Mixed Race Studies

Making Mixed Race: A Study of Time, Place and Identity

Routledge
2021-11-24
208 pages
Hardback ISBN: 9780367462918

Karis Campion, Legacy in Action Research Fellow
Stephen Lawrence Research Centre
De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom

By examining Black mixed-race identities in the city through a series of historical vantage points, Making Mixed Race provides in-depth insights into the geographical and historical contexts that shape the possibilities and constraints for identifications.

Whilst popular representations of mixed-race often conceptualise it as a contemporary phenomenon and are couched in discourses of futurity, this book dislodges it from the current moment, to explore its emergence as a racialised category, and personal identity, over time. In addition to tracing the temporality of mixed-race, the contributions show the utility of place as an analytical tool for mixed-race studies. The conceptual framework for the book – place, time, and personal identity – offers a timely intervention to the scholarship that encourages us to look outside of individual subjectivities and critically examine the structural contexts that shape Black mixed-race lives.

The book centres around the life histories of 37 people of Mixed White and Black Caribbean heritage born between 1959 and 1994, in Britain’s second-largest city, Birmingham. The intimate life portraits of mixed identity, reveal how colourism, family, school, gender, whiteness, racism, and resistance, have been experienced against the backdrop of post-war immigration, Thatcherism, the ascendency of Black diasporic youth cultures, and contemporary post-race discourses. It will be of interest to researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students who work on (mixed) race and ethnicity studies in academic areas including geographies of race, youth identities/cultures, gender, colonial legacies, intersectionality, racism and colourism.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Introducing Birmingham
3. The making of mixed-race in place
4. From bun down Babylon to melting pot Britain: the manifestations of mixed-race over time
5. Mixed-race privilege and precarious positionalities: the personal politics of identity
6. The making of mixed-race families: past, present and future
7. Conclusion

“You think you’re Black?” Exploring Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection

Ethnic and Racial Studies
Published online 2019-08-05
DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1642503

Karis Campion, Research Associate
Department of Sociology
University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Utilizing interview data with thirty-seven British people of Mixed White and Black Caribbean heritage, this paper draws upon the concept of “horizontal hostility” to describe how Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection impact on self-perceptions and expressed ethnic identities. In demonstrating the effects of being excluded from a relatable collective Black identity, the paper argues that horizontal hostility is critical in the project of theorizing mixed-race. Experiences of horizontal hostility represent significant turning points in mixed-race lives as they can prompt reconsiderations of mixed-race positionings within the broader Black imagined space. Beyond the benefits that horizontal hostility offers to mixed-race studies, it provides insights into conceptualisations of Blackness – as a collective racial identity, community and politics. The article unpacks how, when and why its boundaries are policed, adding to debates relating to the future formation and maintenance of ethnic group identities and categories more generally.

Read the entire article in HTML or PDF format.

Racialized Lives: Ethnic Mixing and Mixed Ethnicity in Britain

New Left Project
2015-03-06

Karis Campion, Doctoral Researcher and Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of Sociology
University of Manchester

Racialization has had a deeply personal impact on the lives of people in Britain, but history shows us it can be challenged.

In Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider, Satnam Virdee presents an original, alternative history of the English working class, interrogating the dominant scholarly arguments which, he claims, have too often portrayed it as synonymous with the working white male.  Focusing on a period spanning 200 years (1780-1990), Virdee thoroughly explores how the boundaries which have encompassed the working class as a distinct social (white) category have been continuously in flux.

The book details important events and developments over this period when the boundaries of the working class were extended to include what Virdee refers to as ‘racialized outsiders’.  Importantly though, whilst Virdee offers a close analysis of the specific conditions in which the boundaries of the English working class protracted to subsume working class ethnic Others, he does not shy away from dealing with less collective periods for the working class, when boundaries were tightened to exclude those same Others.  It is racialization which, as he often explains in the book, has historically been a key factor in encouraging the working class to retreat from becoming a multi-ethnic collective.

