Racism, Culture, Markets

John Gabriel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134867752
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Racism, Culture, Markets explores the connections between cultural representations of `race' and their historical, institutional and global forms of expression and impact.
John Gabriel examines the current fixation with market place philosophies in terms of the crisis in anti-racist politics and concern over questions of cultural identity. He explores issues such as the continuing relevance of terms like `black' as a basis for self definition; the need to think about identities in more fluid and complex ways, and the need to develop a much more explicit discussion of the construction of whiteness and white identities.
Racism, Culture, Markets brings together a range of historical and contemporary case studies including the Rushdie affair; the Gulf War; debates around fostering, adoption and domestic violence; separate schooling; the service economy and its employment practices; tourism in the Third World; the Bhopal chemical disaster and racism in the new Europe. His case studies also consider the role played by contemporary media and popular culture in these debates, including film, television, music and the press.

Part I

HISTORIES AND CONTEXTS

1

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND CONCERNS

A number of issues and questions have emerged from both my research and teaching which have influenced the themes and issues around which this book has been written. Questions which are important in any writing context; for example, what is the point of the book, who is it for, and who has the expertise to write it, all take on a particular significance in the context of writing about ‘race’. In my own case, I have regularly been asked to justify my own role both as an academic and teacher. What kinds of knowledge make up, or should make up, the academic study of ‘race’? What role should a teacher, in my case a white teacher, play in courses on ‘race’ and ethnicity? What should be the focus of such courses? Should she/he be primarily concerned with racism and racial inequality (however these terms are defined) or something else? How far should courses expect students to think about themselves, as black, Jewish, British Asian, or in non-racial/ethnic terms? What role should ‘non-white’ student experience play in the course?

The above questions have been a constant source of dialogue and debate for many with whom I have been involved in both a research and teaching context. Moreover, my own answers to these questions and to some extent the questions themselves have changed over time. In both my research and teaching and hence the focus of this book, my aim has been to analyse cultural processes within institutions, including the production of racist knowledges, whilst at the same time relating these institutional contexts to media forms, including the press, television and film. Whilst I have wanted to retain a British institutional focus, I have also aimed to explore the historically and globally varied forms of racism. Whilst there remains a strong focus on inequality, I have also wanted to acknowledge the importance of incorporating potentially diverse cultural and ethnic forms of expression, which can be assessed in terms of their oppositional effects.

The concern of cultural studies with questions of identity has encouraged me, albeit with some apprehension, to reflect on my political history in terms of my own white ethnicity, as well as my gender and age. As Stuart Hall has rightly observed, it is very difficult to convince the English that they are just another ethnic group. White ethnicity always manages to hide behind its negative constructions of otherness (Hall, 1991a: 21; see also Balibar, 1991: 60). This idea has encouraged me to confront a real danger in teaching and institutional politics: that of imposing or projecting both a history and a political outlook onto others whose experiences and perspectives are very different from my own. In planning this book, I have thus tried to accommodate student interests and experiences, while at the same time giving prominence to the writings of those whose experiences, political perspectives and theoretical positions have emerged in different circumstances to my own.

The importance Hall attaches to white ethnicity serves to emphasise that the subject of ‘race’ is not just about ‘black’ people. It is as much about ‘white’ as it is about ‘black’ culture. Moreover, the term ‘black’, however inclusively it is defined, cannot accommodate the diversity of ethnicities of potential importance in the field of ‘race’. Hence, an important aim of the book is to analyse dominant white institutions and the means by which white knowledges have been constructed historically. A book on ‘race’ which makes ‘black’ people the exclusive object of study and, moreover, relies on ‘black’ experience alone, is not only unfair in terms of the burden it places on those who would be expected to ‘resource’ such knowledge, it is also ill-founded in terms of the need for a much broader, analytical focus of the kind suggested above.

