Radicalism, Anti-Racism and Representation (Critical Studies in Racism and Migration)

228 Pages·1993·1.02 MB·English

by  Alastai Bonnett

Radicalism, anti-racism and
representation
This study is set within a wider political context for the discussion
of ‘racial’ representation and anti-racism (Part I). The remainder of
the book (Parts II and III) is devoted to interview-based
exploration of the ambiguities and political characteristics of ‘race’
equality consciousness amongst public educators. It is shown that
there is no one anti-racism. Different ideals and assumptions have
been arrived at within different historical and geographical contexts
(both ‘multiracial’ and ‘white’). It is suggested that this intellectual
plurality provides a resource for those wishing to rethink anti-
racism in the light of its contemporary malaise. The study also
explores and explains the development of self-critical, reflexive, anti-
racist and radical consciousness amongst educators. The book
provides the first sociological study of anti-racism. Indeed it is the
first to provide a substantive critique of anti-racism from outside the
New Right. It is also the first to look at this phenomenon
geographically and to compare anti-racism in ‘multiracial’ and
‘white’ areas.
Alastair Bonnett is a lecturer in human geography at the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has undertaken doctoral
and post-doctoral research at McMaster University, the University
of London and, most recently, at the University of British
Columbia. The author’s cross-disciplinary studies of the
development of ‘race’ equality consciousness have been published in
journals in both Britain and America.
Critical studies in racism and migration
Edited by Robert Miles
University of Glasgow
Radicalism, anti-racism
and representation
Alastair Bonnett
London and New York
First published 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1993 Alastair Bonnett
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized 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 Cataloging in Publication Data
Bonnett, Alastair, 1964–
Radicalism, anti-racism and representation/Alastair Bonnett
p.cm.—(Critical studies in racism and migration)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Race awareness. 2. Race relations. 3. Intercultural
education. 4. Pluralism (Social sciences) 5. Radicalism.
I. Title. II. Series.
HT1523.B66 1993
305.8–dc20 93–7402
CIP

