I thought some of you might be interested.
Amanda
Dear colleagues
(Long message text, be sure to scroll to the bottom)
I'm pleased to inform you that Claire Alexander (Sociology, South Bank
University) and Brian Alleyne (Sociology, Goldsmiths & ICS) have
organised a
one-day workshop to take place on 20th September, 2000, titled:
'Beyond Difference: Racial and Ethnic Studies into the Millennium'. I
hope you would consider attending. Details below. Contact either
myself or Claire Alexander <[log in to unmask]> for registration or
further information.
Brian
RERU Workshop: 20 September 2000, South Bank University
"Beyond Difference: Racial and Ethnic Studies into the Millennium"
In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois wrote, "the problem of the twentieth century is
the problem of the color line". As we step into the twenty-first
century, the terrain is - perhaps - more complex and contested, but no
less definitive of our times.
Panel One (Chair: Dr. Ossie Stuart)
Brian Alleyne (Goldsmiths) - "The construction of "race" as a
sociological object"
Les Back (Goldsmiths) - "Guess who's coming to dinner?: Investigating
Whiteness in the Grey Zone".
Claire Alexander (SBU) - "Back to Black?: Rethinking the
colour/culture divide"
Tracey Reynolds (SBU) - "Black Feminist Epistemologies"
Panel Two (Chair: Dr. Sue Benson):
Barnor Hesse (UEL) - "Postcolonial Racism"
Brett St. Louis (Bristol) - "The contradictions of black diasporic
intellectual life"
Chetan Bhatt (Goldsmiths) - "Cultural Authoritarianism"
Ko Banerjea (Birkbeck) - "Beyond Hybridity"
David Scott (Columbia) - "Historicizing Caribbean Studies"
In Britain, as throughout Europe and the United States, racial
discrimination, violence and terror are constant, even increasingly
resurgent, features of life: at the same time, the field of racial and
ethnic studies seems to have hit a conceptual dead end. Where the
analysis of racism seems to have become unfashionable, the stage has
been taken by the concept of "difference". This has shifted the focus
of analysis from the dualisms of "race" to the plurality of
"ethnicities", marking an important recognition of the dynamic and
creative contributions of minority groups and cultures. However, as
"difference" has coalesced around two opposing theoretical poles - as
multi-cultural difference and as the politics of difference - the
potential for political transformation has all but disappeared.
This workshop has been conceived to address a number of theoretical
and political problems that follow in the wake of these critiques. On
the one hand, the reification of cultural difference has served to
reinforce essentialist ideals of "community" and "belonging" within a
multi-culturalist landscape, an analysis that underpins the racialised
commonsense of public policy. On the other, the fascination with
fragmented identities and hybridity has reified and celebrated
marginality with little account of the structural inequalities which
create and legislate this marginality and a scant regard for the
possibility of community action. Both essentialist and
anti-essentialist positions have a theoretical and political price -
the denial of collective action and the death of political community.
The papers presented in this workshop are designed to challenge these
two frameworks, which now stand as theoretical and policy doxa. In
particular, they will explore the possibilities of thinking "beyond
difference" - in either formulation - and its implications, both in
theory and praxis, for researching race and ethnicity into the
Millennium.
Questions to be considered:
· What is at stake in "the politics of difference"?
· What are the limitations of a "post-modern" approach to "race" and
ethnicity?
· What are the costs of anti-essentialism?
· How do we recognise group boundaries and identities without reifying
them?
· How do we combine theory and methodology in researching "race" and
ethnicity?
· Is there a black perspective on researching "race"?
The workshop will have two panels - Panel One will explore some of the
methodological implications of researching race and ethnicity and
Panel Two will explore and challenge contemporary theoretical debates.
Brian Alleyne
Dept. of Sociology
Goldsmiths College
University of London
New Cross
London SE14 6NW
UK
Tel: 020 7919 7721
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