Periodic Reporting for period 4 - POLITICS (The politics of anti-racism in Europe and Latin America: knowledge production, decision-making and collective struggles)
Período documentado: 2022-03-01 hasta 2023-08-31
POLITICS studied the contested politics of anti-racism in four contexts: Brazil, Spain, Peru and Portugal. Since the 2000s, States have been gradually incorporating antiracist initiatives (such as anti-discrimination legislation or affirmative action policies) but they have remained insufficient or superficial. In this context, research aimed to identify and examine processes of dialogue, negotiation and conflict between different and divergent political projects and agendas developed by State, regional and global institutions, social organizations, academia and collective movements.
Focusing on Black and Roma struggles, POLITICS addressed how power relations shape anti-racism at the intersection of global, national and local debates and initiatives. The team developed fieldwork and case studies on three issues:
i) State sponsored anti-discrimination and inclusion public policies within global and regional frameworks;
ii) State universities: undergraduate courses and specific research and teaching activities;
iii) Security policies and law enforcement agencies: police brutality in urban settings.
The team produced scientific publications, pedagogical and popularized audiovisual and written materials advancing a transnational understanding of anti-racism.
POLITICS concluded that whereas Black and Roma movements have struggled for making of anti-racism a public policy and legal framework explicitly embraced by the State, the establishment of a “State anti-racism” is at the centre of disputes. Clashes over the meaning of anti-racism as a liberation struggle and the relationship between the movements and white and mestizo progressive politics reveal conflicting views about State reform as a constant struggle or an end in itself.
Focusing on Black and Roma struggles, POLITICS addressed how power relations shape anti-racism at the intersection of global, national and local debates and initiatives. The team developed fieldwork and case studies on three issues:
i) State sponsored anti-discrimination and inclusion public policies within global and regional frameworks;
ii) State universities: undergraduate courses and specific research and teaching activities;
iii) Security policies and law enforcement agencies: police brutality in urban settings.
The team produced scientific publications, pedagogical and popularized audiovisual and written materials advancing a transnational understanding of anti-racism.
POLITICS concluded that whereas Black and Roma movements have struggled for making of anti-racism a public policy and legal framework explicitly embraced by the State, the establishment of a “State anti-racism” is at the centre of disputes. Clashes over the meaning of anti-racism as a liberation struggle and the relationship between the movements and white and mestizo progressive politics reveal conflicting views about State reform as a constant struggle or an end in itself.
The study of antiblack and anti-Roma institutional racism and the efforts in building anti-racism through law
The book O Estado do Racismo em Portugal [The State of Racism in Portugal] impacted on the legal debate around the constitution of the new Commission for Equality and against Racial Discrimination in Portugal. It foregrounds the role played by social movements/activists in knowledge production, access to justice and policy change. Accordingly, a section is dedicated to their analyses of the key issues addressed in the study: administrative and penal law to combat racism, security policies & police brutality, education & housing segregation. Articles Building the Inter-American Convention against Racism: between Antiracist Pride and Racism Denial & Racismo antinegro y derecho en el Perú: análisis del caso Algendones [Antiblack racism and law in Peru] focus on anti-racist legal developments in Latin America, and in particular in Peru and Brazil, expanding Critical Race Theory methodologies. Article Black Families, Damned Territories: Anti‐Blackness and Black Motherhood in (White) Portuguese Parliamentary Debates & chapter Anti-Roma racism, social work and the white civilisatory mission critically examine anti-Black and anti-Roma racism in social policies in Portugal, Spain and the wider European context.
Sociohistorical approaches to contemporary anti-racism & whiteness in Spain and Portugal
Book Racismo de Estado [Sate Racism] & chapter “Vampirizing anti-racism. Reflections from the Black and Roma struggles in Spain and Portugal” (forthcoming) contribute to understanding the current configuration of anti-racism in Spain and Portugal, their relationship with white progressive politics, and key issues of mobilization such as police violence or nationality laws.
