Race and Multiculturalism in Postcolonial Britain
Questions to prepare for seminar:
- What is the different between ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘anti-racism’?
- Is Britain really a post-colonial nation?
- How has race and racism been articulated through gender?
- To what extent did multiculturalism become an accepted tenet of mainstream politics in the late 20th century and to what extent is this still the case?
Core Reading:
- Paul Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (London: Hutchison, 1987) [Introduction].
- Tariq Modood, 'Is Multiculturalism Appropriate for the Twenty-First Century?' in Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 1-20.
- Hannah Jones, '"The best borough in the country for cohesion!": managing place and multiculture in local government', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37:4 (2014), 605-20.
Further Reading:
- Centre for Contemporary Culture Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain (London: Hutchison, 1982)
- Elizabeth Buettner, ‘Going for an Indian: South Asian Restaurants and the Limits of Multiculturalism in Britain’, Journal of Modern History 80:4 (2008), 865-901
- David Feldman, ‘Why the English Like Turbans: A History of Multiculturalism in One Country’, in D. Feldman & J. Lawrence, Structures and Transformations in British History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
- Panikos Panyani, ‘Immigration, Multiculturalism and Racism’, in J.M. Strange, F. Carnevali (eds.), Twentieth Century Britain: Economic, Cultural and Social Change (Harlow: Pearson/ Longman, 2007)
- Goodyer, ‘Rock Against Racism: Multiculturalism and Political Mobilisation, 1976-1981’, Immigrants and Minorities 22:1 (2003), 44-62
- David Goodhart, ‘Discomfort of Strangers’, Guardian 24 Feb 2004 [For a critique of multiculturalism from the right(ish).]
- Kenan Malik, Multiculturalism and its Discontents (2014) [For a critique of multi-culturalism from (one current of) the Left. Excepts of the books are available here: https://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/multiculturalism-and-its-discontents/].
- Jamie Oliver, Jamie’s Great Britain (2011) [For some consumer multi-culturalism].
- Hannah Jones, Negotiating cohesion, inequality and change: Uncomfortable positions in local government (Policy Press, 2013)
- And for some contemporary research by sociologists at the University of Warwick: Go Home: Mapping the unfoldingcontroversy of Home Office immigration Campaigns’ (see link to pdf on next page) https://mappingimmigrationcontroversy.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/end-of-project-findings-leaflet-final.pdf
- There has been a range of recent works exploring ideas of 'belonging' in contemporary Britain, such as: Afua Hirsch, Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging (London, 2018); Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Who Do We Think We Are? Imagining the New Britain (London, 2001); Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race (London, 2017); Nikesh Shukla (ed.), The Good Immigrant (London, 2016); Lisa Palmer and Kehinde Andrews (eds), Blackness in Britain (London, 2016); Akala, Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire (London, 2018).