The first study group day in 2002 was entitled ‘Parallel lives and polarisation?’ and looked at the aftermath of the riots or disturbances in parts of northern England in the summer of 2001. The speakers – Claire Alexander, Shamser Sinha, Alan Carling, Max Farrar and Sanjay Sharma - considered the media coverage of Asian youth, ideas of cultural difference in the Cantle report, the local politics of race in Bradford and Leeds and the ways in which ‘Asians’ have been seen in sociology.
The second study group day in October 2002 was on the government’s citizenship white paper published in February. Speakers for the well-attended seminar day, ‘The new racism: asylum, immigration and citizenship’, discussed a range of issues surrounding the new immigration paper ‘Secure Borders: Safe Haven´. Gail Lewis focussed on the return of assimilationist discourses and New Labour’s simultaneous avowals and disavowals of cultural diversity. Rosemary Sales considered the contradictions at the heart of the white paper and Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias examined the proposed legislation in relation to gender and citizenship. Don Flynn, from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, problematised the notion of ‘managed migration’ in relation to the white paper and current economic needs. In 2001 one session focussed on the urban unrest in the Pennine towns of Northern England. In October 2002 the Study Group seminar the panel, made of four expert academics and practitioners examined the debates around citizenship, asylum, multiculture and the government´s immigration and asylum policies.
In November 2002 we also organised a seminar in collaboration with the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths College. This featured Ghassan Hage from the University of Sydney presenting work from his forthcoming book on ‘Paranoid nationalism’.
We also organise sessions at the BSA´s Annual Conference.
At the 2003 conference our session was titled "Writing ´Race´" and featured contributions from Claire Alexander (South Bank University), Les Back (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Max Farrar (Leeds Metropolitan University) and Shamser Sinha (University of East London). The session addressed the thorny problems raised when sociologists attempt to translate theory, empirical reserach and political values into scripts. Issues such as the ´voice´ adopted by the writer and whether the text must be immediately comprehensible were under discussion.
Other study group seminars have included one in Leeds on 28th June 2003 which focussed on the implications for higher education of the Race Relations Amendment Act. The speakers at this event were Sharon Grant (Salford), Alison Jones (Leeds Metropolitan University) Ian Law (Leeds) and Kath Woodward (Open University). In March 2004 Shamser Sinha organised a seminar in conjunction with Gina Higginbottom of the Transcultural Research Group in Health and Diversity. This was held at City University and speakers included Hannah Bradby and Ann Phoenix. Nirmal Puwar organised a seminar titled ‘Doing Diversity’ on cinema and the Arts in Asian and Africanian communities on 12th June 2004 in Coventry. It was co-organised with Val Hill at Coventry University. Lunch was provided and taken in the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum which displayed and exhibition co-produced by Nirmal Puwar, with the gallery. Titled ´Khabie Ritz Khabie Palladium: the making of South Asian cinema in Coventry 1940-1980´ this film based exhibition used memory work to look back at the existence of a heady cinema scene that was created in post-war Britain. It sought to represent migratory histories outside of predictable and static genres. The speakers at the seminar were Glenn Jordan, Roshini Kempadoo, Alia Syed, Ashwani Sharma and Nirmal Puwar. Berg Publishers kindly …….took the opportunity of hosting a launch party for the book South Asian Women in the Diaspora edited by Nirmal Puwar and Parvati Raghuram – hospitality enjoyed by all.
The Study Group welcomes collaborations with other like-minded organisations, and to that end Max Farrar worked with Malcolm Todd (Sheffield Hallam University) who co-ordinates the Higher Education Academy´s C-SAP activity. C-SAP specialises in improving Learning, Teaching and Assessment in sociology, anthropology and politics and they organised a special conference at Birmingham University on 18th November 2004 on the learning, teaching and assessment of ´race´ in the HE curriculum. C-SAP can be accessed at: http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/subject_areas/sociology/default.htm
Outline of Past Events
Challenging Attitudes, Changing Minds
25 October, 12-4pm, E511 (Edge Building), UCE Birmingham, Dawson Building, Perry Barr, Birmingham, B42 2SU
A viewing of the drama 'Shoot the Messenger' will be shown followed by a discussion of the key issues emerging from the programme.
Writer Sharon Foster adds: "Shoot the Messenger is a reflection of debates which are ongoing within the black community, and questions some of the stuff that black communities tell themselves and their children. It's like a fable. Some of it may be uncomfortable for people to hear, but ultimately it's about learning to accept and love people as they are."
The session will be chaired by Dr Robert Beckford, who is a lecturer, film maker and theologian, to engage in a stimulating and thought provoking discussion.
Inaugural Seminar Series on Racism, Ethnicity and Social Theory
8 November 2005
4.00-6.00pm
Professor Steve Fenton (University of Bristol), 'Beyond Ethnicity?'
University of Glasgow, Melville Room
Lost in transl-Asian? British Asians, sport, leisure and popular culture
19th November 2005
Brighton University
An ESRC Research Seminar Series
Understanding & tackling ethnic inequalities in health
Improving the health of minority ethnic groups is a central component of the UK government’s agenda to reduce social exclusion and inequalities in health. Research to-date strongly suggests that a wide range of factors contribute to the diversity of health outcomes among Britain’s ethnic groups, including: differential access and quality of health services; socio-cultural influences; genetic or biological variation; migration and life events, socio-economic disadvantage and racial discrimination. This suggests the need for cross-disciplinary methods of enquiry and multi-sector intervention.
Furthermore, there is a need for greater dialogue and debate between researchers and the providers of health and social services, and importantly a greater emphasis must be given to participatory and empowering forms of inquiry.
