This document summarizes key points from a presentation on race and cultural representation. It discusses the historical development of racialization in the 19th century when races were seen as distinct species. It also notes how globalization has been used to argue that racial opposition would still exist based on other attributes like color, culture and religion. Additionally, it examines how institutions both construct and deconstruct race through government policies and media. The document concludes by reviewing how different groups like Jews, asylum seekers, and Europeans have been racialized in Britain at different time periods.

1. Week 6-
Race and cultural
representation
Presentation by Ayaka Minami
and Elle Johnston

2. Historical Modes of Racialization and the role of
Globalisation
 Idea of the development of group formation, maintenance and dissolution came
about in the 20th Century
 This attitude lead to the racialization of these groups
 ‘I refer to the use of the word ‘race’ to identify population groups whose distinguishing
characteristics are political and cultural, even if membership in them is signalled by
physical features.’ pg 52
 In the 1850’s, races were seen as ‘distinct species with different capacities and
inherent antagonisms towards each other.’ pg 53- permanent and biological.
 Movement from ‘three main groups… whites, Indians and blacks or Negroes’ (before
the end of the 18th Century) and ‘a declaration of the rights of all ‘citizens of every
race and colour’ (In the 1866 Civil Rights Act in the US) pg 53
 ‘Differences of language, religion, and political organization were not caused by
different genetic inheritance… geographical races can interbreed so that their
variation is continuous’ pg 54
 Globalisation used to argue that without race, white and black people would still
oppose each other on the basis of colour, Europeans and Asians in terms of culture
and Christians and Muslims on the grounds of religion (pg 56)

3. Contemporary Modes of
Rationalisation.
 ‘Almost half of the world’s population is in Asia, and the notion
of race is foreign to most of its people….Westerners have
made races’ (pg 58)
 Institutions both make and unmake race. Government, Trade
Unions, mass media etc. all ‘make’ race as they were used to
create black/white/Native American races, but also unmake
race as political movements within minorities raise awareness
and alter social perspectives.
 Those challenging race also end up affirming it.

4. White European immigration to
Britain
Thinking of Britain case is good, because Britain is
part of Europe but apart from it .
‘the problem is not “race” but “racisms,” not relations
between “races” but relations which have been
racialised, not the physical Racialization and ‘White
European’ Immigration 209 attributes of Blacks or
their presumed inferiority, but the motivations of non-
Blacks and the obstacles they impose’ (Small 1994:
30)

5. Jews
Until 19th, prejudice and hostility against Jews and
Blacks was thought to be normal
After WW2 Only 1 percent of people chosen to come
to Britain.
the Jews have been viewed and treated as both
insiders and outsiders in relation to the idea of
‘Europe’, as will be explored shortly.(pp209)

6. Asylum seekers
 Many of Asylam seeker has come from Europe.
 The ‘whiteness’ of these asylum-seekers has been used by their
opponents to deny that racism motivates their hostility.
 The campaign against asylum-seekers in Britain since the late 1990s has
been very fierce.
 The assumption is that culture is an inherent obstacle to integration—the
asylum seekers, diverse though their origins are, have been homogenized
and essentialised and thereby deemed to be un-British/un-English(pp222)
(Murji, K. and Solomos, J. (2005) Racialization: Studies in theory and practice
Oxford, pp208-222: OUP)