It follows, therefore, that the examination of historical and global forms of racism and the analysis of the construction of racist knowledges take the book beyond the experience of any one person or group. Moreover, the more we explore the intellectual and political contributions of a variety of writers as well as the experiences of a diverse student group, the clearer it becomes that there is no one single, authentic perspective that goes with being black or, for that matter, with being a woman or lesbian or gay, or indeed being white. Such an assumption not only does a disservice to the complexity of perspectives around each of these identities. Taken to its extreme, the idea of a single, authentic, perspective born out of being black or a woman would also make both writing and reading and teaching and learning redundant, since those who already possessed the necessary experiential credentials would have nothing more to learn while the rest would be precluded from writing and learning simply by dint of who they were.

The term ‘race’ has been a focus of academic and political debate and controversy since it was first used in the seventeenth century. Does it stand for biological groups or groups that are (wrongly) assumed to possess biological differences? If it is the latter then, how are they distinguished? By skin colour or other physical characteristics? Or is ‘race’ more of a political term, used to mobilise groups around issues and demands? If ‘race’ is used in this political sense, then we still might ask which groups does it mobilise and why do/should they share a common political agenda? Or is ‘race’ a term which has been used as a way of maintaining economic relations of production? All these alternative ways of thinking about ‘race’ imply the existence of a recognisable and definable group. Alternatively ‘race’ could refer to an idea, or belief in the existence of groups which do not exist. Robert Miles (1993) has consistently argued that to use the term ‘race’ in any other sense than this is to legitimise racist classifications, since it confers a reality on groups which are known, other than in racist discourse, not to exist.

In what follows ‘race’ stands for an idea, not a fixed, biological type. However, it also stands implicitly for those groups who experience racial discrimination, unequal treatment and exclusion. The question then remains, who are the object of racist ideas or who define themselves in terms of their racial identity? I do not think it is possible to answer this absolutely. Context, both in terms of when and where, is all-important. The analysis of how and why groups define themselves and others in religious, national, ethnic terms, the circumstances under which ‘race’ has varyingly come to be associated with these social categories (some authors refer to this process as racialisation) and with what consequences, are all of central concern in what follows. Given the controversy surrounding the term ‘race’, and because its meaning does not correspond to its biological definition, I have enclosed it in inverted commas.

My use of the term ‘black’ also calls for some discussion. In general I use it in accordance with how groups, organisations and communities have identified themselves. Sometimes this means it is used in an inclusive sense which links all groups who claim to have been the object of racism. In such cases, therefore, it could potentially include members of physically ‘white’ groups (e.g. Irish, Jewish). On the other hand where groups identify themselves in other ways, for example in terms of ethnicity or national identity, I shall use the latter terms instead. Finally, there are contexts in which black refers to a particular ethnicity or national identity, for example African-Americans in the United States. In those cases I will use the term black and qualify with reference to the particular group in question. I shall return to a discussion of the shifts in the use of these forms of identification in subsequent chapters.

There are enormous difficulties in the use of all of the above terms. First there is always the danger of making assumptions on behalf of groups and of assuming a consensus when none exists. Moreover, insofar as the state (including the academy) accepts such different ways of defining groups (‘black’ is the most recent example) there is always a sense in which it appropriates those terms and detaches them from their original context and meaning. This in turn creates the impetus on the part of groups themselves to discover new cultural definitions. Second, the very use of one term may also be taken to imply the rejection of another. To discuss a group in terms of one category potentially draws a fixed or exclusive boundary around it which is at odds with how individuals and groups mobilise around different identities at different times. Finally, there is the relationship between how groups define themselves and how they might be understood analytically. The latter might establish connections between groups in terms of shared social and economic conditions, common cultural processes and forms of political mobilisation and resistance. My aim is to address these problems throughout the book without offering any guarantee that they will, or for that matter can, be resolved.

