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

178 Pages·1993·1.68 MB·English

by  Floya Anthias, Nira Yuval-Davis (in association with Harriet Cain)

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.