If Races Do Not Exist, Then What Does? Racial Categorisation and Ethnic Realities

Abstract

Considers the status of ethnic groups that do not fall under the racist categories currently employed in public debates in the UK on race relations, drawing on the work of Michael Banton, who interrogates categories of racial dualisms as registers of current relations between ethnic & racial groups. While Banton's intent has been to privilege an individualist vision of voluntary ethnicity as the ideal of race relations, it is suggested that ethnicity predates racism as a form of collectivity that offers resources for challenging & opposing racial categorizations. Viewed in this manner, inquiry into ethnic collectivities is understood as a preconditon of defeating racism & allowing victim groups to recover social place. The work of R. Miles (eg, 1989) is drawn on to describe a perspective on racialized groups as forms of life that (1) have a reality of their own that transcends racialization, & (2) are the foundation on which antiracist efforts must build. D. M. Smith