BA (Warwick).
M.A (University of Warwick, Centre for Research in Race and Ethnic Relations) and University of Paris III.
PhD University of Paris-IV (Sorbonne)
I studied at Warwick before leaving education in Britain to go and live in Paris. There I did postgraduate work and taught in the University system. My PhD, on ethnicity, class, and gender in Guyana was completed in 1999 and defended in January 2000. I have also worked outside academia, as a researcher at the Central Statistics Office, Ireland, and on EU projects for local government 1999-2001. I moved from Cork to take up a post in Sociology at UWE in 2003, and came to Aston in October 2008. I am an internal associate of the InterLanD research centre.
I was joint Principal Investigator (with Professor Simon Clarke, Centre for Psychosocial Studies, University of the West of England)on an ESRC-funded project (2004-2007) looking at social identity formation in provincial England (www.identities.org.uk). A monograph based on this research (White Identities) is forthcoming with Pluto Press. I am a member of the British Sociological Association, and am an associate of SPRRaM (Social Psychological Research into Racism and Multiculture), a network based at the London Department of Economics Institute of Social Psychology, for researchers and postgraduate students with interests in the study of racism and associated fields. In March-April 2009, I was Visiting Professor at university Paris-Diderot, and am part of the Groupe de recherche sur l’eugénisme et le racisme.
I am External Examiner for the Department of Sociology and Politics, University of the West of Scotland, 2010-13, and am also a Steering Group member on the Joseph Rowntree Trust-funded project, ‘Community Cohesion: a White Perspective’, by the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo), Sept. 2009-Nov. 2010.
I would welcome enquiries from potential PhD students in any field related to my research interests (see below). I am currently supervising theses on mixed heritage identities and urban disorder in Britain in the 1980s.
Research Interests
Racism; Ideas of ‘race’; the intersections between racialised, gendered and classed identities; Whiteness; Immigration; Irish Studies; Caribbean Studies.
Modules (2008-09)
Year 1: Identities and Inequalities (LY 1020)
Year 1: Research Methods (LY 1021)
Year 2: The Sociology of Racism (LY 2017)
Year 3: Race, Class and Gender (LY 3018)
Publications
Books
White Identities: a Critical Sociological Approach London: Pluto, forthcoming (with Simon Clarke)
Racisms: an introduction London: Sage, 2009
Guyana, 1838-1985: ethnicity , class and gender Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Press 2007. ISBN: 978-976-637-235-4
Whiteness: an introduction London: Routledge 2007. ISBN: 9780415403641
Racism in the Irish Experience London: Pluto Press, 2003. ISBN: 0745319963
A Documented History of the Commonwealth: Etudier le Commonwealth,(with J-C. Redonnet) Paris: Éditions du Temps. 1999.
The Debate on a Republic for Australia (with J-C.Redonnet), Paris: Didier Erudition. 1997
Articles
‘Empirical Research into White Racialized Identities in Britain’, Sociology Compass, 3(5): 789-802
‘Ireland: from racism without ‘race’, to ‘racism without racists’, Radical History Review, 104: 41-56, 2009.
‘Dissolving the Diaspora’ , Journal of Applied Community and Social Psychology, 18(4): 382-86, 2008.
‘The European Union and the racialization of immigration, 1986-2006’ Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 1: 61-87, 2007.
‘Babies, Bodies and Entitlement: gendered aspects of access to citizenship in the Republic of Ireland’, Parliamentary Affairs 60(3): 137-51. 2007
‘Atlantic Crossings: Whiteness as a Trans-Atlantic Experience’, Atlantic Studies 4(1): 118-32, 2007.
'Ireland and Immigration: Explaining the Absence of the Far Right', Patterns of Prejudice, 41(2): 109-31, 2007.
The Uses of Whiteness: what Sociologists Working on Europe can Draw from US work on Whiteness' Sociology 40(2) 2006: 257-75
'The Racialisation of Mainstream Politics' Ethical Perspectives 12(2) 2005:123-140.
