Racism, Modernity And Identity

aeo This is an original and timely book given the current rise in ethnicised politics. aeo The book is theoretically innovative -- bringing together current developments in sociological theory in relation to ethnic and "race" relations. aeo The book is highly comparative, including material from US, Continental Europe and the UK. 'The West' has a unique civilization, a powerful 'front' - modernity, liberty, democracy, affluence. This volume offers critical perspectives from both 'inside' and 'outside' the cultural and intellectual frontiers of the Western project. The primary focus is on analysing racism and changing ethnicities in Europe and the US in the context of new forms of global dislocation, economic recession, the resurgence of neo-Fascism, and a widespread sense of the crisis of Western modernity. The chapters assess the value of Marxist perspectives and newer approaches that take 'modernity' and 'postmodernity' as frameworks for analysis. They also explore how European identities have been continually reconstructed by a cultural repression of the 'non-Western', whether through colonial discourses, the denial of Asian, Islamic, Judaic and African influences or the effects of Eurocentric conceptions of subjectivity in the psychiatric disciplining of ethnic minorities. The chapters are written by some of the most original and influential writers in the field: they include Michel Wieviorka, Howard Winant, Robert Miles, Robert Young, Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Sallie Westwood, Ali Rattansi and Cathie Lloyd. This book analyses racism and changing ethnicities in Europe and the US in the context of new forms of global dislocation, economic recession, the resurgence of ne0-Fascism, and a widespread sense of the crisis of Western modernity.