This multidisciplinary module forms part of the core of the REPS MA programme. It provides a sweeping historical survey of the development of race-thinking and explores several fields in the humanities and social sciences which have criticised or opposed the institution of racial types and hierarchies in colonial, imperial and postcolonial settings. It approaches the emergence of race as a matter of political ontology is seen as a product of racism--as a social, cultural and historical rather than a natural phenomenon.

The question of who can win or secure recognition as a human being is placed at the centre of an extended critical analysis of racialised division and inequality. The module’s historical focus is enriched further by the introduction of material drawn from several neighbouring disciplines, particularly geography, anthropology and political theory alongside perspectives derived from social, natural and human sciences. This multi-disciplinary approach is regarded as an intellectual strength and an asset to student learning.

The module provides students with a broad exposure to the history of thinking about race, racism and ethnicity as well as an opportunity to consider a range of contemporary instances in which the cultural, social and political problems arising from these factors of division have been manifested.

The module is composed of four blocks. It begins by addressing the history and character of the colonial and imperial expansion with which modern theories of race and ethnicity were intertwined. The first block introduces material drawn from various disciplines that is aimed at interpreting the social, political, governmental, cultural and economic characteristics of the colonial “contact zones” which were so important in assembling racial categories and hierarchies and in keeping them alive.

The development of racialised conceptions of humanity, progress, civilisation, national identity, cultural difference and geo-politics are tracked through the rise and fall of European empires in the second and third blocks. Block three takes on the scholarly agenda set by the anti-colonial theorists and intellectuals who led the movements against colonial rule as its initial point of departure.

The final block engages contemporary approaches to migration, diaspora, and the race politics of algorithmic governance, data and surveillance capitalism before concluding with a sequence addressed to the failure of human rights initiatives to sufficiently engage the issues of racial hierarchy and racism.