ICS Seminar Series - Alana Lentin
Date: Thursday 17 September 2015
Time: 11.30am - 1pm
Venue: EB.2.04, Western Sydney University, Parramatta South campus
Alana Lentin
Postracial Silences
Abstract
I argue that mainstream sociological research into 'migration, ethnicity, and minorities' (MEM) elides, neglects, or denies the role of race in the construction of the boundaries of Europeanness. Relying on an analysis of the work of established scholars in the field, I argue that their dominance marginalises a race critical approach that is attentive to the persistence of coloniality in contemporary raciologies. Inherent in their work is a splitting off of race from racism that is based on a foundational postracialism according to which racism, a Eurocentric concept, could never encompass a reading of the centrality of race - as a technology for the management of human life first worked out in the colonies - to European politics and sociality. Racism, therefore, remains an external force that can only be treated as pathological and as antithetical to Europe's vision of itself as the pinnacle of liberalism and universalism.
Biography
Dr Alana Lentin is Associate Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis at Western Sydney University. She works on the critical theorization of race, racism and antiracism. She is co-editor of the Rowman and Littlefield International book series, Challenging Migration Studies. Her latest books are Racism and Sociology (opens in a new window)(with Wulf D. Hund, 2014) and The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age (with Gavan Titley, 2011). Her articles have appeared in Ethnic and Racial Studies, European Journal of Social Theory, the European Journal of Cultural Studies, and Patterns of Prejudice. She is a contributor to The Guardian (opens in a new window), OpenDemocracy (opens in a new window) and Eurozine.
Further information is available on Alana's website (opens in a new window).