, the focus of this book will be on providing a critical overview of trends and developments that have emerged during this turning point to engage with the main theoretical perspectives that have helped to frame this field of scholarship and research. In providing this critical overview we shall seek both to engage with key bodies of theoretical scholarship and empirical research as well as discuss at least some facets of these societal conversations in Britain as well as other societies. In discussing the development of both theoretical and empirical research agendas we shall aim to critically engage with the work of both key theorists that have helped to shape this field of study as well as provide an overview of trends and developments at a more general level.
More importantly, we shall argue that it is during the period from the 1980s onwards that we have seen a noticeable expansion in the teaching of these topics at a global level and at all levels of higher education, a trend that has become even more evident over the past two decades (Brunsma, Brown and Placier 2012; Bulmer and Solomos 1999; Farrar and Todd 2006). This has been most noticeable in disciplines such as sociology and cultural studies, though it has also been evident in areas such as social policy, politics, geography, history, literature, anthropology, and related fields. All of these disciplines have their own complex and messy histories of engaging with questions such as slavery, colonialism, racism, and segregation (Blatt 2018; Magubane 2014, 2016; Patterson 2019). Although this expansion had not in itself served to challenge some of the absences in the curriculum that have led to mobilisations both by students and activists under the banner of decolonising the curriculum, it does signal an important transformation over the past few decades that has helped to re-position the study of race and ethnic studies in universities and higher education. This is a phenomenon that has taken a range of forms in different parts of the world, and it is still a live issue in a wide range of universities and higher education institutions that are facing up to the legacies of colonialism, racism, and other structural forms of domination.
It is important to emphasise that, like nearly all social scientists, we do not regard concepts such as race and ethnicity as scientific categories as such. Indeed, as we shall argue in the substantive chapters of this book efforts to divide human beings into groups based on alleged genetic or phenotypical differences have proved to be spurious and misleading, and of course even in some cases politically disastrous. Rather we see race as a means of re-presenting difference such that contingent attributes, such as skin colour, are transformed into essential bases for identities. This is not to deny that race remains, at the level of everyday experience, a potent political and social category around which individuals and groups organise their identity and construct a politics of race is socially constructed. It is precisely this mobilising power of categories such as race and ethnicity in the political and social worlds that we inhabit that is the subject of interest in this book and in the broader bodies of scholarship and research that it engages with.
At a more general level it is clear by now that the study of these phenomena has become an established and constantly evolving field of scholarship and research in ways that would have been almost impossible to recognise even two
or three decades ago. This is at least partly because we have seen efforts to fund more large-scale research in this field over these decades. But it is also the result of debates and struggles going on within universities about such issues as the place of race and ethnic studies in the curriculum, the employment of black and minority academics and the funding of postgraduate and early career researchers. This has resulted in a rapid expansion of both research-based books that cover key facets of contemporary racial relations and an ever-growing body of scholarship that has focused on developing theoretical and conceptual frames that seek to make sense of how these social phenomena have impacted the world around us (Collins and Solomos 2010; Elias and Feagin 2016; Emirbayer and Desmond 2015; Gallagher 2019; Golash-Boza 2016). The growth of monographs, textbooks, and specialised journals has helped to establish the study of race as a key issue across a wide range of disciplines and in interdisciplinary courses. Much of this growing body of scholarship has traditionally been centred on academic communities based in the U.S. and more recently in several European countries, including the United Kingdom. But there are also strong traditions of race scholarship and research in countries such as Brazil and South Africa (Adam and Moodley 2015; Carter 2012; Hooker 2020; Paschel 2016). So, in a very real sense we now have a field of scholarship and research that is both expanding and developing in a range of directions and becoming much more international in terms of reach and scope. This gives rise to some hope for the future, but it also signals how far we have to travel to meet the challenges that we face today.
