Recalling anti-racism

ABSTRACT

Despite its many achievements and some remarkable victories against the forces of racism in their variety of forms, it cannot be said that anti-racism has been particularly successful as a social, cultural, and political force. This essay uses Bruno Latour's figure of the ‘recall’ to rethink certain elements of the anti-racist tradition. Latour sees the figure as combining both ‘recalling’ in the sense of remembering, but also ‘recalling’ in the way a company recalls a product when it realises it has some defect. In much the same way, the essay uses the idea of ‘recalling anti-racism’, firstly, in order to stay in touch with anti-racism's ‘founding principles’, to develop a sense of the cumulative gain that has been made throughout its history, and, secondly, in order to critically re-examine how it can be modified and made more efficient.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-racism
• neo-liberalism
• reciprocity
• mutuality
• critical anthropology
• racism