Chapter Anxious Whiteness, Anti-Racism on Hold: Exploring the Contemporary Disputes About Political Anti-Racism and Decolonization in European Contexts & Articles Problematising mainstream Spanish anti-racism: race, racism and whiteness ; De-whitening Romani women’s intersectional experience analyse the pervasiveness of whiteness in mainstream and radical progressive politics, including feminism, and how it shapes the silencing and appropriation of Black, Roma and other racialised peoples’ struggles.
Key findings: Prevailing approaches to anti-racism in policy-making, legislation and hegemonic social organizations are predicated on a predominantly individualized and culturalist understanding of racism. In some European contexts such as Spain or France, this approach has been critically defined by social movements and militants as “moral anti-racism”. As radical Black and Roma anti-racism organizations have challenged these approaches, there is a shift towards incorporating vocabularies born in the struggles (e.g. structural racism, intersectionality) and opening participatory process that tend to drain the energy of radical anti-racism and feed white interests in a tailored “civil society”.
Examining (anti-)racism, higher education & cultures of scholarship
Special Issue Universidade e Antirracismo [University and Anti-Racism] & Article Universidades, currículos e relações étnico-raciais [Universities, curricula and ethno-racial relations] examined the meanings of antiracist education, triangulating policy analysis, curriculum studies and critical studies of race and racism in three State universities in Brazil and Peru. Chapter The Roma collective memory and the epistemological limits of Western historiography critically analyses how Western academia has told the history of the Roma peoples in Europe and its impact on silencing Roma agency.
The booklet “The contested politics of anti-racism” (available in EN, PT & SP) is a pedagogical material targeting in particular undergraduate students in European and Latin American universities. It presents and discusses key theoretical frameworks, policy/legal debates and a glossary with key concepts and bibliography.
Key findings: Universities and research funding are key institutional arrangements in the reproduction of white privilege. Black and Roma movements have pushed the political agenda towards the implementation of affirmative action policies and structural transformation of the curricula. Research showed how significant transformations in the curriculum depend of the action of specific individuals, and Black thinking is usually present in optional courses (for instance in Brazilian universities). There is a dominant grammar “interculturality” and “inclusion of cultural diversity” that relegates the questioning of institutional racism in the University.
The book O Estado do Racismo em Portugal [The State of Racism in Portugal] impacted on the legal debate around the constitution of the new Commission for Equality and against Racial Discrimination in Portugal. It foregrounds the role played by social movements/activists in knowledge production, access to justice and policy change. Accordingly, a section is dedicated to their analyses of the key issues addressed in the study: administrative and penal law to combat racism, security policies & police brutality, education & housing segregation. Articles Building the Inter-American Convention against Racism: between Antiracist Pride and Racism Denial & Racismo antinegro y derecho en el Perú: análisis del caso Algendones [Antiblack racism and law in Peru] focus on anti-racist legal developments in Latin America, and in particular in Peru and Brazil, expanding Critical Race Theory methodologies. Article Black Families, Damned Territories: Anti‐Blackness and Black Motherhood in (White) Portuguese Parliamentary Debates & chapter Anti-Roma racism, social work and the white civilisatory mission critically examine anti-Black and anti-Roma racism in social policies in Portugal, Spain and the wider European context.
Sociohistorical approaches to contemporary anti-racism & whiteness in Spain and Portugal
Book Racismo de Estado [Sate Racism] & chapter “Vampirizing anti-racism. Reflections from the Black and Roma struggles in Spain and Portugal” (forthcoming) contribute to understanding the current configuration of anti-racism in Spain and Portugal, their relationship with white progressive politics, and key issues of mobilization such as police violence or nationality laws.
