For decades the black community has been perceived, both in the United States and around the world, as one which thinks alike, acts alike and lives alike - in poor and downtrodden environments. Following the persistent effects of the great recession and the American elections of 2008, now more than ever the political and socio-economic state of America is crying out for this deficient and prejudiced conception to be dispelled.

Focusing primarily on black families in America, Contemporary African American Families updates empirical research by addressing various aspects...

Since 9/11 interest in Islamophobia has steadily increased - as has the number of academic publications discussing the phenomenon. However, theoretical expositions have dominated the field. Lived experiences of Islamophobia, by contrast, have received little attention. In recognition of the importance of addressing this imbalance, this book provides theoretically-informed analyses alongside everyday testimonies of anti-Muslim racism, set comparatively in an international context.

Carr argues that the failure of the neoliberal state to collect data on anti-Muslim racism highlights...

A Moral Economy of Whiteness presents a working model for understanding the main ways in which white UK people make 'race' through talking about immigration in the twenty-first century. Based on extensive empirical interviews, Steve Garner establishes four overlapping frames through which white English people understand immigration. This comprises a narrative of unequal treatment, where 'equality' is a 'dirty word' because it is seen as an agenda for redistributing resources to 'undeserving' ethnic minorities, 'non-integrating' migrants and unproductive white people. Political...

Black Studies is a hugely important, and yet undervalued, academic field of enquiry that is marked by its disciplinary absence and omission from academic curricula in Britain. There is a long and rich history of research on Blackness and Black populations in Britain. However Blackness in Britain has too often been framed through the lens of racialised deficits, constructed as both marginal and pathological."

Blackness in Britain" attends to and grapples with the absence of Black Studies in Britain and the parallel crisis of Black marginality in British society. It begins to map the...

Over the course of the 20th century, there have been three primary narratives of American national identity: the melting pot, Anglo-Protestantism, and cultural pluralism/multi-culturalism. This book offers a social and historical perspective on what shaped each of these imaginings, when each came to the fore, and which appear especially relevant early in the 21st century. These issues are addressed by looking at the United States and elite notions of the meaning of America across the 20th century, centering on the work of Horace Kallen, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Samuel...

The subject of lynching has spawned a vast body of important research, but this research suffers from important blind spots and disjunctures.

By broadening the scope of research problem formulation, staking out new theoretical-analytical tracks, and drawing upon recent innovations in statistical methodology to analzye newer and more detailed data, Doing Violence, Making Race offers an innovative contribution to our understanding of this grim subject matter and its place within the broader history and sociology of US race relations. Indeed, this volume demonstrates...

Following a history of racial oppression and segregation, Black Americans were able to move in greater numbers into previously all- or predominantly-White colleges and universities. However, they encountered normative structures that excluded or distorted the Black experience and denied Black perspectives. As a result, Black studies grew up reconstructing the humanity of a historically oppressed, devalued, and exploited group. Knowledge production in Black studies offers distinct insights into the strength and resiliency of the human spirit and poses exemplary models for enlightened social...

Return migration is a topic of growing interest among academics and policy makers. Nonetheless, issues of psychosocial wellbeing are rarely discussed in its context.

Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing problematises the widely-held assumption that return to the country of origin, especially in the context of voluntary migrations, is a psychologically safe process. By exploding the forced-voluntary dichotomy, it analyses the continuum of experiences of return and the effect of time, the factors that affect the return process and associated mobilities, and their...

When one thinks of African diasporas, it is likely that their mind will automatically drift to locations such as Europe and America. But how much is known about the African diaspora in East Asia and, in particular, within China, where race is such a politically sensitive topic?

Based on multi-sited ethnographic research in China and Nigeria, Mapping the New African Diaspora in China explores a new wave of African migration to South China in the context of the expansion of Sino/African trade relations and the global circulation of racial knowledge. Indeed, grassroots...