Social Psychology, Resistance and Anti-racism

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Social Psychology, Resistance and Anti-racism

• Parisa Dashtipour Shose Kessi

2
Social Psychology, Resistance and Anti-racism

• Resistance to Racism in International Development
  (Shose)
• Anti-Racism in Sweden (Parisa)

3
Racism and Psychology

• Underlying concepts of western thought
  individualism, rationality, objectivity
• For psychology mind as naturalised and object
  of science
• Scientific racism producing neutral, value-free,
  objective or scientific discourse
• Norm unitary subject of white male rational
  individual
• (References Ahmed 2000 Mama 1995 Richards
  1997, Howitt and Owusu-Bempah, 1994)

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Racism and Mainstream Social Psychology

• Social cognition Social identity theories
  bringing back the social
• Cognition and error exonerates prejudiced
  victim is responsible
• Experimental methodologies and role of the
  researcher
• (References Ahmed, 2000 Billig, 1985 Henriques
  et al. 1998)

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Racism and Critical Psychology

• Critique of society discipline
• Race as socially constructed
• Focus on power
• Theorising difference and subjectivities
• Look at everyday experiences from perspective of
  oppressed
• Spaces for resistance?

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Racism and Critical Psychology

• Social Representations and Post colonial theory
• Reification of western knowledge
• Power and political motivation
• Subjectivity and difference
• Psychoanalysis unconscious
• (References Hook, 2004, 2006 Howarth, 2004,
  2006, 2007)

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Resistance and International Development

• Resisting racialising representations of
  development

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Resistance and International Development

• () theres lots of starving children in the
  photograph
• They might just be kids that are in their house
  and I think very often , they just take a
  picture of someone in Africa leading their normal
  life and they say poverty because theyre wearing
  African material()
• I do remember being like that with my brothers
  and sisters so you know, do they look so unhappy
  or starving or something? Not really either, so
  it's a very ambiguous photo

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Resistance and International Development

• They are showing people living with AIDS in
  Europe, in this country who look different. That
  means they are having normal life
• There is a liberty that people take with African
  death which people are not taking with whites ()
• I can say that these representations perpetuate
  the, the feeling of superiority that we, that
  Europeans feel here you know we dont have
  children dying like that... Its almost
  reassuring I guess

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Resistance and International Development

• What are the perceptions of development and
  poverty in Tanzania?
• How does racism manifest itself between different
  stakeholders of international development?
• How does racism impact on how people construct
  their identities and how is it resisted?
• What are alternatives to internationally focused
  development in Tanzania?

11
Anti-Racism

• Paul Gilroy- critical of some anti-racist
  movements

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Anti-Racism

• One problem according to Gilroy
• No clear definition of racism

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Anti-Racism

• Analysing what racism does in our society means,
  first of all, claiming race and racism back
  from the margins of British politics (Gilroy,
  1992 250).

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Anti-Racism

• ...they identify race with the terms culture
  and identity, terms which have their own
  resonance in antiracist orthodoxy (Gilroy,
  1992 254)

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Racism and Resistance in Sweden

• Anti-racist magazine a supplement in the
  Swedish metro from 2004- May 2007.

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Identities and Stereotypes
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What is the representation of racism?

• Discrimination in labour and housing market, in
  bars and clubs.
• Extreme right wing parties
• Skinheads

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Criticising institutional discrimination?

• Gringo's Job Centre
• HOSPITAL IS LOOKING FOR DOCTORS
• We know that many of the competence of foreign
  doctors are being wasted by for example being a
  taxi driver. We think that it is a shame that
  doctors are not allowed to be in their natural
  environment. We are now therefore looking for you
  who have foreign doctor qualifications. You
  should be hygienic, have surgical precision and
  enjoy being in the hospital corridors. You will
  be member of a cleaning team together with the
  business school graduates. Label your
  application I hate dirt.

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Criticising racist claims?

• Editorial Watch out for the racist label
• When chairman of the board of directors of the
  municipality of Malmo, Ilmar Reepalu, didn't want
  to accept newly arrived unemployed blackheads
  because they had been completely unsuccessful to
  give jobs to those who were already there, he was
  quickly compared to our neighbours Danish
  Folkeparti. When Lejonborg wanted to implement
  language tests, he was compared to right wing
  extremist in the same league as Jarg Haider in
  Austria and Le Pen in France. Even though the
  suggestions were quite bad, they were hardly
  racist.

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Criticising ethnicity?

• Abolish ethnicity
• Ethnicity is really stupid. It tells us that we
  are more different than we really are. It builds
  ideas about cultures that really only exist in an
  imagined world and in this way, it shapes
  conflicts and power structures that are
  difficult to change. And the whole concept is
  built on a classic racial thinking that is
  masked. The talk about the maintenance of
  cultural identity and language barriers is just
  an illusion. Even many anti-racists seem fond of
  the idea of the intrinsic sense of rhythm within
  the African, or the Latino people's warm blood
  and relaxed temperament.
• We rightly become upset when racists speak about
  predetermined differences. When this is done by
  anti-racists, we nod and name it multi-culture.
  In both cases, the same sick need is to create
  differences.

21
How should anti-racism conceptualize difference?