At the same time, it has become clear that in disciplines across the social sciences, humanities, and the sciences the study of race has become a recognised and growing field of both empirical and theoretical enquiry. An important facet of this expansion can be seen in the noticeable growth in peer-reviewed specialist journals that provide a forum for the dissemination of these bodies of scholarship, often accompanied by an increasing presence of articles focused on race and ethnicity in mainstream disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals (Brunsma, Embrick and Nanney 2015; Husbands 2018; Meer and Nayak 2015). This includes journals focused on specific disciplines such as sociology, politics, and psychology and others that have a broader interdisciplinary focus. Over the past few decades, for example, we have seen a noticeable expansion in established journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, Identities, Patterns of Prejudice, and the establishment of relatively new journals such as Du Bois Review, Ethnicity & Health, Ethnicities, and Sociology of Race & Ethnicity to name but a few. It is also noticeable that both mainstream disciplinary journals and interdisciplinary journals are publishing both theoretical and empirical research papers on key facets of race, racism, and ethnicity. Many of the research-based articles published in these journals are themselves the product of the funding given by public research bodies for research in the broad field of race and ethnic studies, both empirical and theoretical in scope.
The growth in the number of journals reflects two broad trends we have seen over the past few decades. First, it points to the institutionalisation of the study of race, ethnicity, and racism as reflected in both research funding and the
publication of research articles and books across a range of social sciences and humanities. This process of institutionalisation can be traced over a number of decades, and has been exemplified by the setting up of specialised research centres and groupings, increased funding for research on race and ethnic issues, and the development of research networks that link academic and scholarly communities (Banton 1973, 2016; Bebber 2019). But in recent years we have seen a more wide-ranging and increasingly globalised institutionalisation of research on race and ethnic relations, particularly as these questions have become increasingly politicised and moved to the centre of policy agendas in areas such as employment, housing, health, social welfare, and criminal justice. As many scholars have recognised the study of race and racism has been deeply influenced by events going on in the social world around us and not just by the changing paradigms and fashions of academic and scholarly debate (Collins and Solomos 2010; Emirbayer and Desmond 2015; Lentin 2020).
Second, it reflects the growing number of academics that specialise in these fields of study and that provide the underpinning research output that sustains both established and new journals. In key disciplines in both the social sciences and humanities there are a growing number of scholars who have specialised in research on race and ethnic issues, and as their academic careers have developed, they have increasingly sought to publish their research articles in both mainstream disciplinary journals and in more specialised journals with a focus on their areas of scholarship and research. This process is also evident in related areas of scholarship, such as migration studies and studies of nationalism, where we have seen the establishment of distinctive fields of scholarship and research over the past two decades (Levy, Pisarevskaya and Scholten 2020; Pisarevskaya, Levy, Scholten and Jansen 2020). In the context of studies of race and ethnicity the period since the beginning of the twenty-first century has been characterised not only by growth and institutionalisation but by a growing diversity of research paradigms and frames that are helping to push forward the further development of this area of scholarship and research.
It is important to make these initial points since Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory has been written against the background of these developments, and in this sense, it has been shaped by current research and scholarly debates about what it is that we are studying when we conduct research on race, racism, and ethnicity. But this book is also an intervention into these continuing debates and conversations in sociology and other disciplines about the role of race, racism, and ethnicity in shaping the social world around us. It is written from several vantage points, including my experiences of teaching on these issues over an extended period and carrying out research on a range of empirical projects about key facets of race and ethnic relations. It engages with the changing terms of theoretical and conceptual debates that have come to the fore over the past few decades, but it also seeks to provide a critical overview of key areas of scholarship and research to engage with the key transformations that we have seen over the past few decades and to suggest possible directions for future research agendas that will allow us to come to terms with the challenges that we shall face in the
future. Given this wider frame, we do not assume that there is one privileged theoretical perspective that can help us to understand all these phenomena.
Rather we argue that it is vital for all of us to engage in open conversations about how we can begin the process of developing the conceptual and empirical tools we need to make sense of both the historical background as well as the varied forms of racism that have taken shape in the contemporary conjuncture. Although we have been an active participant in these conceptual and theoretical debates over the past few decades (Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies 1982; Solomos and Back 1996), as our work has developed over this period we have increasingly sought to link our theoretical engagement with empirical work that addresses the changing experiences of race and society, particularly in British society. From the early 1980s onwards our own experience of being part of the collective that produced the influential text The Empire Strikes Back (Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies 1982) ensured that we engaged with the conceptual work of Stuart Hall and other critical thinkers who were beginning to outline new frameworks for thinking about race and racism. Hall’s work from that period of his long intellectual career can be seen as central to the work of a range of critical researchers working on race, particularly in sociology, cultural studies, and history (Hall 1980, 1981, 1988; 1991; Hall, Gilroy and Gilmore 2021). In some ways Hall has been seen as a scholar whose main contribution was to the foundation of cultural studies as a discrete field of study, his reflections on questions about race helped to encourage other researchers to take up his invitation to locate the study of race and racism within broader conceptual and historical debates about the role of colonialism, postcolonialism, racial formation, and ethnicity in shaping the experiences of black and migrant communities in societies such as Britain, the United States, contemporary Europe as well as more globally (Alexander 2009; Mills 2007). His approach proved to be influential, both as an invitation to develop both conceptual frameworks for the analysis of race and ethnicity as well as more empirically focused scholarship. This is certainly the way that we have sought to engage with Hall’s work, alongside other conceptual frameworks, in our own research and scholarship over the past few decades.
