Module details for 2024/25.

15 credits

FHEQ Level 5

Module Outline

This module explores how race and racism can be grasped, traced and resisted across geographical, temporal locations and social positionalities. We begin by reflecting on key concepts such as race, racialisation and racism and examine what they (have the potential to) do in practice and which definitions are more and which are less helpful. The first half of the module traces the political economy of the making of ideas of race and their structural embedding within different geographical contexts – including within the Americas and Europe. This involves the emergence of multiple registers of ‘Otherness’ and the thickening of ideas of ‘Whiteness’ and ‘Europeanness’. The second half of the module then examines how racism persists and operates today – via case studies of ‘doing race’ through genetics and ancestry testing and the criminalisation of bodies and their movement. Finally, we discuss how racism can be resisted – via everyday intimacies and social struggles, but also paradigms of redress, such as reparations and abolitionism.
Week 1 – Thinking racism across positionalities: making race & doing race (Ulla and Aleks)
Week 2 – The making of race as a system and systematic racism (Ulla)
Week 3 – The making of Whiteness (Aleks)
Week 4 – The making of racial subjects: the Americas (part I) (Ulla)
Week 5 – The making of racial subjects: Europe (part II) (Aleks)
Reading Week
Week 6 – Doing race through genetics and ancestry testing (Ulla)
Week 7 – Doing race through criminalising bodies (Aleks)
Week 8 – Intimacies and modes of resistance (Ulla)
Week 9 – Reckoning and reparations (Aleks)
Week 10 – Reflections and exchanges (Ulla and Aleks)

Module learning outcomes

Critically reflect on and apply conceptual approaches to the study of race and social inequality (specifically racialisation and racism) to real-world events, biomedical and technological innovations (and where relevant, personal experience).

Independently research academic and non-academic sources and critically appraise diverse sources of knowledge.

Make appropriate use of concepts and empirical data to produce an academically informed written assessment and produce a coherent narrative.

Critically evaluate the relevance of history and positionality in crafting a reflexive written/visual/audio account of the central themes and debates introduced in this module.

Timing

Submission deadlines may vary for different types of assignment/groups of students.

Weighting

Coursework components (if listed) total 100% of the overall coursework weighting value.

How to read the week pattern

The numbers indicate the weeks of the term and how many events take place each week.