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Introduction: Re-thinking Ethnic and

Racial Studies

Martin Bulmer and John Solomos

Abstract

The changing boundaries of the study of ethnicity and race have been the subject of much debate in recent years. New theoretical debates have come to the fore and empirical research has broached new questions. Taking its cue from the wide range of themes covered in this special issue, this article seeks to map out some of the key areas in which this transformation has become apparent and to highlight the implications for ethnic and race relations as a Želd of study. In doing so it engages with some of the key questions that run through the whole of this special issue, including the relationship between race, power and politics, identity and difference and the politics of multiculturalism. It concludes by touching on some issues that need further research and analysis.

Keywords: Ethnicity; race; identity; different; multiculturalism.

Celebrating Twenty Years of Ethnic and Racial Studies

This special issue was Žrst conceived to mark the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the foundation of Ethnic and Racial Studies. The papers and comments that form this special issue were delivered at the international conference on Re-thinking Ethnic and Racial Studies held at the London School of Economics on 16 May 1997 with some ninety participants, and subsequently revised for publication.1 The journal Ethnic and Racial Studies was founded in 1978 by John Stone. It has provided throughout the past two decades an important forum for the discussion of research and scholarship on ethnic and racial relations across the whole of the globe. (For a brief review of its history, see Stone 1998, pp. 1–10.) Eschewing the easy certainties of speciŽc intellectual traditions the journal has published a wide range of papers across the whole panoply of academic disciplines, and has fostered the systematic study of ethnic and racial relations and provided a forum for dialogue and debate involving both established and younger scholars in this Želd.

At the same time, the salience of ethnicity and race in the wider world has become more evident during the last thirty years. This is true both in

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western industrialized countries, in many countries in the Third World, and increasingly in the former communist countries of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. For example, ethnicity has increasingly been recognized as a signiŽcant factor within the European Community. In eastern and south eastern Europe, ethnicity has assumed major importance in areas such as the Balkans. The forms of international migration are changing, and transnationalism is assuming greater signiŽcance. Multiculturalism has been a live issue in several societies. The overthrow of the South African racialized state in 1994 has created a natural laboratory for the study of the extent to which change can be effected (cf Marx 1997). The examples could be multiplied.

The increasing importance of issues around race and ethnicity throughout the world has been re•ected in heightened attention in the academy. Whereas the early emphasis in the scholarly study of these issues was particularly located in sociology, anthropology and history, this interest has now extended to social geography, political science, political economy and social psychology, and in the humanities to language studies, cultural studies, philosophy, archaeology and other disciplines. Trends in the teaching of race and ethnicity on the social sciences were discussed in a special issue of this journal in October 1996 (Bulmer and Solomos 1996), which will appear in revised form with additional essays on the humanities in 1999 (Bulmer and Solomos 1999).

It has become evident over the past two decades that the boundaries of ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ as Želds of study have shifted considerably. These shifts have been re•ected over the years in the pages of the journal, as well as in the growing number of monographs and texts that explore theoretical as well as historical aspects of race and ethnic questions across the globe. They have also had an impact on political and policy debates in a variety of national contexts. The present special issue is intended particularly to thinking about approaches to the study of ethnicity and race as we enter the next century, and to ways of conceptualizing these phenomena in the social sciences in the new century. No uniformity of approach was sought in inviting speakers to the anniversary conference, and a variety of approaches are in fact re•ected in the articles which follow.

In organizing the conference on the theme of Rethinking Ethnic and Racial Studies we sought to bring together a group of scholars who could provide an insight into at least some of the key arenas of controversy and debate. The papers included here are all in one way or another engaging with issues at the heart of recent debates. The Žrst paper, by Paul Gilroy, provides an insight into discussions about the conceptual and ontological status of the category of race. This is followed by a comment from Sophie Body-Gendrot that takes up issues raised by Gilroy, but in addition touches on a broader range of debates on both sides of the Atlantic. Ann Phoenix’s provides an incisive and critical re-examination

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of conceptualizations of identity and difference within the Želd of ethnic and racial studies. In doing so she seeks to highlight both the importance of recent debates as well as their limitations. Michel Wieviorka’s takes on the complex question of the possibilities and limits of current debates about multiculturalism. In doing so he addresses both theoretical debates as well as important policy dilemmas. The question of multiculturalism is explored further by Marco Martiniello’s comment, that maps out some of the key themes raised in recent francophone contributions to this area.