It is also important to note that rather than seeing theoretical debates as separate from broader empirical agendas on race and ethnicity we have also been centrally involved in a range of empirical studies over the same period. These studies have been framed around such issues as the changing position of black youth, the politics of race and mobilisation, cultures of racism in football, new forms of racialised politics, transnational families and social change, and race and social policy (Back, Crabbe and Solomos 2001; Back, Keith, Shukra and Solomos 2022; Goulbourne, Reynolds, Solomos and Zontini 2010; Solomos 1988). The experience of engaging with the conceptual work of pioneering scholars such as Stuart Hall, alongside active involvement in empirical research projects from the 1980s onwards has helped us develop the core conceptual issues that frame this book. It is also because of our involvement in these scholarly communities that we have framed this book as an intervention into current research and scholarly
agendas, since we have been part of these developments over the past few decades. So, it is important to note that we are not writing as an outsider to these conversations but rather as an active participant in both the theoretical discussions and in empirical research.
Rather than being framed as a critique of the field of race and ethnic studies as such, we have chosen to situate this book from the perspective of being part of the debates and transformations that we are discussing. Much of the current rhetoric that seems to dominate some discussions of this area of scholarship is rather dismissive of what has been achieved by the scholarship and research that has come to the fore over the past few decades and this seems to us to limit the possibilities for coming to terms both with what has been achieved and developing a conversation about overcoming the limitations and absences in existing research agendas. So, rather than situating our account outside of existing research agendas we have sought to position ourselves as a participant in both empirical research and conceptual debates. This is not to say that we are not aware of the limitations of existing research paradigms, but it is also important to develop an understanding of what has been achieved over the past few decades to be able to outline routes for new research agendas in the future. It is important to build on the important work that has been carried out in the decades since the 1980s if we are going to be able to come to terms with the work of key scholars and develop conversations about how best to move forward.
The focus of the nine substantive chapters that make up this book is firmly on the continuing transformations in scholarship on race, racism, and ethnicity over the past few decades. Although we shall draw on some key facets of earlier scholarship and research at certain points in the book our focus will be on critically engaging with the key threads of the scholarship that has emerged in the past five decades or so. We shall draw on these growing bodies of scholarship and research, as exemplified in articles in journals, research monographs, edited collections, and other outputs. At the same time, we shall seek to situate these bodies of scholarship and research within the context of the changing role of race and racism in contemporary societies. This is because as we shall argue throughout this book it is not possible to separate out theoretical and conceptual developments from the real-world impact of questions about race, racism, and ethnicity, whether it be at the level of civil society or the political sphere. It is to the exploration of some key facets of these linkages that we now want to turn.
Political and policy context
Alongside this growth of scholarship and research we have also seen intense political and policy debate about race, racism, and ethnicity during the last few decades of the twentieth century and the first three decades of the twenty-first century. Indeed, despite some predictions that have been made that we are moving towards a post-racial future during the first part of the twenty-first century we have seen a noticeable politicisation of questions about race and ethnic relations
in many societies. This is evident across a broad range of European countries, but it is also clear from public policy debates in North America, Latin America, South Africa, and a few other parts of the globe that questions about race and ethnicity remain at the heart of continuing political and policy debates and conflicts (Bloch, Neal and Solomos 2013; Golash-Boza 2015; Solomos 2020). The mobilisations framed around such symbolic movements as Black Lives Matter (Hesse and Hooker 2017; Hooker 2017; Lebron 2017; Makalani 2017; Tillery 2019) during the past decade or so and the efforts to question the legacies of colonialism and imperialism through mobilisations such as Rhodes Must Fall (Frank and Ristic 2020; Hayward, Threadcraft, Lebron and Shelby 2019; Shepherd 2020) have helped to emphasise the continuing mobilising power of the signifier of race within political cultures and in civil society. More importantly it has also drawn attention to an issue that has been at the heart of scholarly debates on race and racism for over a century, namely the reality that academic researchers cannot easily distance themselves from the social and political realities of what race signifies societies and how it becomes part of broader social structures and modes of social action over time.
