Social Movements and Anti-Racism (online and in person)

Dates:	15 June 2022
Times:	11:15 - 12:45
What is it:	Symposium
Organiser:	School of Social Sciences
How much:	Free
Who is it for:	University staff, External researchers, Adults, Current University students, General public

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Leading scholars and activists consider the relationship between researching social movements, ‘race’/racisms and practicing anti-racism.

In one of few empirical accounts of anti-racist organising in Britain, Alana Lentin (2004) highlights that anti-racism has rarely been considered a serious topic of scholarly concern. In the years since Lentin’s study was conducted, we have witnessed a burgeoning interest in anti-racist practices within the academy and academic scholarship, and perhaps more importantly, the last two years have seen some of the most significant waves of global anti-racist protest on record. Yet research focusing on anti-racist activists, movements, and mobilisations remains surprisingly underdeveloped, constrained by the silos of ‘social movement studies’ on the one hand, and ‘race and ethnicity studies’ on the other. Anti-racist practices within universities often remain disconnected from broader anti-racist mobilisations, while research in social movement studies has tended to neglect the structuring power of ‘race’ and the material realities of racism within and beyond movements.

This session will bring together scholars and activists working at the intersections of social movement studies, ‘race’/racism studies and anti-racisms to consider the following questions:

Can and should anti-racism be revived as a topic of academic interest?
How can social movement scholars better address questions of ‘race’/racisms?
How can debates around ‘race’/racisms (within and beyond the academy) better connect with wider social movements?
What might a field of ‘anti-racism studies’ look like, and what use might it be?

Contributions from Alana Lentin, Meghan Tinsley and John Narayan.

Part of the Alternative Futures and Popular Protest conference 2022 (follow the link to the registration page for a link to the full conference programme).