Virdee documents the Chartist movement and the period which followed in the 19th century as one key moment when the boundaries of the working class were tightened in order to exclude.  The Irish presence in the struggle and the potentially multi-ethnic working class solidarity movement which might have followed, unsettled the state.  In response, it utilised various tactics to racialize the movement.  It was constructed as something ‘foreign and alien,’ more aligned to the wishes of the Irish Catholics who led it than ‘an authentic expression of the wishes of the English masses.’[1] Alongside this racist rhetoric, a new version of British nationalism was conjured up.  ‘The nation was re-imagined as an Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation’[2] by elites, and sections of the English working class were gradually incorporated into this.  Within this image of the nation, there was little space for the Irish Catholic working class, and this racist rhetoric and method of rule would eventually lead to the downfall of Chartism…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed Race Male and Female Participants Needed to Take Part in a Research Project

ESRC Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE)
The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
2015-07-25

Karis Campion, Ph.D.
Doctoral Researcher and Graduate Teaching Assistant

• Do you have Mixed White and Black Caribbean heritage?
• Were you born between 1955-1970 or 1980-1995?
• Did you grow up in Birmingham?

If your answers to the above are yes, would you like to take part in an interview exploring mixed race people in post-1945 Britain?

If you think you may be interested in taking part and would like to hear a little more information about the project through an informal chat, then please contact me, Karis Compion via telephone at 07850479436 or via e-mail at Karis.campion@manchester.ac.uk. I am particularly encouraging male participants born 1955-1970 to come forward as response rate with this group has so far been quite low. Also, please read the Participant Information Sheet below.

University of Manchester School of Social Sciences: Participant Information Sheet

What is the title of the research?

The Making of Mixed Ethnicities, 1945-2011

Who will conduct the research?

Karis Campion, PhD researcher
Arthur Lewis Building
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester, M13 9PL

What is the aim of the research?

To find out how mixed ethnicities have been experienced and constructed within particular time periods in Britain since mass-migration after World War II. Within these broader research aims, the research will explore how mixed ethnicities have been experienced in particular geographical locations in Britain. The research also aims to explore how gender and social class impact on mixed ethnicities.

Why have I been chosen?

You have been chosen because you grew up in Birmingham, have a Mixed White and Black Caribbean heritage, and were born between 1955-1970 or 1980-1995. Many other participants like you will be involved.

What would I be asked to do if I took part?

You would be asked to take part in an interview that I will lead. Within this you will be asked questions that are mainly concerned with your experience of having a mixed ethnicity. The interview process can be enjoyable but there is a possibility that you may find some of the topics sensitive to talk about depending on your own experiences. We will mutually agree on a time and place to conduct the interview prior to it taking place. I might also ask you to pick some photographs from your own collection that you feel represent particular stages in your life as a teenager and young adult. These could be either hard or digital copies on a phone/camera. These could include pictures of you when you left school, when you first left home or started your first job. These photographs will be used to help you share your memories in the interview; they will remain in your possession after the interview and will not be reproduced in the thesis. Bringing photographs however, is not compulsory, so do not worry if this is not possible.

What happens to the data collected?

The analysis of the data will be written in to my PhD research project and possibly published in academic journals and presented at academic conferences. It will be made public and available to other researchers and academics.

How is confidentiality maintained?

During the research process the data collected will be audio-recorded. The data will be stored in a safe secure place, such as a password protected data stick and any tapes will be locked away in appropriate storage such as office drawers. It will then be analysed by me the researcher in a private study space. The only other people the information will be shared with are two other University staff who supervise me with my project and help me with my analysis. All participants will be given pseudonyms in the written up research. These are fictitious names, so you will not be able to be identified.

What happens if I do not want to take part or if I change my mind?

If you do decide to take part you will be given this information sheet to keep and be asked to sign a consent form. If you decide to take part you are still free to withdraw from the process at any time without giving a reason and without detriment to yourself.

Will I be paid for participating in the research?

No.

What is the duration of the research?

You will participate in one interview which will last between half an hour and two hours.

Where will the research be conducted?

Birmingham—either in your home or a public space that you would prefer such as a café or library.

Will the outcomes of the research be published?

Yes, most likely. This would mean that the research findings and data will be shared with other academic researchers.

What benefit might this research be to me or other subjects of the research?

The research will not directly benefit you. It will explore the specific experiences of people with mixed ethnicities like you. Your participation will help contribute towards existing academic research which attempts to highlight the specific needs and experiences of this fast growing ethnic group in Britain.

Contact for further information contact:

Karis Campion
Telephone Number: 07850479436
E-mail: Karis.campion@manchester.ac.uk

What if something goes wrong?

If anything goes wrong and you are unhappy for any reason, you can make a formal complaint about the conduct of the research by contacting:

Head of the Research Office, Christie Building
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester, M13 9PL