Beyond these conceptual issues, the wider political climate has also played an important role in shaping the organisation of and rationale for this book. The late 1980s witnessed a significant backlash against local authority anti-racist initiatives. The latter were seen by their critics on the right and, in particular, the tabloid press, as part of what became dubbed the ‘loony left’. The mud stuck and subsequently helped to secure a third Conservative general election victory in 1987. Consequently, many Labour authorities, with the exception of the GLC, which had itself been abolished, began to dismantle their race relations units, cut back on community projects, and backpedal on equal opportunity policy initiatives (see Gabriel, 1989b and Gordon, 1990). Political expedience (that is, the prospect of a further erosion of electoral support) and a lack of political commitment to anti-racism were both important factors in promoting what was very politely called the ‘new realism’.

Criticisms of local authority anti-racism, however, were not confined to the political right. For example, black intellectuals like Paul Gilroy attacked it for its failure to win over popular support (in the way, to use his example, movements like Rock against Racism had in the 1970s). Moreover, according to Gilroy, it alienated those it claimed to be benefiting by developing both a bureaucratic language and institutional structures far removed from their experience. Finally, through its emphasis on inequality and racism, the discourse of antiracism effectively cast ‘black’ people in the role of passive victims and, relatedly, categorised people according to some seemingly fixed racial/ethnic identity (Gilroy, 1990).

A renewed sense of pessimism emerged on the Labour left as a direct consequence of this effective backlash against municipal socialism and particularly against anti-racist policies and initiatives. The idea that Labour-held councils could become islands of socialism in a very deep blue sea seemed increasingly untenable by the end of the decade. Moreover, events in the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe confirmed this sense of crisis and compounded a collective sense of uncertainty. This created a sense of beleaguerment and battle-weary scepticism with regard to the efficacy of local politics and, relatedly, a growing disillusionment with the Labour Party. The book in part, thus grew out of a personal sense of political frustration and uncertainty and the need to rethink the assumptions and parameters of the study and politics of race and racism.

The broad political conditions associated with Thatcherism also had profound implications for higher education. During the 1980s, the rolling back of the public sector was experienced in the form of chronic under-funding. The displacement of public sector values by marketplace philosophies manifested itself in a number of ways: the buying in of temporary, shortterm contract employment; the reduction in real terms of student grants and the introduction of loans; unprecedented levels of student hardship and poverty; an increase in student numbers with no corresponding increase in library provision, teaching resources or administrative/pastoral support, and new top-down management styles together precipitated a decline in morale and a deterioration of working conditions in higher education which were without historical precedent.

Part of the context in which this book has been written must therefore be understood in relation to the above changes and uncertainties. The combined effects of the crisis of antiracist politics, the deteriorating environment in higher education and an increase in the overall numbers and diversity (in terms of degree background) of students have all left their mark on what follows.¹ These concerns are reflected in the organisation of the chapters which adopt an indicative case study rather than a comprehensive textbook approach, leaving space for more case studies and the opportunity to pose new questions as well as address those debates as yet unresolved. The adopted style is intentionally open-ended and interdisciplinary. My aim is to problematise issues and ideas rather than offering ‘right’ answers. Whilst there are numerous lines of argument and recurrent themes, my aim is not to present them as either exhaustive or complete.

SOME PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS

The case study approach is advantageous in another sense. It has allowed me to pose a variety of questions, which utilise the concepts and theories normally associated with distinct academic specialisms. The first is concerned with representations, meaning literally how aspects of the world are ‘re-presented’, in newspapers, film, television, on the radio and in everyday conversation. Cultural studies has made the analysis of representations, the processes and conditions under which they are produced and the different ways the same forms of representation are interpreted or read, a key focus of study.

