Race and decolonial thought

Equality, public policy and the experiences of refugees and migrants

The Race and Decolonial Thought group is dedicated to studies of race relating to equality, public policy and the experiences of refugees and migrants. We examine the racialised logics at the heart of modernity and write about decolonisation in relation to a variety of contexts.

The RACE.ED project, which launched in 2020, is a cross-University network concerned with race, racialisation and decolonial studies from a multidisciplinary perspective. RACE.ED showcases excellence in teaching, research and knowledge, exchange, impact (KEI) in race and decolonial studies at The University of Edinburgh.

Whites Writing Whiteness

A major project in this area has been Liz Stanley's Whites Writing Whiteness, which she used to explore and make available everyday documents by whites in South Africa. This has been instrumental in supporting recent rethinking of the history of South Africa.

Policy advice at local, national and international levels

Nasar Meer's GLIMER project examined current responses to migration and refugees at the level of cities and nation-states, enabling him to advise policy-makers at local, national and international levels.

Research staff

Idil Akinci
Katucha Bento
Giulia Liberatore
Nasar Meer
Liz Stanley
Shaira Vadasaria

Relevant publications

Some of our key publications are listed below. For more detailed lists please visit our personal pages on People.

Idil Akinci, 2019. Culture in the ‘politics of identity’: conceptions of national identity and citizenship among second-generation non-Gulf Arab migrants in Dubai. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp.1-17

Giulia Liberatore, 2017. Somali, Muslim, British: striving in securitized Britain. Bloomsbury Academic

Nasar Meer (with Mouritsen, P., Faas, D. and de Witte, N.), 2015. Examining ‘postmulticultural’ and civic turns in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, and Denmark. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(6), pp.702-726

Liz Stanley, 2017. The Racialising Process: Whites Writing Whiteness in Letters, South Africa 1770s-1970s. Edinburgh: X Press

Shaira Vadasaria, 2020. 1948 to 1951: The racial politics of humanitarianism and return in Palestine. Oñati Socio-Legal Series.