It has also been evident that questions about race and identity are not merely of academic interest since they are an important arena for political mobilisation and policy debate. For example, they remain at the heart of the mobilisations of extreme right-wing political and social movements, even though they are often camouflaged these days around nativist rhetoric that is framed around the whiteness of national cultures and histories (Dancygier and Margalit 2020; Husbands 2020). In some national situations we have also seen a noticeable growth in mobilisations by racist and ethno-nationalist movements that seek to promote political ideologies premised on opposition to immigration, growing cultural and religious diversity, and multiculturalism. At the same time it is worth noting that such mobilisations have often been met with antiracist mobilisations and mobilisations by racialised minority communities of various kinds, articulating an ideological stance against the expression of racist ideas and values (Bhattacharyya 2020; Bhattacharyya, Virdee and Winter 2020). Such mobilisations and counter-mobilisations have become a common feature in a wide range of societies, particularly over the past two decades, and they highlight the volatile nature of questions about racial and ethnic identity in the current conjuncture. Indeed, this has become even more evident in the final stages of completing this book, a time characterised by large-scale mobilisations by antiracist and minority activists as well as mobilisations by extreme right-wing and nationalist groupings in various societies.
Quite apart from the role of political and social movements it is also important to note that questions about racialised inequalities in areas such as employment, housing and dwelling, education, social welfare, health, politics, and criminal justice have remained at the heart of policy debates and interventions in contemporary societies across the globe. A wide range of empirical studies have highlighted the continuing and significant role that these inequalities play in shaping
the life chances of racialised minority communities (Bloch et al. 2013; Feagin and Ducey 2019; Gallagher 2019; Golash-Boza 2016). In countries as diverse as the United States, Britain, South Africa, France, and Brazil the past few decades have seen continued debates about both the extent of racialised inequalities as well as intense controversy about the reasons for the continued significance of racialised inequalities at all levels of society and political life. While there are clear political and ideological differences in explanations for continued racialised inequalities there is also a wealth of research evidence about the structural processes that help to shape racialised inequalities in specific social arenas.
In this situation much of the scholarship on race, ethnicity, and racism that has been produced over the past few decades has inevitably sought to push forward the boundaries of what it is that we study when we research questions about race, ethnicity, and racism in the contemporary world around us. While earlier generations of scholars working on racial and ethnic studies tended to work within somewhat fixed theoretical and conceptual frames in the contemporary conjuncture, we have seen a proliferation of conceptual and theoretical frames that are seeking to establish new boundaries for what it is that we are researching. This is evident in the growth of research that actively seeks to broaden the boundaries of dominant research agendas and to give voice to demands for more critical perspectives on how we see race in the contemporary academic and broader social agenda (Crenshaw, Harris, HoSang and Lipsitz 2019; Elias and Feagin 2016; Gallagher 2007).
An important facet of efforts to rethink the boundaries of racial and ethnic studies can be found in the push by some scholars to focus discussion on perspectives influenced by critical race theory and by postcolonial and decolonial theoretical perspectives. The discussion of critical race theory has been an established part of debates in legal theory from the 1980s onwards (Crenshaw 1988, 1989, 1991; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller and Thomas 1995; Delgado 1995; Delgado and Stefancic 1993), although its influence on sociological research agendas about racial and ethnic relations is more recent. The influence of critical race theory as a perspective can be seen in the work of sociologists such as Joe Feagin on systemic racism and white domination and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s efforts to develop a structural analysis of systemic racism (Bonilla-Silva 1997, 2001; 2021; Elias and Feagin 2016; Feagin 2006; Feagin and Vera 1995). We have seen several efforts by sociologists and others to engage with the implications of postcolonial and decolonial theories for the analysis of the changing forms of racial and ethnic relations both from a historical angle as well as the present. Alongside these efforts to develop critical conceptual tools for thinking about how racial and ethnic relations are made and re-made we have seen growing interest in linking the study of race and ethnicity to studies of class, gender, sexuality, and related social issues. We shall return to some aspects of these discussions in Chapter 1 as well as in other chapters of the book.
