Researching Racism: A Guidebook for Academics and Professional Investigators

185 Pages·2015·1.19 MB·English

by  Muzammil Quraishi

MuzaMMil Quraishi & rob Philburn
r e s e a r c h i n g
r acisM
a guide book for acadeMics & Professional investigators
MuzaMMil Quraishi & rob Philburn
r e s e a r c h i n g
r acisM
a guide book for acadeMics & Professional investigators
For Yasmine, Ibrahim, Zayd and Iyla
For Elke
MuzaMMil Quraishi & rob Philburn
r e s e a r c h i n g
r acisM
a guide book for acadeMics & Professional investigators
SAGE Publications Ltd © Muzammil Quraishi and Rob Philburn 2015
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Contents
List of Boxes and Case Studies vi
About the Authors vii
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction ix
1 The History of Race 1
2 Defining and Conceptualising Racism 12
3 Anti-racism: Law and Policies 27
4 Race, Racism and Everyday Life 36
5 Race, Racism and Qualitative Methods 55
6 Racism Research: Three Case Studies 77
7 Conclusion: Racism and Future Directions 117
Appendix: A Racism Researcher’s Toolbox 124
References 143
Index 160
LIst oF BoXes AnD
CAse stUDIes
Boxes
1.1 The British Obsession with Martial Races 7
2.1 A Basic Anthropological Model of Ethnicity 14
2.2 Experiences of Racism Reported by Rosa N. 15
2.3 Three Different Approaches to Studying Intersectionality 24
Case studies
1 Rationalising Racist Attacks: A Case Study of Greater
Manchester 79
2 Transnationality in the Lives of Muslim Ex-offenders 90
3 The Construction of Racial ‘No-Go’ Zones 102
ABoUt tHe AUtHoRs
Muzammil Quraishi is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at
the University of Salford. He is author of numerous texts on Muslim populations with
regards to offending and victimisation. His research interests include Islamic jurispru-
dence, religion/ethnicity in prison, colonialism and comparative criminology. His
methodological leanings are towards qualitative ethnographic research informed by
the critical race theory perspective.
His latest work involves collaborative criminological research in Malaysia examin-
ing, inter alia, crimes of apostasy, rehabilitation detention centres and the treatment of
sexual offenders. He convenes and teaches on a number of postgraduate and under-
graduate modules covering topics such as criminal justice and human rights, intersec-
tionality and crime, ethnicity and race and criminological theory.
Rob Philburn is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford. His research
interests and previous publications centre upon social interaction, the sociological
analysis of conversational interaction, ethnography and the sociology of Erving
Goffman. He also has interests in face-work and politeness studies; social stigma; youth
and criminal gangs. He convenes sociological modules including topics of symbolic
interactionism, research methods and theoretical sociology.
ACKnoWLeDGeMents
This text has had a considerably long gestation period throughout which we have
been extremely grateful for the patience, professionalism and guidance from our edito-
rial and support team at SAGE. We would like to thank Jai Seaman, Martine Jonsrud,
Gemma Shields and Chris Rojek in particular.
Thanks are also due to our colleagues at the University of Salford for their kind
support, input and reflection along the way, particularly Tina Patel for permitting us to
share a current working project with the readers.
Muzammil Quraishi and Rob Philburn
IntRoDUCtIon
The title on the front of this text has two meanings, and reflects two intentions on our
part. First, we aim to equip you, whatever your stage as a researcher or practitioner,
with a body of background knowledge and conceptual awareness that will enable you
to confidently conduct your own research into racism. Second, we want to recount
our own research, presenting this to you in a meaningful and illustrative way. This text
does not provide an encyclopaedic reference source of race and racism, nor does it
constitute a traditional ‘methods’ book as such. Rather, the text seeks to bring together
these two aspects of the book in a meaningful and manageable way. In this sense, the
text is, and should be read and used as, a guidebook rather than a manual. To that
extent, the text seeks to illuminate and direct, rather than prescribe and instruct.
Three key guiding principles of the text are to seek clarity, coherence and contex-
tualisation of an understandably complex phenomenon. These concerns have very
much guided the content and organisation of the material presented here. For exam-
ple, the first three chapters of the book are devoted to outlining origins, conceptuali-
sation, and legislative and policy frameworks of race and racism. This focus on
historical, conceptual and legislative context may seem at first unconventional for a
text that has ‘researching’ as part of the title. However, we feel that our discussion in
the early chapters of the text is not only instructive, but essential for all researchers of
race and racism in contemporary society.
Two obvious frameworks running through the text are the temporal and spatial
contexts of researching race and racism in contemporary society. In terms of the for-
mer, although we begin with, and return to, the historical context of race and racism,
our emphasis is very much on contemporary society. The relationship between the
historical and the contemporary is a recurrent theme, and one which we urge you not
to underplay or neglect. In terms of the latter, our focus is very much on a particular
spatial context – that of the UK. Having said that, we hope to show that our discussion
throughout has a wider, global relevance. Indeed, we recognise that any discussion of
racism, even at a local level, must be couched in a global context. Part of the reason
we have chosen to focus in large part on a particular contemporary context – that of
the UK – is to clearly and coherently articulate the relationship between the historical
and the contemporary, the global and the local.
Whilst recognising the complexity of racism in academia we also illustrate that gov-
ernments and policy makers, nevertheless, have to make sense of the phenomenon and
convert it into statutes, policies and procedures which recognise its abhorrence and the
political struggles to counter it. Furthermore, the text illustrates why a sociological or