The next two papers and comments represent more detailed explorations of questions that have been widely debated in the United States of America in recent times. Patricia Hill Collins’ paper provides a challenging and wide-ranging exploration of the exploration of the intersections between race, class and gender surrounding the issue of violence in American society. Nazli Kibria’s paper and the comment by Vilna Bashi look more speciŽcally at issues related to the construction of Asian American ethnicity. Although all these papers provide perspectives on race and ethnicity in the context of the West, the Žnal paper by T. N. Madan explores aspects of this phenomenon in relation to the Indian subcontinent. This provides a useful corrective to the focus of most of the other papers and a useful reminder of the need to expand the horizons of the whole Želd to include a wider range of countries. The concluding comment by Michael Banton takes up some of the themes raised by Madan and suggests ways in which they can be linked up to wider debates.

Taken together the papers provide a useful overview of important arenas of current debate and are suggestive about the direction of important strands of research. They also touch upon some broader debates and controversies that have done much to shape the whole Želd of study over the past decade. It is to these debates that we want to turn to in the rest of this introduction.

Shifting boundaries of race and ethnicity

Over the past decade or so the shifting boundaries of race and ethnicity as categories of social analysis have become ever more evident. In particular there has been, as Ann Phoenix emphasizes (‘Dealing with difference: the recursive and the new’), a plethora of studies that provide new ‘perspectives on difference, identities, subjectivities and power relations’. In this environment ideas about race, racism and ethnicity have become the subject of intense debate and controversy. The role of racial and ethnic categorization in the construction of social and political identities has been highlighted in a number of recent con•icts. Yet it is paradoxically the case that there is still much confusion about what it is that we mean by such notions, as evidenced by the range of terminological debates that have tended to dominate much recent discussion. A number

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of questions remain to be analysed: What factors explain the mobilizing power of ideas about race and ethnicity in the contemporary environment? What counter values and ideas can be developed to undermine the appeal of racist ideas and movements? Is it possible for communities that are socially deŽned by ‘differences’ of race, ethnicity, religion or other signiŽers to live together in societies which are able to ensure equality, justice and civilized tolerance?

The accounts provided by the various papers in this special issue are not meant to be an exhaustive overview of the whole Želd of study. But they do highlight important areas of debate, including: the limits of race as an analytical category; multiculturalism; identity and difference; race, gender and violence; constructions of Asian American identities; and ethnicity in South Asia. The various contributors re•ect a variety of intellectual traditions and spell out the complex agendas that are covered by research on race and ethnicity as we move towards the end of the twentieth century.

Taken together the papers touch on key dilemmas we face today in thinking about race and racism and the changing politics of ethnic identity. At the most general level some papers raise questions about the boundaries of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ as Želds of study. Paul Gilroy re•ects this concern most centrally when he explores the question of ‘how the signs and symbols of racial difference become apparent to our senses’ (‘Race ends here’). But this is also a theme that recurs throughout this special issue as a whole, re•ecting some of the theoretical debates that have shaped discussion over the past two decades or so.

In this Introduction we want to take the opportunity to re•ect on some of the main themes that emerge from the papers included in this issue, as well as the wider debates and controversies that the papers address.

Racism, power and politics

As a number of authors in this issue emphasize, race and ethnicity are not ‘natural’ categories, even though both concepts are often represented as if they were. Their boundaries are not Žxed, nor is their membership uncontested. Race and ethnic groups, like nations, are imagined communities. People are socially deŽned as belonging to particular ethnic or racial groups, either in terms of deŽnitions employed by others, or deŽnitions which members of particular ethnic groups develop for themselves. They are ideological entities, made and changed in struggle. They are discursive formations, signalling a language through which differences are accorded social signiŽcance may be named and explained. But what is of importance for us as social researchers studying race and ethnicity is that such ideas also carry with them material consequences for those who are included within, or excluded from, them.

Efforts to divide human beings into groups on the basis of alleged

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genetic or phenotypical differences have proved to be spurious and misleading, even in some cases politically disastrous. Rather, it is best to see race as a means of representing difference such that contingent attributes, such as skin colour, are transformed into essential bases for identities. But this is not to deny that race remains, at the level of everyday experience and social representation, a potent social and political category around which individuals and groups organize their identity and construct a politics. As such, race is socially constructed; and blackness and whiteness are not categories of essence but deŽned by historical and political struggles over their meaning.