(with Simon Clarke) ‘Fieldnote: Psychoanalysis, Identity and Asylum’ Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 10, 2005:197-206. (Paper supported by ESRC Grant: RES-148-25-003)
‘Guests of the Nation’ Irish Review, 33, Spring 2005: 78-84.
Identification, Improvisation, Nation: rethinking ethnicity in colonial and post-colonial societies'Cahiers du CICC, no.2, March 1997. pp.1-12.
'Disunited nation-building: the banana skin of ethnic policy in Guyana 1966-85" Cultures of the Commonwealth, no.2, winter 1996-97, pp.85-96
'Ceci n'est pas un conflit ethnique': obstacles to the construction of a Guyanese national identity, 1838-1966" Cultures of the Commonwealth, no.1, winter 1995-96, pp. 67-78.
Chapters
(with Simon Clarke and Rosie Gilmour) ‘Imagining the ‘Other’/Figuring Encounter: White English Middle-Class and Working-Class Identifications’, pp. 139-156, in Wetherell, M. (ed.) Identity in the 21st Century London: Palgrave
'Home truths: the white working class and the racialisation of housing in contemporary Britain' in Sveinsson, K (ed.) Perspectives: Who Cares About the White Working Class? London: Runnymede Trust, 2009, pp. 45-50.
‘‘Le paradigme de la ‘whiteness’ et les identités blanches dans l‘Angleterre contemporaine’, in Prum, M. (ed) La Fabrique de la ‘race’, Paris: Harmattan, 2007, pp. 57-80.
‘Racism’, ‘Daniel ‘O’Connell’, ‘Sonthonax’ (Entries) in Rodriguez, J. (ed.) ‘The Encyclopaedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World’ Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, Spring 2007.
'Home, Identity and Community Cohesion', (with Simon Clarke and Rosie Gilmour) in M. Wetherell, M. Laflèhe and R. Berkeley (eds.) Identity, Ethnic Diversity and Community Cohesion. London: Sage/The Runnymede Trust, 2007, pp.87-101.
‘Putting the ‘order’ back into ‘borders’: State strategies on asylum in Australia and the Republic of Ireland’ (with Anthony Moran) in Lentin, R. and Lentin, A. (eds.) Race and State Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar’s Press, 2006, pp. 103-20.
‘Guyana’ in Skutch, C. (ed.) Encyclopaedia of the World’s Minorities New York: Routledge, 2005.
‘Irlande : un extrémisme de droite quasi absent’ in Blaise, P. and Moreau, P. (eds.) Extrême-droite et national-populisme en Europe de l’Ouest, pp. 261-78. 2004.
Working Paper: (with Simon Clarke) ‘Identity, Home and Asylum: A Psycho-Social Perspective’ ESRC Identities and Social Action programme. November 2004 (www.identities.org.uk)
‘Playing the Numbers Game: immigration and ‘race’ in Wilsonian Britain’ in Les Années Wilson Paris: Ellipses, 1998, pp.62-70.
La construction des ethnies en Guyane britannique dans le XIXe siècle’ pp. 80-86, in Des Amériques : impressions et expressions (sous la direction de J-P. Barbiche Paris / Le Havre: L’Harmattan/Université du Havre. 1998.
Reports
(with Cowles, J., Lung, B. and Stott, M.) 'Sources of resentment, and perceptions of ethnic minorities among poor white people in England', National Community Forum/Department for Communities and Local Government, 2009: http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1113921.pdf
Race, class and cohesion: a community profile of Hillfields (Bristol) (with Hoggett, P., Wilkinson, H. et al.) Bristol: Bristol City Council/UWE, Centre for Psychosocial Studies, 2008: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/research/cpss/research_reports/Hillfields.pdf
'Racism in Ireland: baseline report' for Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, as forerunner to 'KNOW Racism' National Anti-Racism Awareness Programme, 64p. 2001.
European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia Annual Report 2000, Vienna: EUMC (co-author) 151p. 2001
Others
Framing of questions for qualitative and quantitative attitudinal surveys under KNOW Racism campaign, Dept. of Justice, Equality and Law Reform (August 2002)
Briefing paper for contribution to the National Anti-Racism Plan, commissioned by the Equality Authority, June 2002.
