Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World

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Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: A Review Journalbetween. This approach aims to makes sense of his differing opinions and how these changed. Thebook concludes with appendixes of a ballad about Gandhi, a letter he wrote for the magazine Harijanregarding Jews in 1938 where he compares then to ‘untouchables’; and his article ‘Jews and Palestine’in 1948 for the same magazine.Also relates to:Culture, Identity, Gender and RelationshipsHistorySocial TheorySOCIAL THEORYDARKER THAN BLUE: ON THE MORAL ECONOMIES OF BLACK ATLANTIC CULTUREPaul GilroyBelknap Press, London and Cambridge, MassachusettsYear: 2010Pagination: pp. 207ISBN: 978 0 674 03570 6Price: £16.95The three chapters that make up this book were initially presented as the W. E. B. Du Bois lecture seriesat Harvard. Gilroy aims to make suggestions that could lead to the revitalisation of African Americanstudies by promoting a stronger relationship with contemporary critical thought and engaging withDu Bois in a more unconventional way. Each chapter sets out to address a particular issue that thepolitics of race, racism and Blackness have altered and been altered by.In ‘Get Free or Die Tryin’’, Gilroy considers consumer culture, examining how the culture offreedom that was generated through the overthrow of racial slavery has been utilised for commerce.Here Gilroy expresses a need for us to consider how capitalism and commerce were key factors in theslave trade where people were treated like any other commodity and that as consequence the Blackperson has become just an object in the midst of objects.‘Declaration of Rights’ analyses the contestation of human rights, looking at the ways in whichthe ideas of freedom discussed in chapter one articulate themselves through rights discourse. Gilroybegins by highlighting how ‘struggles against racial or ethnic hierarchy are not usually viewed as animportant source for human rights movements and ideologies’ (p.55). He argues that human rightsdeveloped in an uneven way and that struggles against racial hierarchy are actually crucial to how wehave come to understand the human. The discussion engages with writers such as Giorgio Agamben,Primo Levi, Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault to challenge the disinterest in abolitionist strugglesshown by chroniclers of human rights struggles.‘Troubadours, Warriors, and Diplomats’ unpicks geo-politics and the subsuming of African-American cultural production into Americana to consider how the Black Atlantic is embedded in thediscourse of the ‘War on Terror’. Gilroy makes a stark comparison between Bob Marley, James Brownand Curtis Mayfield, and the contemporary music ‘brands’ such as Jay-Z, positing that music used tobe made for freedom but has developed into a new meaning of freedom equating to consumptionas the satisfaction of all desires. The chapter ends with a discussion of the racism of the US stateand its connections to histories of colonial warfare, and a consideration of the current interpretationof freedom in the political climate given the prominent political presences of Condoleeza Rice andBarack Obama.Overall this collection explores African American intellectual and political legacies alongsidethe place of Black culture in today’s political and economic climate. Gilroy traces the shifting charactersof Black intellectual and social movements to question the reach of the global force of Black culturesthat have been drained of their moral message for global justice.Also relates to:Culture, Identity, Gender and RelationshipsHistoryPolitics and Government96
Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: A Review JournalMuslim Spaces of Hope: Geographies of Possibility in Britain and the WestEdited by Richard PhillipsPublisher: Zed Books, London and New YorkYear: 2009Pagination: pp. 271ISBN: 978 1 84813 301 3Price: £19.99This extensive and interdisciplinary collection incorporates fourteen chapters examining whatMuslims have to be hopeful about in the contemporary political climate, and challenges assumptionsthat are frequently made regarding Muslims and the West. These discussions are located within thewider constructions of race and identity to make larger points regarding social difference and colonialhistories. The collection aims to highlight what problems Muslims face in order to resist populardiscourses that identify Muslims as a problem, and to create positive and hopeful ways to moveforward.The book’s introduction outlines a series of Muslim geographies and engages with the politicsof location. It also addresses the issues of the poverty experienced by many Muslims across the UKand US due to the geographical spaces they inhabit offering suffering socio-economic deprivation.Further, it outlines the basis for the collections discussions of the notion of the ‘West’, imperialbinaries of East v. West, and Muslim v. Christian that are used to define this conceptual space.The subsequent chapters are divided into four sections:‘Spaces of hope?’ introduces the major themes including Sardar’s challenge to the veryassumption that segregation is negative and integration always positive, arguing that these termsare contextually contingent. Following this Hopkins elucidates the problems with the notion thatcategories of ‘Muslim’ and ‘West’ must be considered as oppositional and Dunn and Kampo concludethis section by examining Islam in Australia.‘Convivial cities’ focuses on more specific experiences of Muslims in Western urban culturallife; with Reina Lewis considering fashion, looking at how young Muslim women combine religiousidentity with fashion retailing. Sarah Mills then analyses the role of children in mixed culturalinstitutions, arguing the amount of integration evident in their engagement with civic life. Sibleyand Faldi examine the role of the Islamic bathhouse, proposing that it extends an Islamic conceptto the wider European world through welcoming people into its space. Datta continues the focus onspace by looking at how housing in East London has been tailored to suit the needs of Bangladeshicommunities.‘Economic and political empowerment’ continues to look at specific experiences but in thecontext of economic and political life; Pollard, Lim and Brown’s chapter demonstrate the empoweringpotential of Islamic financial systems for both Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Iqbal and Phillipslook at the participation of Muslim activists in anti-war campaigns, considering this as an engagementwith Western political space. Following this, Glynn analyses the responses of Western governments tothe politicisation of their Muslim citizens.‘Integration and resistance’ concludes the volume with Dwyer and Uberoi’s look at the communitycohesion debates of local government, followed by Brice’s analysis of the census to examineintegration through residential patterns. Sirin and Imamoğlu engage with Muslim-American youthsto identify how they are finding harmonious ways to embody their hybrid identities and Abbasconcludes the volume by examining the ‘threats and opportunities’ (p.252) within wider nationalgovernment initiatives in the UK since the 7/7 bombings in London.The collection endeavours to ‘recast [these geographies] as potential spaces of hope’ (p6) andargues that identifying exclusions and deprivations provides the first steps towards locating the hopefor a progressive and inclusionary politics within.Also relates to:Arts, Literature and SportCulture, Identity, Gender and RelationshipsEconomics and GlobalisationHistory97
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Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World

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