Given the evolving nature of research and policy agendas in this field it is also clear that there remain many open questions that need to be explored in the future. By way of example, there is a wide range of questions that remain part of
important conversations that are far from being completed: Why do ideas that there are separate and different races persist? How is race socially constructed and what impact does it have on the reproduction of social differences and inequalities? In what ways is race a meaningful concept in social theory? What is the relationship between race and ethnicity as social categories? What role do questions about gender and sexuality play in the analysis of race and ethnicity? How are questions about nation, culture, and identity addressed when we study race and racism? What is the relationship between racism and antisemitism? As we go through the various chapters in this book, we shall be exploring these and related questions in some depth and using specific historical and contemporary examples and illustrations.
This is not to say that we shall be able to resolve all these questions in this book, but we shall at least be able to discuss the issues that they raise in some detail and suggest possible avenues for further research and analysis. In making these suggestions we shall aim to engage with a range of theoretical and empirical research perspectives. It is important therefore to say something more about how this book is situated within broader intellectual and research agendas, and it is to this issue that we now turn.
Situating this book
As we have made clear earlier on Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory is a contribution to the ongoing discussion of how race, racism, and ethnicity have been constructed in contemporary social theory and given particular social and political meanings in societies and political cultures more generally. Although it is framed mostly around the debates that have been prevalent in sociological theories and research it also engages with contributions from a broader range of both disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship. Given the interdisciplinary nature of race and ethnic studies as it has developed over the past few decades it is important that we are able to include a broad range of the contributions that have been made from a range of disciplinary perspectives. But it is also worth emphasising that this book is also the result of our long-standing concern with the empirical analysis of the role and changing contours of racial ideologies and practices in contemporary societies. We have worked on various aspects of this dimension of race relations through empirically focused projects of one kind or another and felt it appropriate to try to provide an overview of what we see as some of the key issues and main trends in this field of social analysis (Back et al. 2001; Shukra et al. 2004; Solomos 1988). Although these empirically focused studies dealt with specific social and political issues, such as governmental policies on race, political mobilisation and modes of inclusion, and racism in popular football cultures they also raised important conceptual questions about how race is constructed and re-constructed through political language and forms of social action. During this research, we faced important questions about how best to make sense of the ways in which specific meanings were attached to race within political and
policy discourses and the ways in which these meanings evolved and changed over time (Back et al. 2022). We were also confronted by the need to make sense of what was going on in specific urban and institutional environments in public debates about such issues as race, immigration, community cohesion, and national identity.
A good example of the challenges we faced in this context is the range of issues that arose because of a study of the changing forms of racialised politics that formed part of our research during the 1990s and early decades of the twentyfirst century. During the course of this research it became evident to us that the meanings attached to race were by no means fixed and unchanging and that they became part of a complex set of mobilisations by political actors seeking to make sense of evolving forms of political engagement and disengagement (Back et al. 2009, 2022; Solomos and Back 1994, 1995). Although much of this research was geographically focused on Birmingham and London and involved ethnographic and interview-based research methods in specific localities it helped to clarify for us the importance of the lived political and social realities of race in shaping how racialised forms of political activism develop within local spatial environments. It also helped us to think through our interest in exploring the links between conceptual and theoretical debates about race and ethnicity and the everyday social and political processes that were the focus of much of the empirical research that we developed over this same period. This led us to try to rethink how we conceptualised the role of racialised political identities within political parties at both the local and national levels, the everyday political languages used to talk about race and representation, and the position of black and minority politicians within political institutions. But it also highlighted for us the complex ways through which racial and ethnic identities are constructed and reconstructed through political mobilisation at the scale of the nation and locality and the need to develop the conceptual tools for making sense of such mobilisations. We shall return to this issue more fully in Chapter 8, which is focused on exploring the evolving forms of race and political representation, but it is also something we shall address in Chapters 3 –5
