Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 11:00 - 12:30
PAPER SESSION 2
within this social class from as early as the mid-Victorian period, this book also traces the episodic emergence of
currents of working class anti-racism. Through an insistence that race is central to the way class works, this text goes
beyond the race-blind scholarship of EP Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm and many sociologists of class and demonstrates
not only that the British working class was a multi-ethnic formation from the moment of its inception but that racialized
outsiders – Irish Catholics, Jews, Asians and the African diaspora – often played a catalytic role in the collective action
that helped fashion a more inclusive and democratic society.
Three discussants have agreed to participate in this roundtable discussion including Professors Gargi Bhattacharya
(UEL), John Solomos (Warwick) and Tim Strangleman (Kent). It is proposed that Satnam Virdee will introduce the
principal themes and arguments (20 minutes), which will be followed by 15-minute contributions from each of the three
discussants, leaving 25 minutes for wider discussion.
Racism and Political Mobilisation: Charting the Connections
Bhattacharyya, G.
(University of East London)
I am a participant in a round-table discussing Professor Virdee’s book, Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider. My
presentation will focus on issues relating to political mobilisation and chart connections between these themes and the
forthcoming ESRC seminar series ‘Racism and political mobilisation’, co-organised with Satnam Virdee and Aaron
Winter. In particular, I will discuss how the insights of Professor Virdee’s work can allow us to reframe our
understandings of British labour history in a manner that makes the work of racism visible.
Racism and Class: Some Comments on Conceptual Issues
Solomos, J.
(University of Warwick)
I will be part of a roundtable to discuss the book by Satnam Virdee on Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider. My
contribution will address some of the core conceptual arguments advanced by the author and provide a critical
response to key themes in the book. Since this is a roundtable I will also respond to the presentations made by the
author and other participants in the roundtable.
Racism and Working Class Studies
Strangleman, T.
(University of Kent)
My contribution to this roundtable is very much as an outsider to questions of race but whose work is centrally about
working class life, culture and experience. I want to read Virdee’s book through first and foremost a class lens and in
the process create a dialogue with the field of working class studies where questions of whiteness have been
important.
Race, Ethnicity and Migration 2
W709, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
TROUBLING YOUTH IDENTITIES: NATION, RELIGION AND GENDER IN LEBANON, NIGERIA, PAKISTAN AND
SENEGAL
This symposium draws upon recently conducted studies that have explored how youth construct their identities in four
contrasting non-Western, predominantly Muslim contexts. Each of these studies focussed on youth identity formations
and different ‘becomings’ within contrasting configurations of state, nation, religion and gender. In a global context of
heightened concern about youth, the youth bulge and religion, these studies provide analyses of the heterogeneous
ways that national and local cultures, societies and their education systems represent and produce forms of local and
global citizenship. Our interest here is in the ways that youth appropriate different discourses in the construction of
their own identities and those of ‘others’, within and beyond their national boundaries.
There are five papers in this symposium. The first paper outlines the theoretical premises that were used to frame the
four country studies as well as the common research design, methods and analytical approaches. This introductory
paper is followed in turn by the country studies starting with Pakistan as Muslim state; Senegal as a secular state with
a majority Muslim population; Lebanon as a multi-sectarian state that includes Christians alongside Shi’a and Sunni
99 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University