student presentation

1. Race and
Representation
WEEK 6
BRITISH SOCIETY IN A GLOBALISING WORLD
A presentation by Keely Harris & Madeleine Bracken-Patterson

2. This week is about:
• The construction of race in visual, literary and media
images.
• There is a focus on the need to ‘read’ these images in their
historical context as well as exploring the possibilities for
contesting visual cultures.

3. Nayak, A (2006) ‘After race:
Ethnography, race and post-race
theory’ Ethnic and Racial Studies
29: 3 411-430
Anoop Nayak , Newcastle University

4. The article focuses on an emerging
post race approach
‘Post race approach ‘adapts an anti-foundational perspective which claims that race
is a fiction only over given substance to through illusion of performance, action and
utterance.’
page 416
Anti foundationalism rejects a foundationalist approach,
i.e. an anti-foundationalist is one who does not believe that there is some
fundamental belief or principle which is the basic ground or foundation of inquiry
and knowledge. Therefore this approach rejects essentialism (a belief that things
have a set of characteristics which make them what they are)
‘There is an identifiable post race lingua franca(language)’ page 414
‘Not unlike post modernism and post colonialism, post race theory, involves a breach
of well established orthodoxy and in epistemological reorientation.’
Post race ways of thinking have recently been subject to a developing political and
theoretical wrangling in race relations, there is a focus by scholars to not use race as
an identity while others state this is constricting as it leads to structural inequalities
to be overlooked (these are some of the possibilities and constraints of post-race
theory)

5. Nayak contrasts and compares essentialist,
social constructionist and post race
approaches to race to build a more nuanced
and rounded perspectiveon the
ethnographic study of race.
(each one alone is potentially too rigid and
does not provide a thorough enough
understanding)

6. (referring to writing about all three
approaches)
‘led me to argue against an
oversimplification of binaries and
toward a broader recognition of multi-
textured bricolage or genealogy of race
writing’ page 427

7. Finally
Nayak throughout the article
identifies broad issues with
researching race. He also recognises
‘modern day ethnographers are
increasingly race conscious’ page 413
Some of the issues he identified
were:

8. The relationshipbetweenresearcherand those
being researched
‘In lightof suspicion,misconceptionand
exploitationracialisedminoritieshave at times
questionedthe intrusiverole of whiteresearchers
and theethnocentricdimensionof thiswork’
page413

9. ‘if race is an empty category, that holds
no value, then what does it mean to be
writing, researching and conducting
ethnography’ (around race) page 412

10. Barry Troyna 1995 on issues that
have been put under the spotlight
‘thestanceandstatusoftheresearcher;therationaleforthe
research;thefocusoftheresearcher'sgaze;thewayinwhichkey
theoretical,conceptualandanalyticaltermsareconceptualisedand
operationalised;theconductoftheresearcherandthenatureofthe
socialrelationswhichareestablished‘inthefield’;processesthrough
whichthedataareproduced,interpretedandpresented;andthe
un/intendedaudiencesoftheresearchreport.’page386.