The Art of Listening

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References AWAAZ 2004. In bad faith?: British charity and Hindu extremism. London: Awaaz South Asia Watch Ltd As Paul Rabinow has also argued, the daring light of the Enlightenment is at once arrogant and humble: ‘It is arrogant in so far as it acts for humanity with the confidence that it is right; it is humble in that enlightenment is an infinite project whose achievement lies in the future’ ( 2003: 94). We cannot any longer claim to act for humanity with such certainty.

Mallaig is the main coastal hub of Lochaber, it’s at the end of the Road to the Isles from Fort William. But like much larger Oban in Argyll further south, it’s also a springboard to wider adventures. You can jump on ferries to the northern Knoydart Peninsula, the Small Isles and Outer Hebrides out west, and of course the ever-popular Isle of Skye. The contributions to this reader provide an overview of key areas of scholarship and research on questions of race and racism. It provides a novel perspective by bringing together readings on the key theoretical and historical processes in this area, the development of diverse theoretical viewpoints, the analysis of antisemitism, the role of colonialism and postcolonialism, feminist perspectives on race and the articulation of new accounts of the contemporary conjuncture. The contributions to this reader include classic works by the likes of W.E.B. DuBois, Stuart Hall and Frantz Fanon as well as timely pieces by contemporary scholars including Orlando Patterson, Patricia Hill Collins and Paul Gilroy.ORWELL, George 1968. ‘Not counting Niggers,’ The collected essays, journalism and letters: volume 1, eds, Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus. Harmondsworth, Penguin I have a wide experience of PhD supvision and I am currently supervising students in the field of multicultural conviviality, immigration control, cultural identuty, racism and fascism, nationalism, sport, social class, gentrification and urban divisions. The limits of the sociological imagination might be posed a different way if we ask 'can sociology hear beyond the boundaries Europe and America without committing violations of this sort?' Or, better still how has the intellectual apparatus of sociology and its relationship to modernity been limited? What also has it been deaf to closer to home? Gurminder Bhambra argues ( 2007a) that British sociology remains unable to confront the centrality of the colonial and postcolonial experience to its constitutive theoretical formation. She argues for ‘difference to make a difference’ to our ways of conceiving the social and not to reduce issues of difference to ‘identity’ that, following Spivak, is assimilated as an ‘add on’ sociological specialism. Just a few miles up the road is where you'll find Resipole Farm. Home to a holiday park, and a really beautiful contemporary gallery; Resipole Studios. In the new edition of this vital resource, we are afforded a comprehensive review and reflection of the continued global role and influence of race and racism. As with earlier editions, Theories of Race and Racism's 3rd Edition will be an indispensable text for instructors and students alike in classrooms across the world’.

I have also got involved in a project with one of my musical heroes Mykaell Riley - of Steel Pulse fame – called Bass Culture, which is an oral history of reggae music in Britain. We’ll be hostinga big conference at Goldsmiths in May next year. To the world’s range of enormous problems, liberalism responds with its verbal fetish of ‘freedom’ plus a shifting series of opportunistic reactions. The world is hungry; the liberal cries: ‘Let us make it free!’ The world is tired of war; the liberal cries: ‘Let us arm for peace!’ The peoples of the world are without land; the liberal cries: ‘Let us beg the landed oligarchs to parcel some out!’ In sum: the most grievous charge today against liberalism and its conservative varieties is that they are so utterly provincial, and thus so irrelevant to the major problems that must now be confronted in so many areas of the world ( Mills 1963: 30-1). Luke: That’s really helpful and I’ve been thinking for a while about the relationship between the legal classification of non-members in different ways and the exclusion from political membership and cultures of racism. I suppose I was also interested because, when I said beloved London, I kind of mean that you really live in this place. And I was thinking about the kind of geographies of street racism and how they’ve changed in some of the places that you were thinking about. I imagine they’ve undergone, exactly with the waves of migration you describe, some real changes and I wonder how street racism in those places has transformed, or has lessened, or has increased - yeah, I’m not sure.Luke: Exactly. And I think the kinds of arguments you make about the metropolitan paradox I found them especially useful when engaging with some of the sociological literature on everyday multi-culture, or super-diversity, which try and look at what they term, unquestioningly, kind of 'diverse' places, as though diversity is the question rather than racism. But I feel like, yes, the concept of metropolitan paradox really helps us look at some of this complexity and have racism front and centre, rather than just trying to describe, as you say, these complex kaleidoscopic configurations of difference, which some sociologists seem especially fascinated by, and you’ve criticised that line of inquiry really well. That’s one of the reasons I found the metropolitan paradox so helpful actually. The first point that I want to make is to suggest that if we are to develop ‘global sociological modes of sociological inquiry’ – and I want to argue very strongly for the urgency of this - it necessitates re-thinking the near at hand as well as the elsewhere. This should not be a license for a global scramble for exotic informants in Africa or China who will only be assimilated in an age old and self-serving way. Part of the challenge of global social inquiry is to re-think how we understand the traces and presences of global relations in and across localities. Many thanks to Malcolm for taking part in today's episode. For more information about the area, take a look at

CUCR is a well established interdisciplinary research centre within Goldsmiths’ Department of Sociology with a distinguished history of collaboration with local communities and activists. It combines theoretical investigation with critical ‘local’ project implementation from Deptford to Jakarta. It's podcast series Street Signs is produced by Freya Hellier. Together, Steve and Ross know everything about these hills, glens and trees and they explain what makes this fragile, yet incredibly rich landscape so special and how to let it flourish for the future. Sireita Mullins Post colonial legacies of marginalisation as rendered in the visual works of multiethnic young people in Lambeth , 2011 (Full-time ESRC Case Studentship) Today, Neil and Freya are all about the deep and ancient connections between the land, nature and culture. It’s something that you can feel pretty strongly in the West Highlands of Scotland, and we’ve been learning how all of those things can work together to enrich our everyday lives. This is an impressive collection of essays, ranging from the classics to the contemporary cutting edge. The extensively updated third edition of this essential collection again shows the editors’ commitment to providing the scholarly community with a historically rooted, in-depth overview of critical writings on race and racism. The result is a key volume on the theorization of race and racism, sophisticated and inventive in its conceptualization, and deeply attuned to the genealogies that we build on in our work on race and racism. Perhaps even more importantly, it is forward-looking, providing readers not only with an overview of historical developments, but also with incisive readings that focus on contemporary concerns in the field and suggest directions for new work. The lucid introduction lays out the stakes of theorizing race and racism in the current moment, while the readings gathered in the volume present multiple theoretical starting points rather than an argument that ‘one theory fits all’. As a result, the volume provides readers with a critical in-depth starting point for thinking about, conducting research on, and working towards social justice regarding race and racism’.Professor Michael Keith, Director of The University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), UK