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Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and the Anti-Racist Struggle PDF

178 Pages·1993·1.68 MB·English
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Racialized boundaries This book is an attempt to develop an overall perspective for analysing the constructs of race and racism. It maintains that the concept of race has to be located within the wider category of ‘ethnos’. Ethnicity is understood as a political as well as a cultural phenomenon. The authors explore the ways in which ‘race’ and racism serve as a structuring principle for national processes, both in terms of defining the boundaries of the nation and the constituents of national identity. They examine the ways in which ‘race’ and racism inter-relate with other social divisions, such as class and gender and the ways ‘Blackness’ can play a part in the racialization process. Finally, the authors consider some of the ideologies that have influenced the ‘Race Relations Industry’ as well as some of the struggles around it. In particular they look at the ideology of ‘the community’ which underlies, in different ways, both the ‘multi-culturalist’ and ‘anti-racist’ schools of thought, and they link it to a critical examination of ‘identity politics’. Systematic and well-informed, the book will be of interest to students of ethnic studies, the sociology of stratification and gender studies. ‘Racialized Boundaries engages with current conceptual debates over the nature and status of racism, confirming the centrality of ethnicity as the central pivot of race categorization and anti-racist struggles, despite recent attempts to dissolve, or just ignore it. There are cogent and challenging excursions in the notoriously difficult areas where racism crosses paths with class and gender and a probing look at the assumptions underlying multiculturalism and equal opportunities.’ Ellis Cashmore, University of Tampa, Florida Racialized boundaries Race, nation, gender, colour and class and the anti-racist struggle Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis (in association with Harriet Cain) London and New York First published 1992 in hardback Paperback edition first published in 1993 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company © 1992 Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-Davis 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. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-99292-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-10388-6 (Print Edition) Contents Preface vii 1 The concept of ‘race’ and the racialization of social divisions 1 2 Whose nation? Whose state? Racial/ethnic divisions and ‘the nation’ 15 3 It’s all a question of class… 43 4 Connecting race and gender 68 5 Racism and the colour ‘Black’ 93 6 Resisting racism: multi-culturalism, equal opportunities and the politics 112 of the ‘community’ Bibliography 141 Name index 154 Subject index 160 Preface This book grew out of our engagement, for many years, with both the theoretical and the political projects of anti-racist struggles. The perspectives from which we have been engaged in these struggles have been partly shaped by our own position as members of ethnic minorities. One of us is a Cypriot, one an Israeli Jew and one is of African- Caribbean descent. This book is an attempt to develop an overall framework for analysing the phenomena of ethnicity and racism, and the ways in which they interrelate with nation, state, gender, class and ‘community politics’. In this book we have chosen a number of central themes and questions for special consideration. These are themes that relate to understanding racism neither as a reified and abstracted phenomenon outside other sets of social relations, nor as one that is merely the epiphenomenon of other real phenomena constituted elsewhere. In the selection of the themes we have also taken into account certain contemporary debates which by their continual re-appearance, albeit in different ways in different social and political contexts, relate to some of the essential theoretical and political problems posed by the phenomena of racisms. The book makes a theoretical intervention in a number of central debates relating to the analytical status of the category of race, ways of conceptualizing racism and nationalism, issues of race and class and race and gender, the role of the category of ‘Black’ within racialization processes, and the roles of the ideologies of multiculturalism, the community and identity politics in anti-racist strategies. The perspective developed in this book was partly informed by the work we undertook in a south-east London borough as part of the Gender and Ethnic project at Thames Polytechnic. It is primarily in the final chapter of the book that the field work is used as part of the argument. However it does draw upon the body of knowledge and experience gained to understand central facets of contemporary racism and anti-racist initiatives and struggles. We would like to take the opportunity here to thank the many people—too numerous to mention here—in the borough, the council, the community groups and Thames Polytechnic, who contributed to our understanding of the issues involved. We didn’t always agree with them, but we always learned from the dialogue we had. We would also like to thank the School of Social Sciences of Thames Polytechnic for providing us with resources for research for a number of years. Challenging racism, theoretically as well as politically, often extracts a heavy emotional toll from the people at the forefront. We would like to dedicate this book to the memory of our first research assistant, Sylvia Erike, whose tragic death was partly a result of some of the contradictions of race, class, gender and colour, that are the focus of this book. The perseverance and challenging spirit of Harriet Cain, our last research assistant, has affected the formulation of many of the ideas in this book. This book is the product of common deliberations, research and study over a number of years with much cross fertilisation of ideas and points if view. This resulted in the development of a broadly common theoretical and political framework for analysing ‘race’, ethnic, class and gender relations. However, Chapters 1, 3 and 4 were primarily prepared and written by Floya Anthias and Chapters 2, 5 and 6 by Nira Yuval-Davis. Part of Chapter 6 is based on work undertaken with Harriet Cain. The first chapter provides the theoretical framework within which the book can be located. It examines critically the analytical status of the concepts of race and racism. It argues that ‘race’ must be located within the wider category of ‘ethnos’ that provides its analytical axis. Racism, on the other hand, cannot be seen as derivative of race or ethnic phenomena but needs to be understood with reference to the discourses and practices by which ethnic groups are inferiorized, excluded and subordinated. These meet a diverse number of political and economic projects. A major argument is that racisms cannot be understood without considering their interconnections with ethnicity, nationalism, class, gender and the state. Chapter 2 examines the ways in which ‘race’ and racism serve as a structuring principle for national processes, by defining both the boundaries of the nation and the constituents of national identity. The chapter explores the ways different elements of nationalist projects—citizenship, culture, religion and origin—can become racialized, and demonstrates this in relation to Britain. The third chapter looks at the central issue of ‘race and class’, a theme that has been dominant in much writing on race and racism. Although race and class are linked, it is argued that racisms are forms of discourse that may, but need not, articulate class processes. Race, it is argued, is a component of class formation rather than being merely derivative of it, as much of the literature has suggested. The chapter examines the concrete economic positioning of racialized groups in contemporary Britain, which raises additional problems for many of the theorizations within the terms of reference of the ‘race and class’ debate. Chapter 4 examines the relationship between two central social divisions, those of ethnicity/race and gender as they interplay with each other, both in terms of their conceptual similarities and differences, and in terms of the ways they intermesh in concrete social relations. It considers the specific position of ethnic minority and racialized women in contemporary Britain and shows how class, sex and race interact, particularly in the areas of state action around nationality, and in employment. Chapter 5 examines the ways in which race processes have been theorized and understood through the signifier of skin colour. It considers a number of theories which have specifically linked racism and Black skin and examines the explanatory power given to ‘Blackness’. The chapter looks at the emergence of Blackness as a category of resistance and empowerment and at the ways in which the boundaries of the category ‘Black’ have been constructed in Britain. Finally Chapter 6 explores some of the ideologies which have constructed the ‘Race Relations Industry’ as well as some of the radical struggles around it. In particular it looks at the ideology of ‘the community’ which underlies, in different ways, both the ‘multi-culturalist’ and ‘anti-racist’ schools of thought, and links it to a critical examination of identity politics.

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This wide-ranging and accessible book examines race in relation to social divisions such as ethnicity, gender and class. It provides a major new approach to studying the boundaries of race, and will be of interest to students of sociology, ethnic studies and gender studies.
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