A useful illustration of some of the ideas involved here is the amateur video of the incident involving the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991. The assumption that the video provided irrefutable evidence of police guilt was made by seemingly everyone except the jury, who subsequently found the officers not guilty. The case revealed the ways in which the ‘reality’ of police violence against African-Americans could be ‘re-presented’ to a jury in such a way that the beating appeared justified. Where the court case was held, the composition of jury, the way in which the video was shown and interpreted by the defence council, provided the basis for a contradictory interpretation of events seemingly unambiguously captured on film. The fact that a different jury watching the same video subsequently found some of the police officers guilty of violating Rodney King’s civil rights only serves to underline the potential for contradictory interpretations. The variety of ways of representing ‘race’ and ethnicity, how and why representations are differently interpreted and understood, and how these relate to questions of identity, together constitute an important focus of this book.

The Rodney King case begs a second set of questions: how institutions, including the police, operate in ways which serve to sanction, condone or just ignore such cases of flagrant abuse of position and power. By institutions, I mean bodies with their own relatively discrete cultures (including regimes of representation) and policy-making processes, but which are also shaped (economically, politically and culturally) by their relationship to other institutions. For example, an understanding of the circumstances surrounding the Rodney King beating would be incomplete without an analysis of the Los Angeles Police Department. The latter might include an ethnographic study of everyday life in the police department, integral to which would be an understanding of institutional power. As Foucault suggests, the latter can and should be explored at a micro level: how discourses legitimise power, how control over knowledge is an important precondition of power, its objectifying effects and the tactics, strategies and techniques of power which make it part of a dynamic set of processes and relations, not the fixed property of an individual or office (Foucault, 1980). Such a study could also look at policing policies, rules and procedures (including those regarding arrest) and the relationship between the police department and the wider legal framework, demographic and economic characteristics of the city and state, and federal policies insofar as the latter impact on police/community relations.

The analysis of institutions in these terms also makes possible an analysis of forms of opposition, contestation and resistance, as well as alternative cultural forms. These can be explored at the representational level (music, film, etc.), but equally importantly we might ask how such alternatives emerge through institutional struggle. Institutions thus provide sites of struggle (the relational, dynamic aspect of power) which we can probe in terms of regimes of representation, forms of identity as well as other more material outcomes. In other words, the analysis of institutional struggles forms an important part of any discussion of questions of identity as well as inequality. To take the Rodney King case once again, it would be important to assess the impact of the street uprisings, including the subsequent decision to press federal charges against the officers. Opposition can be conscious, as it was in the Rodney King case, or may be visible only in terms of its effects, i.e. through its nonconformity to mainstream culture.

Examples in this book, which are covered in varying degrees of depth, include organised struggles (Women Against Fundamentalism, the 500 Years of Resistance Campaign), policy initiatives (drawing on discourses of equal opportunities and affirmative action), alternative cultural forms (film and music) and, finally, those which emerge almost spontaneously and almost accidentally but which have a potentially profound impact on traditional forms of ethnic identity. The innovative fusing of traditionally distinct languages (for example Punjabi and Creole) in the school playground is one example of this. All of these interventions can be assessed in terms of their emergence, development and effects.

A final set of questions relates ‘race’ and ethnicity to a wider set of global processes. There are a number of ways of looking at these: the international migrations and transfers of labour and capital; the rapid expansion of communication networks; western representations of ‘the Third World’; the relationship of ‘local’ to ‘global’; the emergence of new transnational identities, and cultural, including media, flows across national boundaries. The above factors have provoked an important crisis of old nation-state identities and new articulations of racism, transcending its former links with nationalism. The incorporation of global perspectives is all the more urgent, given these changes. In drawing on the discourses of political economy and cultural theory, they also serve to complement the micro-institutional analysis described above.

At this point I do not wish to theorise the relationship between these questions and perspectives. My aim is to use them in the context of particular examples in order to establish the more specific relationships between them. For the moment, they represent something of a rag-bag of a framework which aims to relate representations of ‘race’ and ethnicity to an analysis of institutions, sites of resistance and opposition (as well as the emergence of alt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Histories and contexts
• Part II Institutional sites
• Part III Global themes
• Notes
• Bibliography