Chief Translator on Extremism in Europe: annual review Centre for Research into Racism and Anti-semitism, Paris: Éditions de l’Aube. 1998.
Racism: Modules 17-20 in Oscail (National Distance Learning Centre) Social Science Course, Dublin City University.
Research paper on ‘Sources of resentment, and perceptions of ethnic minorities among working-class white British people’, for the National Community Forum (advisory body to Department of Communities and Local Government), Sept., 2008.
Briefing Paper / Literature review on white working-class attitudes toward minorities, for the NCF, Feb. 2008.
Recent Papers (2004-09)
‘The ‘wages of whiteness’ in contemporary Britain’, Critical Race Theory: what is to be learnt? what is to be done?, Institute of Education, London, 25.6.09.
‘How white people make their classed and ‘raced’ identities in Contemporary Britain’, Groupe de recherches sur l’eugénisme et le racisme (GRER), Université Paris-Diderot, 27.3.09
‘How the Irish became White (again)’, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 18.3.09.
‘Critical Reflections on Ethnicity’, Bristol Centre for Lifelong Learning (BRILLE), Faculty of Education, UWE-Bristol, 5.3.09.
‘‘Semi-Orientals’, ‘Oxford Men’, and ‘Congo Situations’: Guyana and Postcolonial Studies’, Seminar at Warwick University, Centre for Caribbean Studies, 2.2.09.
‘The State’s role in ethnicity, class and gender in Guyana: an overview’, workshop on cultural dynamics in the Caribbean, KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, 27.9.08.
‘White Identities in the South West: some findings and reflection’, UK Identities Today-ESRC conference, RIBA, London, 24.9.08.
‘Interpreting classed anxieties about immigration’, Encounters and Intersections: Religion, Diaspora, and Ethnicities, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, 11.7.08.
‘Falling into Whiteness: Rwanda and the epistemology of ignorance’, ‘Contract and Domination’, Conference on Pateman and Mills, Department of European Studies, Cardiff University, 15.11.07.
'The European Union and the Racialization of Immigration', Institute for Research in Race and Public Policy, University of Illinois-Chicago, 17.10.07.
‘Painted wagons, booming tiger: race in contemporary Ireland’, conference on Race and Immigration in the New Ireland, Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 15.10.07.
‘Blanc de blancs: whiteness in contemporary Britain’, Groupe de recherche sur l’eugénisme et le racisme, université Paris VII-Jussieu, 1.6.07.
'Things to do with whiteness when you’re dead' ‘White terror/(Post) Empire’ Dept. of Social Psychology, London Department of Economics, 20.5.06
White Interpretations of Social Change in Contemporary Britain' Invited paper. ‘Ethnicity and State Definition’ workshop, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University, 11.2.06
‘White UK, White Other, whatever’ The Future of Multicultural Britain, CRONEM University of Surrey, 15.6.05.
‘Village Fates: lost civilisations in provincial England’ ESRC Working Class Lives seminar, University of Newcastle, 10.6.05.
‘Asylum and the Inner world’ Psychoanalysis and Race, CPSS, UWE-Bristol, 7.5.05
‘Producing non-nationals: a developed world discourse?’ Race and State, Trinity College Dublin, 30.3.05.
‘Closed Questions and Incivil Norms: 'Race' in Contemporary Ireland’, UWE, Bristol, Irish Politics Association, 25.9.04.
‘Why the Far Right in Ireland is underdeveloped’, Immigration as an issue for mainstream and far-right parties in Europe, University of Bath, Centre for European Studies, 21.9.04
'The uses of Whiteness', 5th European Social Science History Conference, Humboldt University, Berlin, 26/3/04.
Research Grants
From Bristol City Council: £8,000 (with Paul Hoggett and Community Resolve). 'Hillfields: a community profile', December 2007-June 2008.
ESRC Research grant (with Dr. Simon Clarke). £104,000 from Identities and Social Action Programme, for a project entitled ‘Mobility and Unsettlement: new identity formation in contemporary Europe’, October 2004-March 2007 (ESRC Grant: RES-148-25-003).
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