{"id":39026,"date":"2014-12-21T20:50:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T20:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=39026"},"modified":"2014-12-21T20:50:18","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T20:50:18","slug":"beyond-the-race-concept-the-reproduction-of-racism-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=39026","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the ‘Race’ Concept: The Reproduction of Racism in England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beyond the ‘Race’ Concept: The Reproduction of Racism in England<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Sydney Studies in Society and Culture<\/a>
\nVolume 4 (1988)<\/a>
\npages 7-31<\/p>\n

Robert Miles<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Dean of Study Abroad and International Exchanges College of Arts and Sciences
\nUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill<\/em><\/p>\n

Large numbers of people continue for long periods of time to cling to\u00a0myth, to justify it in formulas that are repeated in their cultures, and to\u00a0reject falsifying information when prevailing myths justify their interests,\u00a0roles, and past actions, or assuage their fears. (Edelman, 1977:3)<\/p>\n

The deepest instinct of the Englishman\u2013how the word ‘instinct’ keeps\u00a0forcing itself in again and again!\u2013is for continuity: he never acts more\u00a0freely nor innovates more boldly than when he is conscious of conserving\u00a0or even of reacting (Enoch Powell, cited in Wood, 1965:145)<\/p>\n

This is the doctrine of the new tribalism, and as such would make sure,\u00a0if it prevailed, that there would be Washingtons and riots in Britain.\u00a0(Times, 18.11.67)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

This paper has two objectives. First, it will summarise and develop my\u00a0critique of the sociology of ‘race relations’ and the way in which it utilises\u00a0the idea of ‘race’ as an analytical concept. It will be concluded from this\u00a0that it is necessary to show why and how the idea of ‘race’ is employed in\u00a0social relations rather than take for granted its commonsense status. The\u00a0concepts of racialisation and racism will be shown to be central to this\u00a0task. Second, as a way of illustrating the significance of this argument, I\u00a0shall consider a key phase in the racialisation of domestic English politics. I\u00a0show, first, how the 1964\/ 70 Labour government initially employed the\u00a0idea of ‘race’ to problematise the migrant presence in favour of the exposure\u00a0of racism and, second, how Enoch Powell subverted a later attempt\u00a0to do the latter by an ideological intervention which employed the\u00a0category of ‘nation’ as an allusion to the idea of ‘race’.<\/p>\n

The Ideological Character of ‘Race Relations’ Sociology<\/strong><\/p>\n

A confrontation with the idea of ‘race’ is a confrontation with the history\u00a0and legacy of a central strand of Western thought. During the late eighteenth\u00a0and the nineteenth centuries, the idea of ‘race’ occupied a key place\u00a0in the attempt by intellectuals and politicians to understand the rapidly\u00a0changing and expanding world in which they lived, and the successful attempt\u00a0to attribute scientific status to the idea of ‘race’ is now well understood (Banton, 1977). That some eight million people had to die in\u00a0the course of a political project influenced by that bogus science is also\u00a0well understood, despite ongoing attempts by fascist groups to define this\u00a0historical episode as a myth. The work of many biologists and geneticists\u00a0both before and after the Holocaust has demonstrated, clearly and\u00a0repeatedly, that the idea of there being discrete biological groups ranged in\u00a0a hierarchy of superiority\/ inferiority has no scientific foundation. Ambiguities remain in the way in which some of them contimie to employ the\u00a0idea of ‘race’ within scientific discourse but where its use is maintained\u00a0and defended, it is in terms which are clearly divorced from the nineteenth\u00a0century emphasis upon the classification of phenotypical variation (Montagu,\u00a01972). ‘Race’, in the sense of discrete sub-species, is no longer\u00a0seriously considered to be biological fact. Thus ‘any use of racial categories\u00a0must take its justifications from some other source than biology’ (Rose et.\u00a0al., 1984:127).<\/p>\n

Most social scientists accept and adopt this as their starting point when\u00a0analysing the continuing reproduction of racism. But, in the course of rejecting\u00a0scientific racism, many of them have incorporated the key ‘concept’\u00a0of scientific racism into their analytical framework. They have\u00a0redefined ‘race’ as a social category and utilise it as both explanans and explanandum,\u00a0in an attempt to constitute ‘race relations’ as a discrete object\u00a0of analysis, about which theories can be formulated, tested and reformulated\u00a0(e.g. Rex, 1970; cf. Miles, 1982, 1984b).<\/p>\n

Historically, and in the contemporary world, people attribute meaning to\u00a0particular patterns of phenotypical variation and act in accordance with\u00a0that process of signification. The occurrence of this complex process of\u00a0cognition and action is not contested. What is contested is the analytical\u00a0method and concepts employed to understand and explain it. The conventional\u00a0sociological method is to claim that, as a result of this process,\u00a0‘races’ are constituted and thereby come to relate to one another, and that\u00a0the means and consequences of this fall into regular patterns which can be\u00a0theorised. Thereafter, and crucially, ‘race’ is transformed into a real\u00a0phenomenon which has identifiable effects in the social world. ‘Race’\u00a0becomes a variable with measurable consequences. Sociologists employ\u00a0this variable to report that, for example, ‘race’ has important effects on\u00a0educational achievement, that ‘race’ interrelates with class to produce\u00a0multiple patterns of disadvantage, that ‘race’ intervenes in the political\u00a0process affecting the way in which people vote, that ‘race’ determines an\u00a0individual’s chances of being unemployed, arrested by the police or\u00a0becoming a magistrate, and so on. That is, sociologists employ the idea of\u00a0‘race’ as an explanans, as an analytical concept identifying a phenomenon\u00a0with determinant effects.<\/p>\n

This is a classic example of reification. There is no identifiable\u00a0phenomenon of ‘race’ which can have such effects on social relations and\u00a0processes. There is only a process of signification in the course of which\u00a0the idea of ‘race’ is employed to interpret the presence and behaviour of others, a conceptual process which can guide subsequent action and reaction.\u00a0This complex of signification and action, where it occurs\u00a0systematically over periods of time, has structural consequences. This\u00a0complex can be referred to as a process of racialisation, a concept which\u00a0refers to the social construction but also refers to patterns of action and\u00a0reaction consequent upon the signification. Within this process, the\u00a0ideology of racism plays a central role by offering criteria upon which\u00a0signification can occur, attributing negative correlates to all those possessing\u00a0the real or alleged criteria, and legitimating consequent discriminatory\u00a0behaviour or consequences…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyond the ‘Race’ Concept: The Reproduction of Racism in England Sydney Studies in Society and Culture Volume 4 (1988) pages 7-31 Robert Miles, Associate Dean of Study Abroad and International Exchanges College of Arts and Sciences University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Large numbers of people continue for long periods of time to cling to\u00a0myth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,394,10],"tags":[18839,81,15854,18838],"class_list":["post-39026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","category-uk","tag-bob-miles","tag-england","tag-robert-miles","tag-sydney-studies-in-society-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}