Module overview
This module will explore the issues of race, racism, racial conflict, and race relations in contemporary Britain and worldwide. Although we will mainly refer to Britain, global examples will also be used. The module will examine theoretical perspectives on race, ethnicity and difference, as well as covering the various historical, social, cultural, and political forces and processes through which the concept and reality of race have been constructed, shaped, and changed over time, and the substantive areas that are experienced as “lived” social divisions that impact on and limit people’s welfare, opportunities, and horizons through prejudice, and direct or indirect discrimination.
Some key questions and issues that we will be thinking and talking about during this module include: What are the roots and origins of racism? How are the concepts of race and racism constructed? How can we understand ethnicity? What is the relationship between racial and ethnic diversities and forms of social cohesion? What do flows of migration mean for senses of belonging? What is national unity? What is ‘white privilege’ and how does it intersect with other inequalities? How do right wing movements emerge and how should we respond to them? What racial inequalities are raised and resisted in policing and criminal justice? How can we understand Islamophobia and ‘the war on terror’? What do the increasing incorporation of artificial intelligence in law enforcement and criminal justice mean for race and racism? How do race and ethnicity shape education and health services and with what implications? How do race and ethnicity shape opportunities and barriers in the labour market? What do calls to decolonise knowledge mean for the disciplines and topics that we study in universities?