ISBN 0-203-41631-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-72455-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-07203-4 (Print Edition)
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
Part I Representations
1 Representing ‘racial’ difference and identity 13
2 Anti-racist dilemmas 47
Part II Public professional perspectives
Introduction 67
3 The public professions and the ‘new radicalism’ 69
4 Multiculturalism: a public educationalist ideology 82
Part III Anti-racist formulations
Introduction 101
5 Radicalism, ideology and reflexivity: anti-racism 104
in London
6 Anti-racism reformulated: Tyneside 134
7 The marginalization of radicalism: Devon 160
Conclusions 175
Methodological appendix 195
References 201
Index 218
v
Acknowledgements
This book was written between January 1991 and November 1992
in the Geography Departments of McMaster University and the
University of British Columbia. However, it began life in 1986 as
postgraduate research at the Geography Department of Queen
Mary and Westfield College in the University of London. Between
then and now various bits of it have been through many different
hands. Thanks to all those who gave me their comments and/or
assistance, particularly David Smith, John Eyles, David Harvey and
my parents. Thanks also to all the people I interviewed for this
work, I could not have wished for a more hospitable group of
respondents. I would also like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for
funding my research in Canada. My special thanks go to Robert
Miles for enabling this work to come to publication and for his
many useful suggestions, some of which I even heeded, and to
Alison Kaye for her incisive and critical support.
Chapters 3 and 6 incorporate passages previously published in
Sociology (May 1993) and Antipode (January 1992). I am grateful to
the publishers and editors of these journals for their permission to
use this material.
vi
Introduction
Recalling her activist past in the feminist movement the American
poet Adrienne Rich (1985:11) observes, ‘We never meant less than
the making new of all relationships’. ‘The problem was’, Rich
continues, ‘we did not know who we meant when we said “we”’.
The failure of social self-consciousness Rich identifies has in
recent years become one of the central, and most contentious, areas
of intellectual debate. The sense of urgency in this discussion may
be partly linked to the decaying plausibility of monolithic
emancipatory ideals. As heterogeneous critical currents, such as
green politics and the women’s, gay and anti-racist movements,
have emerged they have exposed anti-ecological, male, heterosexual
and white biases within traditional visions of liberation.
Moreover, for those on the left the question of who ‘we’ are and
how do ‘we’ speak for others has become increasingly unavoidable
as conservative forces have demonstrated their grip on political
power. With the election of a Democrat President in the United
States in 1992 the heyday of the New Right may be coming to an
end. However, the conservative agenda has made profound in-roads
into nearly all shades of contemporary political opinion. It has
become an entrenched ‘common sense’, a taken-for-granted world-
view deeply embedded within both popular and élite consciousness.
The left, by contrast, has suffered a loss of direction and self-faith.
Dazzled by the potency of conservative myths, radicals have been
left wondering who (and how) they represent.
The power of the political right has been felt particularly acutely
within the ‘race’ equality debate. This process is especially clear in
Britain, which has seen some of the most extreme and enduring
examples of conservative entrenchment in the Western world.
1
2 Radicalism, anti-racism and representation
Singled out for funding cuts and public ridicule, the confident local
anti-racist interventions seen in some British cities in the early
1980s have given way to a sombre culture of survivalism. Indeed,
obituaries have already been written for ‘what was once an anti-
racist movement’ (Gilroy, 1990a:192). Although these funereal
arrangements are premature they reflect a further problematization
of the aspirations and attitudes of social egalitarians. As the failures
of anti-racist orthodoxy have become evident so the need for an
unsentimental critique, and rigorous questioning, of the anti-racist
and radical project(s) has become apparent.
This book is about how, why and where radical and anti-racist
consciousness develops. Interestingly the group whose political ideas
I will be focusing upon—public educationalists—have tended to be
neglected in the emergent debate on the ‘politics of location’ (Rich,
1985). Whilst ‘racial’ and gender identities have been widely
recognized as legitimate subjects for study, the shared location of
many of those taking part in this debate, as public educationalists,
has tended to be overlooked. Perhaps it has seemed too self-
indulgent a topic to merit attention or a little too close to home for
comfort. Whilst the latter assumption may be true the former is
certainly misplaced. As we shall see, the critical exploration of
public educationalist politics provides a range of insights into the
formation of liberal and radical, multicultural and anti-racist,
commitments.
My concentration on educators acting within and against
capitalism limits the scope of this work. No pretence is made that a
comprehensive ‘total picture’ of political identity or radical struggle
is being supplied. This explicit specificity opens, rather than
forecloses, the themes that will be raised here to further exploration
and constructive critique. Rather than being appropriated by a
cursory and recuperative presence, issues pertaining to, for example,
the gender and sexual identity of educators are absent from my
analysis, whilst those relevant to their ‘racial’ identity are highly
restricted. These absences are clear and self-conscious, they betoken
the particularity of the present study whilst silently challenging the
notion of ‘all-inclusive’ social research.
This study begins by introducing a wider historical and political
context for the discussion of ‘racial’ representation and anti-racism
(Part I). The remainder of the book is devoted to an exploration of
the formation of liberal, radical, multicultural and anti-racist
consciousness amongst educators (Parts II and III). More
Introduction 3
specifically it will be argued that educators’ contradictory political
experiences working both for and against the reproduction of
capitalism are reflected in their ‘race’ equality ideals and strategies.
Using evidence from interviews with educators gathered in
London and in two ‘white’ areas of England (Tyneside and Devon)
I will also be looking at the way anti-racist ideology has taken
shape in different ways in different places. Thus a range of social
contexts will be introduced within which ‘race’ equality
consciousness has been formed. It is shown that there is no one
anti-racism, even amongst as specific a group as public
educationalists. No one linear development of ‘the debate’ can be
traced. Rather a variety of ideals and assumptions have been
arrived at within different historical and geographical contexts. At
the end of the book it is suggested that this intellectual plurality
provides a resource for those wishing to rethink anti-racism in the
light of its contemporary malaise.
There is one last facet of this study that needs to be introduced.
It has been noted that this book seeks to make visible public
educationalists’ political representations. However, it also explores
how, why and where reflexivity (i.e. social self-consciousness) has
developed amongst this group. In other words, it seeks to explain
how educators have come to recognize their own ambiguous
political and social location. As this implies, Rich’s plea for a
socially self-conscious ‘we’ is already being met by some educators.
These individuals have begun to reject anti-racist ‘common sense’ in
favour of a more critical form of radical consciousness.
DEFINING TERMS: THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN
DEBATES
Issues of ‘race’ and politics both richly exemplify the cliché that the
United States and Britain are two nations divided by a common
language. There are four points of potential confusion between the
terminology I shall be adopting and current American usage:
Radical and liberal
Nigel Wright (1989:15) notes that, whilst radicalism in America has
‘often meant a particularly vigorous form of liberalism’ amongst the
British left it is ‘usually used in opposition to liberalism’. Although
this generalization obscures the plurality of American and British