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PSA RMI Political Studies Review Symposium: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Blackness and Black Politics
PSA RMI Political Studies Review Symposium: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Blackness and Black Politics
PSA RMI Political Studies Review Symposium: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Blackness and Black Politics
Hosted by the Political Studies Association (PSA) Race, Migration, and Intersectionality Specialist Group (RMI)
Symposium Guest Editors: Dr Shardia Briscoe-Palmer, Dr Michael Bankole, Dr Jessica Underwood, and Dr Lydia Ayame Hiraide
A one-day event: Wednesday 30 July from 9.15 to 14.45
Goldsmiths, University of London (please note change of venue)
From the rise and fall of ‘political blackness’ (Modood, 1994; Andrews, 2016; Ambikaipaker, 2018) to Black British feminist organising around misogynoir (Young, 2000; Ali et al., 2010; Mirza and Gunaratnam, 2014; Palmer, 2020), Britain has a long history of Black activism, political thought, and cultural production. Yet, both public and academic discourses often fail to account for the histories, legacies, and implications of Blackness and anti-Blackness as key shapers of modern Britain.
In an article published in British Politics Sadiya Akram asks, ‘Dear British politics—where is the race and racism?’ (2024). We recognise the lack of attention to race and racism in the discipline of British politics in particular. But we extend this question further, looking to the spaces between and across social sciences and humanities disciplines which speak to the significance and diversity of our engagements with Blackness and Black politics. We ask where Blackness, Black politics, and anti-Blackness articulate themselves within and between our disciplines?
This symposium seeks to foreground the work of both established and emerging scholars engaging with themes of Blackness and Black politics from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including sociology, cultural studies, history, and political studies. Participants will have the opportunity to share their work in a friendly, collegial, and interdisciplinary setting. Research/ideas which are still in the early stages of development are also welcome.
We invite contributions that critically explore the temporalities, spatialities, and epistemologies of Blackness in Britain, following historical and contemporary struggles articulated from and through this category. Participants are encouraged to examine how the dynamics of Blackness and Black politics are constructed and lived in, struggled for and against, and made fundamental to various forms of resistance across Britain.
Selected contributions from this symposium will be published in an issue of Political Studies Review after subjection to a peer review process. Given that all of the submissions will be subject to peer and editorial review, we cannot guarantee that all of the papers presented at the symposium will definitely be published in the final PSR issue. Final publication will be subject to the quality and rigour of the submitted paper.
The group invite abstracts of up to 200 words by Friday 25 April 2025 and welcome submissions from scholars at any stage of their career, including early career academics.
The final paper to be submitted to peer review for publication in an issue of Political Studies Review will be limited to 3,000 words inclusive of all notes and references.
Abstracts should be submitted via this form: https://forms.gle/jpPLz7Tuytuuvi6p7
The timeline we are working with is as follows:
Deadline for abstract submission: Friday 25 April 2025
All submitters contacted with outcome: By Friday 9th May 2025 at the latest
Presentation at Symposium: Wednesday 30 July 2025
All full papers to be submitted to Guest Editors: Friday 30 September 2025
External anonymous peer review and editing process: From October 2025 onwards
Publication in Political Studies Review: October 2026
Potential in-person event launching the publication (TBC)" October 2026
References
Akram, S. (2024) ‘Dear British politics—where is the race and racism?’, British Politics, 19(1), pp. 1–24.
Ali, S. et al. (2010) ‘Intersectionality, Black British feminism and resistance in education: a roundtable discussion’, Gender and Education, 22(6), pp. 647–661.
Ambikaipaker, M. (2018) Political Blackness in Multiracial Britain. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Andrews, K. (2016) ‘The problem of political blackness: lessons from the Black Supplementary School Movement’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(11), pp. 2060–2078.
Mirza, H.S. and Gunaratnam, Y. (2014) ‘“the branch on which I sit”: reflections on black British feminism’, Feminist Review, (108), pp. 125–133.
Modood, T. (1994) ‘Political Blackness and British Asians’, Sociology, 28(4), pp. 859–876.
Palmer, L.A. (2020) ‘Diane Abbott, misogynoir and the politics of Black British feminism’s anticolonial imperatives: “In Britain too, it’s as if we don’t exist”’, The Sociological Review, 68(3), pp. 508–523.
Young, L. (2000) ‘What is Black British Feminism?’, Women: A Cultural Review, 11(1–2), pp. 45–60.