‘Post-race’ racisms in the narratives of ‘Brexit’ voters

Abstract

Although a growing body of scholarship seeks to understand the motivations behind the ‘Brexit’ vote – including that which centralises explorations of racism, nationalism and post-colonialism – little consideration has been given to the ways in which ‘post-race’ racisms underpin the narratives of Leave voters. This article draws on data generated through 13 semi-structured interviews to examine the subtle and subterranean ways in which xeno-racism is articulated in the accounts of some Leave voters in the Greater Manchester city of Salford: a city that saw a higher percentage of the electorate (56.8%) vote to leave the EU than the national average (51.9%). Whilst restricting immigration was a key motivator of Leave voters in our research, interviewees vehemently rejected accusations of racism. Instead, couching their views in seemingly non-racial ways, they framed their concerns about immigration as a ‘legitimate’ response to a victimised whiteness. Thus, in discussing our data, we argue that far from living in a ‘post-racial’ epoch, racisms continue to thrive through new modes of articulation. These new racisms emerge from the shadows at key times, such as the EU Referendum, and refashion themselves in ways that are considered more palatable than the older (explicit) racisms of past.

Psychoanalytic Underpinnings of Socially-Shared Normativity

“…There are then a number of challenges that CA faces when seeking to understand the relationship between action and affect/emotion, particularly for child-focused research. The members method criteria underpinning membership status (e.g., reflexive accountability) seems to be glossed over once the detail of adult-child engagement and participation begins to be examined (Forrester and Reason, 2006; Filipi, 2009). In addition, while considered and important insights have come from research on affective stance, such insights still seem to rest on the possible existence of person-experience affect/emotion state(s).…”

‘This is a tale of friendship, a story of togetherness’: the British monarchy, Grenfell Tower, and inequalities in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

“…My analysis is certainly not to dismiss the importance of making global foods accessible, improving knowledge of global cultures, or of creating multicultural communities, all of which are vital in attempts to tackle racism and intolerance. However, what Markle describes in the above excerpt is a kind of 'post-racial' society, whereby race is no longer a factor in structures of dis/ advantage (Goldberg 2015, Boulila 2019, Joseph-Salisbury 2019, Patel and Connelly 2019. Given the racialised inequalities that were central to the conditions of the Grenfell fire, 'post-racialism' is under-evidenced in the experiences of those living in Kensington and Chelsea.…”

“…However, this symbolic change does little to alter systemic racial inequalities, and 'the "post-racial" illusion works to repudiate the structural conditions of race … and limits racism to "individual acts of bigotry"' (Patel andConnelly 2019, p. 971, Valluvan 2016). The racist coverage of Markle by Britain's right-wing news media since the wedding, and her and Prince Harry's subsequent 'resignation' from the monarchy, demonstrates precisely why the post-racial is a myth (Clancy forthcoming).…”

“…Critical race scholars have argued that in a 'post-racial' epoch, 'new racisms' emerge which 'essentialise culture by 'othering' racially minoritised people' (Patel and Connelly 2019, p. 972), articulated perhaps most explicitly in anti-migrant rhetoric that draws upon ideas of race, citizenship, and national identity (Kundnani 2001, Valluvan 2016. 'New racisms' (particularly in the era of right-wing populism) are enacted through border controls, restricting global movement, and the construction of 'migrants' as an alien, deviant, criminal 'other' (Patel andConnelly 2019, Valluvan 2019) as part of the UK government's 'hostile environment' policies (Tyler 2019). This was viscerally illustrated in the Grenfell fire.…”

Feminising politics: notes on material and temporal feminist modal logics in action

“…The affective agency of political communications are seen in countless such examples of the processes of national governance politics in action, and feminist political theorists and philosophers were quick to note these shifts in governance as patterns of neoliberalist modes, and offer analyses of their social implications (cf. Brown, 2017;Fraser, 2016;Patel & Connelly, 2019). The ontological modal processes of hate regimes are based on populist narratives of the world;…”