What is this ‘Black’ in ‘Black’ History and Culture?: Interdisciplinary Reflections upon Blackness and Racial Categories

 A workshop and discussion forum for academic staff and postgraduates convened by Liz Buettner and Linda Ali

What do scholars working in different disciplines across the humanities and social sciences mean when they use the term ‘black’ to describe various peoples and cultures?  Why, and for what reasons, are certain individuals and groups called ‘black’ by others, and to what extent do they use this label to describe themselves? What do racial categories more generally say about cultural and ethnic identities at specific times and places?  What space is there for hybrid identities that terms such as ‘black’ might by turns either facilitate, or alternatively fail to capture?

To mark Black History Month, this workshop seeks to bring together staff and students interested in race and ethnicity—in the past as well as in the present—for an informal discussion and exchange of perspectives.  Following brief introductory remarks by Liz Buettner and Linda Ali, we aim to open up a wider conversation in which participants can share their views about ‘blackness’ and related concepts that stem from their specific research interests and personal experiences.  Rather than being a static, stable, or essential quality, ‘blackness’ is historically contingent, politically motivated, and mobile, taking shape in response to a range of local, national, global, and transnational influences.  We hope to shed further light on some of its many variations mainly through the ideas you care to raise, but recommend several short essays by Stuart Hall and Tariq Modood as a useful starting point for discussion: 

Suggested readings:

• Stuart Hall, ‘What is this “black” in black popular culture?’, in David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen (eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 465-75.  (Scanned copy available from Helen Jacobs at helen.jacobs@york.ac.uk upon request.)
  
• Stuart Hall, ‘New Ethnicities’ (1988), in James Procter (ed.), Writing Black Britain 1948-1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 265-75 (Scanned copy available from Helen Jacobs at helen.jacobs@york.ac.uk upon request.)
  
• Tariq Modood, ‘Political Blackness and British Asians’, Sociology, vol. 28, no. 4 (1994), pp. 859-76.  (Electronically available via the library catalogue.)
  

Tea, coffee, and light refreshments will be provided

Linda Ali (born in Trinidad) completed her BA and MA in History at the University of York following a career in trade mark management in the City of London.  Her studies at York focused on many aspects of race in immigration in Britain, and in 2002 she was employed by the National Archives to research and write an online exhibition on ‘The Black Presence in Britain’, for which she also completed a research project about York and Yorkshire’s connections to the slave trade and abolitionist movement.  These materials have since been used by schools, churches, and community groups as a focal point for the 2007 Bicentenary Commemoration of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.  Linda is also a representative for the Diocese of York (House of Laity) on the General Synod of the Church of England and Chair of USPG: Anglicans in World Mission since 2009.  She was also an active member of the Set All Free Executive and helped prepare the national events surrounding the 2007 Bicentenary.

Dr Liz Buettner is Senior Lecturer in History with research and teaching interests in the fields of modern British and British imperial history; ethnicity and immigration in Britain and Western Europe; and decolonization in comparative perspective.  Her current research projects concern South Asian culture in Britain since the 1940s and the impact of overseas decolonization upon European societies and cultures.