Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

As the twenty-first century dawns, questions about race, racism, and ethnic conflict remain at the heart of both public debate and academic discourse. In academic and everyday discourses it is now almost impossible to ignore the preoccupation with different facets of racial or ethnic conflict in various parts of the globe. Yet it is also clear that there is a lack of clarity about both the substance and the boundaries of race and ethnicity as related fields of study, about their scope, social conditions and formations, the relations and implications they signal and signify. Given the upheavals of at least the past two decades, it seems clear that this is an area that is rapidly changing, both in terms of its focus and in terms of its disciplinary location. In this environment there is a need for rethinking the ways in which race and ethnicity have been studied. At the heart of this rethinking we need to ask what it is that we mean when we use terms such as race, racism, ethnicity, and ethnocentrism. There is also a need to review the current theoretical and research agendas around these concepts in order to situate recent trends against a wider historical perspective. It is because we would like to encourage more open debate about what it is that we do when we study race and ethnicity that we have put together this volume, with an eye both on key historical trends and on more contemporary ... log in or subscribe to read full text