Another example can be found in a study we carried out in the 1990s and early 2000s on the role of race and racism in the context of English football cultures. This was a time when the issue of racism among football supporters had come to the fore in both media and policy debates. In developing research on this issue we found that although there was a tendency to collapse the issue of racism in football into broader discourses about the football hooligan this in practice served to limit our understanding of the variety of ways in which ideas about race helped to shape processes of racialisation among football fans, managers and coaches and administrators (Back, Crabbe and Solomos 1999, 2001). Rather than focus our research on the figure of the football hooligan we felt that it was important to understand how questions about race were constructed within football supporter fan cultures more generally, thus allowing us to analyse the often messy and complex ways in which race was experienced in football cultures more
generally. We also broadened our analytical frame to allow us to make sense of how race was seen within the key institutions of football, among football players, and within fan groups that sought to oppose racism both within the game and in society more generally. As we developed this project and began talking to football supporters and players about their experiences of race and the meanings that they attached to such issues as club identity, national culture, and efforts to develop antiracist initiatives in football it became evident to us that much of the dominant theoretical discussion on race and racism did little to help us address the core issues that animated our research on cultures of racism in football, or indeed other important facets of the changing dynamics of racialisation and processes of identity formation in contemporary society. This was partly because much of the conceptual and theoretical remained somewhat separate from the realities of carrying out more empirically focused research, whether in the context of political institutions at the local or national level or in the context of sport and popular culture. But it was also because empirical research agendas tended to develop along narrow frames and did not engage with the efforts to construct more open and critical analytical frameworks for the situated analysis of race, racism, and ethnicity is specific social and political spheres.
Our experience of working on these projects, however, helped to highlight for us the need to develop an analytical frame that did not take categories such as race and ethnicity as fixed and unchanging. It also emphasised the need to see these categories as always in the process of being made and remade, not least through the social and structural processes that have shaped the historical as well as the contemporary meanings attached to categories such as race. Additionally, we felt unhappy with the ways in which existing texts dealt with the complex range of issues raised by the study of race and racism in contemporary societies. In this sense this volume has grown out of these experiences and frustrations with the limitations of much of the theoretical discussion that has come to the fore over the past few decades. It is an attempt to outline the broad contours of the study of the role that race, ethnicity, and racism play in shaping social relations and institutions and to encourage further debate and analysis. We do not see this book as a text that provides in any sense the final word on this subject. Indeed, what makes the study of contemporary forms of race and racism such an interesting and challenging area at the present time is the complex range of social and political relations researchers have sought to investigate and the variety of theoretical perspectives that have been developed to provide the conceptual tools for this research. What we seek to provide, therefore, is a critical overview of some of the key issues that have helped to shape the shifting boundaries of race and ethnic studies over the past few decades. Part of what has guided our own empirical research endeavours has been a sense of curiosity about how ideas about race and ethnicity become embedded in specific institutions and processes and how these in turn help to structure the actions of both individuals and social groups in specific societies, cities, and localities. It is this same sense of curiosity that has helped to shape all the substantive chapters of this book.
The changing meaning and social role of race and racism in the present social and political environment makes it inherently difficult to provide a comprehensive account of this field of study. Yet this is what we are attempting to do, with the clear understanding that our account of key issues and processes is both provisional and limited in its objectives. Rather than retracing familiar theoretical and historical territory the main concerns of the book will be to concentrate on how sociologists and other social researchers have attempted to provide conceptual frameworks for the analysis of racialised social relations and how they have applied these frameworks to the analysis of specific social phenomena. We hope that in exploring the interplay between theory and empirical sociological analysis we can see how far we have moved towards a better understanding of the ways in which race is used social and historical contexts, what it signifies, and its impact on social, political, economic, and cultural processes in contemporary societies.