Chapter Anxious Whiteness, Anti-Racism on Hold: Exploring the Contemporary Disputes About Political Anti-Racism and Decolonization in European Contexts & Articles Problematising mainstream Spanish anti-racism: race, racism and whiteness ; De-whitening Romani women’s intersectional experience analyse the pervasiveness of whiteness in mainstream and radical progressive politics, including feminism, and how it shapes the silencing and appropriation of Black, Roma and other racialised peoples’ struggles.
Key findings: Prevailing approaches to anti-racism in policy-making, legislation and hegemonic social organizations are predicated on a predominantly individualized and culturalist understanding of racism. In some European contexts such as Spain or France, this approach has been critically defined by social movements and militants as “moral anti-racism”. As radical Black and Roma anti-racism organizations have challenged these approaches, there is a shift towards incorporating vocabularies born in the struggles (e.g. structural racism, intersectionality) and opening participatory process that tend to drain the energy of radical anti-racism and feed white interests in a tailored “civil society”.
Examining (anti-)racism, higher education & cultures of scholarship
Special Issue Universidade e Antirracismo [University and Anti-Racism] & Article Universidades, currículos e relações étnico-raciais [Universities, curricula and ethno-racial relations] examined the meanings of antiracist education, triangulating policy analysis, curriculum studies and critical studies of race and racism in three State universities in Brazil and Peru. Chapter The Roma collective memory and the epistemological limits of Western historiography critically analyses how Western academia has told the history of the Roma peoples in Europe and its impact on silencing Roma agency.
The booklet “The contested politics of anti-racism” (available in EN, PT & SP) is a pedagogical material targeting in particular undergraduate students in European and Latin American universities. It presents and discusses key theoretical frameworks, policy/legal debates and a glossary with key concepts and bibliography.
Key findings: Universities and research funding are key institutional arrangements in the reproduction of white privilege. Black and Roma movements have pushed the political agenda towards the implementation of affirmative action policies and structural transformation of the curricula. Research showed how significant transformations in the curriculum depend of the action of specific individuals, and Black thinking is usually present in optional courses (for instance in Brazilian universities). There is a dominant grammar “interculturality” and “inclusion of cultural diversity” that relegates the questioning of institutional racism in the University.
IN CONCLUSION: UNDERSTANDING ANTI-RACISM AS A PRACTICE OF (SELF-)LOVE
Documentary “A minha voz não pode calar” [My voice cannot remain silent] ) available on YouTube is a pedagogical tool advancing a transnational understanding of anti-racism from the standpoint of the lives and work of black and Roma grassroots organizations, academics, policymakers and activists in Brazil, Peru, Portugal and Spain. The documentary conveys a key idea: for Black and Roma organizations, activists and thinkers, anti-racism is an everyday practice for freedom, dignity and an act of (self)love. This means: the everyday resistance of Black and Roma lives, dignity and joy in an antiblack world and anti-Roma Europe. They evidence the limits of racial justice through the judicial system or State policies. Yet, as several research participants affirmed, denouncing racism is understood both as an act of self-love/dignity of the present-lives-and-the ancestors, and a means to unsettle the racist foundations of our institutions foregrounding their antiblack and anti-Roma grammars.
Documentary “A minha voz não pode calar” [My voice cannot remain silent] ) available on YouTube is a pedagogical tool advancing a transnational understanding of anti-racism from the standpoint of the lives and work of black and Roma grassroots organizations, academics, policymakers and activists in Brazil, Peru, Portugal and Spain. The documentary conveys a key idea: for Black and Roma organizations, activists and thinkers, anti-racism is an everyday practice for freedom, dignity and an act of (self)love. This means: the everyday resistance of Black and Roma lives, dignity and joy in an antiblack world and anti-Roma Europe. They evidence the limits of racial justice through the judicial system or State policies. Yet, as several research participants affirmed, denouncing racism is understood both as an act of self-love/dignity of the present-lives-and-the ancestors, and a means to unsettle the racist foundations of our institutions foregrounding their antiblack and anti-Roma grammars.