From this perspective categories such as race and ethnicity are best conceived as social and political resources, that are used by both dominant and subordinate groups for the purposes of legitimizing and furthering their own social identities and interests. Race and ethnicity feature as part of the power structure of a society, and need to be analysed in terms of the signiŽcance which ethnicity and race assume in a society. Different approaches are taken in different disciplines, and within different schools of social science. The objective differences in the social situation of different ethnic and racial groups as they are deŽned in the society can be studied, and the signiŽcance of disadvantage and deprivation brought out. Much recent work on social exclusion has been in this vein.

Emphasis may also be put on social identities. In this context it is important to remember that identities based on race and ethnicity are not simply imposed, since they are also often the outcome of resistance and political struggle in which racialized minorities play a key and active role. For this reason it is more accurate to speak of a racialized group rather than a racial group since race is a product of racism and not vice versa. Racism is an ideological defence of speciŽc social and political relations of domination, subordination and privilege. Racism operates as other ideologies do, by constituting new historical and ideological subjects for ideological discourses. Race, and equally too ethnicity, is about the representation of difference. Sites of difference are also sites of power, a power too whereby the dominated come to see and experience themselves as ‘Other’.

Recent developments in Western and Eastern European societies are a case in point. The rise of extreme right-wing and neo-fascist movements and parties has resulted in the development of new forms of racist politics and in the articulation of popular racism and violence against migrant communities. At the same time we have seen a noticeable rise in antiSemitism in both Western and Eastern Europe, evident in both physical and symbolic threats to Jewish communities. In this environment it is perhaps not surprising that questions about immigration and race have assumed a new importance, both politically and socially, helping to construct an environment in which the future of both settled migrant

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communities and new groups of migrants and refugees is very much at the heart of public debate (Habermas 1994; Miles 1994).

Developments such as these show why it is impossible in the present political and social environment to ignore the impact of race and ethnicity on the social and political institutions of most advanced industrial societies. Whereas until the 1980s it was still relatively common to treat questions about racism, ethnicity and nationalism as relatively marginal to the agenda of both social scientists and policy-makers, it is no exaggeration to say that in many ways these issues have moved right to the core of public debate. Indeed, almost every aspect of contemporary social and political relations is deeply in•ected with a racial or ethnic dimension. In this context as we move ever closer towards the next century it is vital that we develop a grounded and historically-based view of the role that racialized social relations play in contemporary societies and are likely to play in the future.

This is partly because the terms of both ofŽcial and popular discourses about race and racism are in a constant state of •ux. The recent changes we have seen in European societies are perhaps the most clear example of this volatility, represented both by the development of new racist political movements and by intense ofŽcial debate about what kinds of policies should be pursued to deal with such issues as immigration and the political and social rights of migrants (Ford 1992; Wrench and Solomos 1993). But it is also the case that similar transformations are evident in other parts of the globe. Castles and Miller’s (1993) account of the changing politics of migration in various parts of the world illustrates the complex variety of factors that have helped to construct political understandings of the position of migrant communities in quite disparate geographical and social contexts. Numerous other accounts have shown how ideas about ‘race’, ‘nation’ and ‘ethnicity’ are constantly changing as a result of both governmental regulation and popular mobilization.

There is by now a wealth of historical research which shows that the social and political impact of ideas about race needs to be seen in the context of the experience of modernity and post-modernity which has shaped our societies over the past two centuries. But if modern racism has its foundations in the period since the late eighteenth century there is little doubt that it has had a major impact on the course of historical development during the twentieth century and seems destined to continue to do so in the twenty-Žrst century. It seems clear as we move into the next century that racist ideas and movements are continuing to have an impact on a range of contemporary societies in a variety of ways (Winant 1994). What is more we have seen in recent years the growth and genocidal impact of new forms of racial and ethnically-based ideologies in many parts of the globe, including most notably in the 1990s in both West and East Europe and parts of Africa. It is almost impossible

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to read a newspaper or watch television news coverage without seeing the contemporary expressions of racist ideas and practices, whether in terms of the rise of neo-fascist movements in some societies or the implementation of policies of genocide and what is euphemistically called ‘ethnic cleansing’ (cf Ahmed 1995).