Race relations and social theory
Given the developments outlined above our main aim in writing this book is to examine two key dimensions of contemporary theorising about race, racism, and ethnicity. First, we turn our reflexive gaze onto the key conceptual and theoretical contributions on race relations and sociological theory over the past five decades. This is the main concern of Chapters 1–3, which are organised in such a way as to provide an overarching account of key theoretical contributions and perspectives. These chapters provide both an outline of the key interventions in this field and a critical engagement with some of the key ideas and concepts that have emerged out of these discussions and become an entrenched part of contemporary scholarly and research agendas. The second dimension, which is the focus of Chapters 4 –8, tackles key arenas where ideas about race are mobilised through social and cultural processes that help shape our understandings of what racial relations are in contemporary societies. In exploring these arenas our focus is to situate them within a broader analytical frame that allows us to see, for example, how questions about gender, national identity, antisemitism, new forms of racism, and political representation have become core aspects of scholarship and research in this area. In exploring these dimensions, we shall be able to address the question of how we can seek to move both theoretical analysis and empirical research agendas forward, and this is the concern of the concluding chapter of the book, which provides an overview of the key themes we have addresses as well as looking forward to the emerging issues that need to be addressed as we look to the future.
This means, above all, that we are concerned to show how and why in particular contexts social and cultural discourses about race and ethnicity converge and help to shape policies and practices around specific social groups and issues. Rather than focus on the rather narrow issue of whether race is a social scientific category as such, we shall explore the ways in which it becomes a form of collective social identity social and historical circumstances. It should be clear from
the tenor of the arguments to be found in this volume that we do not see race as a natural category in any sense, though it is often used as such. Race and ethnic categories are ideological entities that are made and remade through struggle. In this sense race can be seen as a discursive category through which differences are accorded social significance. But it is also more than just a discursive category since it carries with it material consequences for those who are included within, or excluded from, a particular racial identity. It is precisely this facet of racial relations, as a means of making boundaries that define who belongs, and who does not, that has been the subject matter of both historical and contemporary research agendas.
As Stuart Hall has emphasised in his influential reflections on the formation of racial and ethnic identities the boundaries of the study of the relationship between racism and society are by no means fixed and unchanging (Hall 1980). For Hall, the ‘fateful trinity’ of race, ethnicity, and nation needs to be seen as always evolving and changing according to real-world processes and struggles (Hall 2017). Indeed, in writing this volume we became even more aware than we were at the beginning of our endeavours of the complexity of the issues we were attempting to analyse and of the need to utilise perspectives from a range of theoretical and historical research to provide a useful and critical intervention in current debates. This has become particularly clear in the context of developments in Europe and in various other parts of the globe over the past few decades, where in quite diverse social and political contexts we have seen the emergence of new forms of racism and ethnic nationalism that have had a devastating impact at both a personal and a collective level. It is also clear that in contemporary societies ideas about the social relevance of race are by no means uniform and unchanging. Hence the tendency of many commentators to use notions such as new racism and cultural racism to talk about the changing morphology of racial ideas and practices in societies such as Britain, other European societies, and the United States (Tinsley 2019; Valluvan and Kalra 2019; van Sterkenburg, Peeters and van Amsterdam 2019).
It is impossible in the present environment to ignore the role of ideas about race and ethnicity in shaping and determining the social and political relations of societies all over the globe. Whether one looks at the popular media or at the changing research agendas of the social sciences and humanities, there is no escaping the realisation that questions about race and related social issues are at the heart of a whole range of debates. If we take the situation in Britain and other European societies as a case in point, there seems little doubt that immigration and race relations have come to occupy an important space in political debates about many aspects of social and economic policy.
