{"id":32954,"date":"2013-08-19T01:18:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T01:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=32954"},"modified":"2013-08-19T01:18:37","modified_gmt":"2013-08-19T01:18:37","slug":"cers-hosts-critical-mixed-race-studies-postgraduate-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=32954","title":{"rendered":"CERS hosts Critical Mixed Race Studies postgraduate symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"

CERS hosts Critical Mixed Race Studies postgraduate symposium<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

School of Sociology and Social Policy<\/a>
\nCentre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies<\/a>
\nUniversity of Leeds<\/a>
\n2013-08-08<\/p>\n

Peter Edwards<\/a><\/strong>, Faculty Web Development Officer<\/p>\n

Mixing Matters: Critical Intersectionalities<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) held its first interdisciplinary, international postgraduate symposium on the 18th May 2013 entitled \u2018Mixing Matters: Critical Intersectionalities.\u2019 This symposium aimed at engaging with ideas from the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies<\/a> (CMRS) was the first of its kind in the UK and enabled national, international and Leeds based postgraduate students to present their research in this dynamic field. The debates within CMRS have been circulating for some time within various disciplines but which simultaneously have remained marginal within broader studies on ethnicity and \u2018race\u2019. Furthermore, the debates have largely been centred on the United States context and not taking into account the globality of mixed-race identity which varies across time and space, an idea which the keynote speaker (Rebecca King O\u2019Riain<\/a>) discusses in her book Global Mixed Race. This symposium was developed in response to this marginalisation focusing on describing and analysing mixed-race identities in both the UK and international contexts.<\/p>\n

It was well attended and received by staff and students from within the faculty and beyond. There were a significant number of non-academic participants who travelled from far afield to engage with the day\u2019s presentations and debates. Dr Rebecca King O\u2019Riain (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) gave a keynote addressing the importance of expanding mixed-race studies beyond US borders and explored the dynamics of mixing in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Japan, among other locations. Dr. Shirley Tate<\/a> (University of Leeds) who conceived of the idea of the symposium gave a second keynote on the mixed race question in regards to Black beauty.<\/p>\n

The symposium was also comprised of two panels with papers on a variety of topics which reflect the diversity of research interests in the field:<\/p>\n