Such trends need to be situated within the changing socio-economic environment of contemporary societies. It is also important to situate them within processes of cultural and social change. By this we mean that it is of some importance not to lose sight of the complex social, political and cultural determinants that shape contemporary racist discourses and movements and other forms of racialized discourse and mobilization. Indeed, what is clear from recent accounts of the growth of new forms of cultural racism is that within the language of contemporary racist movements there is both a certain •exibility about what is meant by race as well as an attempt to reconstitute themselves as movements whose concern is with defending their ‘nation’ rather than attacking others as such. It is perhaps not surprising in this context that within the contemporary languages of race one Žnds a combination of arguments in favour of cultural difference along with negative images of the ‘Other’ as a threat and as representing an ‘impure’ culture (Gilman 1985; Enzensberger 1994).

Of course, subordinate groups may use difference to mystify, to deny knowledge of themselves to the dominant groups and to confuse and to neutralize those who attempt to control, ‘help’ or research them. They may use difference to stress their own separateness, and to authorize their own representations. They may seek to legitimize their deŽnitions of cultural differences, including those against others from within their own collectivity. They may ‘seize the category’, claim it for their own and invert it, attaching positive value where before it was negative. This at times can lead, as we shall see later, to a strange convergence in the language of the racist right and of the black or ethnic nationalists, as both infuse the race or ethnic category with essentialist, and supposedly naturally inherited, characteristics

Race, ethnicity and identity

Because race and ethnicity are intrinsically forms of collective social identity the subject of identity has been at the heart of both historical and contemporary discussions about these issues. The question of identity is certainly the one which everyone wants to talk about, debate and write about. As a keyword in contemporary politics it has taken on so many different connotations that sometimes it is obvious that people are not even talking about the same thing. One thing at least is clear – identity seems to become a hotly debated issue when it is in crisis, when something assumed to be Žxed, coherent and stable is displaced by the experience of

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doubt and uncertainty. From this angle, the eagerness to talk about identity is symptomatic of what some writers have chosen to call the postmodern condition.

The preoccupation with identity can be taken as one outcome of concerns about where minorities in societies such as our own actually belong. At a basic level after all identity is about belonging, about what we have in common with some people and what differentiates us from others. Identity gives one a sense of personal location, and provides a stable core of one’s individuality; but it is also about one’s social relationships, one’s complex involvement with others, and in the modern world these have become even more complex and confusing. Each of us lives with a variety of potentially contradictory identities, which battle within us for allegiance: as men or women, black or white, straight or gay, able-bodied or disabled. The list is potentially inŽnite, and so therefore are our possible belongings. Which of them we focus on, bring to the fore, identify with, depends on a host of factors. At the centre, however, are the values we share or wish to share with others.

So identity is not simply imposed. It is also chosen, and actively used, albeit within particular social contexts and constraints. Against dominant representations of ‘others’ there is resistance. Within structures of dominance, there is agency. Analysing resistance and agency re-politicizes relations between collectivities and draws attention to the central constituting factor of power in social relations. But it is possible to overemphasize resistance; to validate others through validating the lives of the colonized and exploited. Valorizing resistance may also have the unintended effect of belittling the enormous costs exacted in situations of unequal power, exclusion and discrimination. While political legitimacy, gaining access or a hearing, may depend on being able to ‘call up’ a constituency and authorize representations through appeals to authenticity, it provides the basis for policing the boundaries of authenticity wherein some ‘insiders’ may Žnd themselves excluded because they are not authentic enough.

For example, stressing race and ethnic differences can obscure the experiences and interests that women may share as women. We therefore need to ask: Who is constructing the categories and deŽning the boundaries? Who is resisting these constructions and deŽnitions? What are the consequences being written into or out of particular categories? What happens when subordinate groups seek to mobilize along boundaries drawn for the purposes of domination? What happens to individuals whose multiple identities may be fragmented and segmented by category politics?

One of the problems with much of the contemporary discussion of ‘identity politics’ is that the dilemmas and questions outlined above are not adequately addressed. This is largely because much discussion is underpinned by the presumption that one’s identity necessarily deŽnes