Multiracism by Professor Alastair Bonnett, Not So Black and White by Kenan Malik and Outcast by Dr Camila Bassi, while in some respects very different books, share one common goal: to expand our enquiry and understanding on the nature of racism and the anti-racist project.

Multiracism is an empirically rich exploration that traverses the globe to re-conceptualise the origins and trajectories of racism and the intersections of racism and modernity across space and place: from anti-Muslim politics and racism in India and China, to Communist modernity and racism in the USSR, to capitalist modernity and racism in Indonesia, for example. 

Not So Black and White offers a deep dive into the history of the idea of ‘race’ to challenge both the Eurocentric legacy of the Enlightenment and contemporary leftist identity politics. This book unsettles (as Paul Gilroy states) “the absurdities, pieties and default settings of contemporary race-talk”, while also weaving together a tradition of radical universalist politics. 

Outcast is an exposition of the banishment of anti-Jewish racism from the leftist anti-racist imagination, specifically exploring the intersection of a colonial model for the study of racism with the idea of ‘the Jewish question’ (that is, the idea that something must be done about the harm which Jews pose to humanity). The book also makes a case for a genuinely universal politics for human liberation.

This recording of Camila in conversation with Alastair and Kenan explores how the study of ‘race’ and racism and the struggle against racism can adopt a more expansive geographical and historical lens.