As several commentators have noted an underlying theme in American debates about a whole range of social issues is the question of race, with all its complex connotations in terms of history as well as contemporary issues. Studs Terkel, a perceptive commentator on American culture and society, captures a key aspect of contemporary trends when he talks of the ‘obsession’ with race in all sectors of urban America (Terkel 1993). But it is important to move beyond this kind
of descriptive generalisation and to explore more fully the ways in which both historical processes and contemporary social and political processes have shaped the present in relation to ideas about race and racialised others (Hall et al. 2021; Omi and Winant 2015). In the United States there have been a number of efforts to produce accounts of the contemporary realities of race as a lived experience in the United States that outline both the peculiarities of the present as well as exploring the linkages with the past. One interesting example can be found in the effort by Imani Perry to explain to her sons the everyday realities of race in the contemporary United States. As a scholar of the role of race in American society and culture Perry has made important contributions to research in this field, particularly focusing on the intersections between culture and politics (Perry 2004, 2011, 2018). In writing Breathe: A Letter to My Sons she changed her style somewhat by addressing her voice to her children and discussing in a much more personal manner what it may mean for them to live within racial boundaries and realities in this early part of the twenty-first century. Perry’s book provides a moving and emotive account that seeks to emphasise both what has changed and what has remained in some ways the same. Such accounts have helpfully explored the fears and hopes for change that guided earlier generations of black scholars and activists, such as Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois, to challenge racialised inequalities are still of direct relevance today, whatever the changes that we have seen in the period since the second half of the twentieth century. It is also important, as we shall argue throughout this book, that scholars and researchers in this field engage in open-ended conversations and dialogues about key concepts and ideas rather than focus on one narrow theoretical frame. In this we are in agreement with Emirbayer and Desmond when they argue that ‘our understanding of the racial order will forever remain unsatisfactory so long as we fail to turn our analytic gaze back upon ourselves, the analysts of racial domination, and inquire critically into the hidden presuppositions that shape our thought’ (Emirbayer and Desmond 2012: 574). Indeed, what we shall suggest is that it is necessary to include in this conversation all the main paradigms in this field. While it may be beyond the scope of a single volume to attempt to discuss all the important theoretical and historical contributions that we have seen in this field over the past few decades, we have attempted to provide a sharply focused overview of these debates that ranges across disciplinary boundaries. This is partly because we have seen in recent years an explosion of interest in the study of race and racism from within a variety of disciplines. There have been important contributions from sociology, politics, geography, cultural studies and literary theory, psychology, and related fields. This growth of interest in the study of race and racism has led to an expansion of the research agenda to take account of key aspects of racialised relations in contemporary societies. Quite apart from the traditional focus on studies of communities and institutions, we have seen a growing number of studies that look at issues such as political mobilisation, policing and socio-legal processes, youth, popular culture, race and gender, sexuality, and the history of racial ideas. Additionally, we have seen important political debates
about the role of policy change and state policies in this field, including the role of initiatives that are predicated on the construction of multicultural and antiracist strategies for dealing with the role of racist ideologies and racial discrimination. It is partly because of such developments that we have seen an unprecedented explosion of academic interest in the study of race and racism as social, cultural, and political phenomena. Without too much exaggeration one can say that the study of the history and contemporary expressions of racism has come to the fore in a wide range of academic disciplines. While perhaps even a decade ago the study of racism was a highly specialised field in such disciplines as history, sociology, and politics, there is hardly any branch of the social sciences and humanities which has not witnessed a resurgence of interest in the study of various aspects of racism. This is reflected in the wide range of monographs and edited collections about race and racism that have come out over the past few years, as well as in the changing research agenda in universities and research institutes. Indeed, questions about race, ethnicity, and identity have come to occupy a key role within contemporary debates about postmodernism and globalisation.
Seeking to understand these phenomena means being clear about what is subsumed under terms such as race and racism. A key question that has shaped contemporary discussions is the following: How has the category of race come to play such an important role in shaping contemporary social relations? This is not to say that there is agreement about how best to answer this question. On the contrary, scholars and researchers show little sign of agreeing about what it is that we mean when we use notions such as race, racism, ethnicity, and related social categories (Winant 2006). These questions are at the heart of many of the theoretical and conceptual debates that dominate current research agendas, and yet what is interesting about much of the literature about race and racism is the absence of commonly agreed-on conceptual tools or even agreement about the general parameters of race, ethnicity, and racism as fields of study.
Although notions such as race and ethnicity, for example, are terms often used in conjunction or in parallel to refer to social groups which differ in terms of physical attributes accorded social significance in the case of race or in terms of language, culture, place of origin or common membership of a descent group without distinguishing physical characteristics in the case of ethnicity, there is no equivalent term to racism in relation to ethnicity. Racism as a concept is much more closely tied to the concept of race and is a reminder that where members of society make distinctions between different racial groups, at least some members of that society are likely to behave in ways which give rise to racism as a behavioural and ideational consequence of making racial distinctions in the first place. Unfortunately, the opposite does not hold. A society which denied or did not formally acknowledge the existence of different racial groups would not necessarily thus rid itself of racism. Indeed the literature on racial and ethnic classification in censuses, surveys, and administrative records shows that the identification of members of a society in terms of the racial, ethnic, or national origin may be a prerequisite to taking action to counteract racism (Morning 2008; Nobles 2000).