This series of six seminars in February 2005 will bring academics from a wide range of institutional settings together with policy-makers, practitioners and users in order to share current knowledge regarding the patterns and determinants of health among different ethnic groups and to debate how this knowledge can be put to best practical use.
For further information please visit: www.shef.ac.uk/ethnichealthinequalities
Race and State
MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Department of Sociology, University of Dublin, Trinity College; in association with the BSA Race & Ethnicity Study Group, and the Sociological Association of Ireland (SAI)
30-31 March 2005
Emmet Lecture Hall, Arts Building, Trinity College, Dublin
Speakers included:
• Howard Winant, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Les Back, Goldsmiths College, London
• Gargi Bhattacharyya, Dept of Cultural Studies & Sociology, University of Birmingham
• Robbie McVeigh, Independent Researcher, Derry, Ireland
• Piaras Mac Einri, Dept of Geography, University College Cork, Ireland
Racist Futures Conference
Friday September 10th 2004, 9.30-4.00
Yorkshire Bank Lecture Theatre, University of Leeds
Doing Diversity: ´Other´ Histories and Memories
Saturday, 12th June 2004
Jointly organised by the BSA Race & Ethnicity Study Group, Coventry University and The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.
The New, New Racism: asylum, immigration and citizenship
Saturday, 26th October, 2002
Venue: Room CM326, Tait Building, City University, Northampton Square, St. Johns Street, London N1
This seminar will focus on the Government’s White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven (February 2002) and examine the nature of the current political and policy debates on asylum, immigration and citizenship.
Parallel lives and Polarisation
18 May 2002
City University, LONDON
This seminar investigates the racialized discourses of the 'Community Cohesion' Cantle Report following the civil unrest in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham.
- Organiser: Karim Murji (Open University)
Speakers included:
- Samsher Sinha, City University
- Claire Alexander, LSE
- Max Farrar, Leeds Metropolitan University
- Sanjay Sharma (discussant), Brunel University
ESRC Seminar Series ´The Future(s) of Citizenship´ The Future Politics of Citzenship
Friday 28 June 2002
10-4.30, Sunley Management Centre
The School of Social Studies at University College Northampton invites interested scholars and postgraduates to a one?day seminar on ´The Future(s) of Citizenship´. The seminar will be held at the Sunley Management Centre at UCN on Friday, 28 June 2002, 10:00-16:30. The discussion on the day will be focused around four key presentations by:
- Prof Claire Wallace - Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna: "What makes a good citizen?"
- Dr Therese O´Toole - University of Birmingham: ´Youth and political participation´
- Prof Eleonore Kofman - Nottingham Trent University: ´Civic Stratification, Rights and Migration: Future European Developments´
- Dr Adrian Little - Goldsmiths College, London: ´Implications of the Associative Turn´
In order to encourage student and young researchers´ participation in this event, we have budgeted for a number of travel bursaries for postgraduates from within the UK (the budget unfortunately does not stretch to cover travel for overseas postgraduates).
Institutional Racism in Higher Education: A National One Day Conference
July 3rd 2002
Leeds University Business School
Keynote speakers include:
- Beverley Bernard (Commission for Racial Equality)
- Ian Law (University of Leeds), Joyce Hill (ECU, UniversitiesUK)
- Gilliam Gulam (AUT)
- Barnor Hesse (University of East London).
Beyond Contract? Bodies, Borders and Bonds
Seminar 4: The Racial Contract and the Contract of Mutual Indifference
18th July 2002
The next Beyond Contract? Seminar is taking place on 18th July at Leicester University. This seminar focuses on particular theoretical and conceptual understandings of the contract and we have invite two keynote speakers, Charles Mills and Norman Geras to openthe debate. Charles Mills is Professor in Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His main research interests are in oppositional political theory, particularly around issues of class, gender and race. He has written extensively on race and in ´The Racial Contract´ (1997), Mills explores how the ´racial contract´ and the ´racial state´ it engenders rests in "securing the privileges and advantages of the full white citizens and maintaining the subordination of nonwhites" (1997:14). His paper will draw on his work in the Racial Contract to highlight the centrality of racism in contractual theory and how his radical work has impacted oncontractual debates on race, gender and class. Norman Geras is a political theorist from Manchester University and his research interests include Marxism, the moral philosophy of socialism and the holocaust. Geras will be exploring the idea of contract by drawing on arguments that he developed in his book ´The Contract of Mutual Indifference´ (1997) which is a troubling and provocative piece of work. He will talk about why he used the idea of contract and thought it was a useful framework for talking about bystanding, victimhood with reference to the holocaust. We thought that these issues would be interesting to consider in relation to phenomena such as prostitution.
Race/Nation/Sport: A one day conference
Friday September 13th 2002
SOAS, University of London
SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
Brett St Louis, Bristol Univ.,UK
Sport and Commonsense Racial Science
Kath Woodward, Open Univ.,UK
´Rumbles in the Jungle´: Boxing, racism and the performance of masculinity
Tim Crabbe, Sheffield Hallam Univ.,UK
Home and Away: English football, racism and cultural passports
Jon Garland, Leicester Univ.,UK
´Mad Dogs?´: England, Englishness and media discourse during World Cup 2002
Grant Farred, Duke University, USA
Feaca: Race and Silence in Argentine Football
Jennifer Hargreaves, Brunel Univ.,UK
Outsiders in the Nation: Sport, difference and women on the margins
Colin King, Goldsmiths College, UK
Play the White Man: Racialised performances and narratives in soccer governance
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