anti-racism Archives

Comics and Race in Latin America

Comics and Race in Latin America draws together artists and academics to create a dynamic and diverse study of the contested field created by the relationship between comics and racialised identities. Each chapter includes original artwork by artists from Argentina, Colombia and Peru, interviews and reflections written by them, alongside essays written by leading researchers in Latin American comics and Latin American race studies. Among the comics included here are several responses to images collated during a three-year AHRC-funded project that underpins the book.

Though the book recognises that comics have long had a troubled relationship with racialised identities, it also demonstrates that comics can also be a powerful tool for antiracist discourses and practices. It delves into the complex nature of racialised inequalities and comics production. It contributes to growing calls for multiracial perspectives, in this case featuring Black, Indigenous, mestizo and Asian-descent artists who use comics to express a shared opposition to racism. The book’s multidisciplinary approach creates a set of networked pathways that cut across disciplines, nations and lines of thought, and, in a gesture towards the hybrid nature of both comics and Latin American philosophies, across visual and written forms.

Educating for Citizenship

The question of what knowledge should feature in the curriculum and who determines those choices is highly political. Reflecting a commitment to citizenship education as a vehicle for social justice and human rights, this volume seeks to transform how we conceptualise teaching the subject by engaging with the broad knowledge required for effective citizenship and the specific professional knowledge required for teachers.

A variety of traditions have developed around the world to promote citizenship education, but there is no established discourse addressing the role of knowledge and understanding underpinning citizenship. Educating for Citizenship begins with an accessible narrative around theories of knowledge and how they apply in citizenship education, then centres on a series of rich and detailed case studies to develop a framework that is practical and relevant to teachers in planning their curricula and pedagogy. These include contemporary issues such as climate change and sustainability, racism, human rights, peace and critical media literacy. This framework of professional knowledge will be useful for teacher educators in constructing their programmes, and for student teachers to demonstrate what knowledge underpins effective practice. It will also be a valuable source for postgraduate students and academics in the field by providing the first sustained discussion of knowledge in citizenship education.

Classics and Race

Classics and Race: A historical reader provides scholars and students with an exploratory intellectual history of the complex relationships between Classics and racist/anti-racist thought-systems. It collects together a series of readings of historical primary sources from the late medieval period until the mid-twentieth century, bringing to light how the classical tradition and post-ancient constructions of race have informed each other. Each reading is accompanied by an essay, written by a leading specialist who offers a discussion of the primary source.

The volume is arranged chronologically, from the late medieval period to the Renaissance, crucial for understanding classical humanism, and on to the eighteenth century with texts foundational to the modern emergence of classical studies as a discipline and its relationship to the transatlantic slave trade. The essays show how the classical tradition has continuously been structured by debates about race, racism and anti-racism. Including voices from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and North and South America, the essays demonstrate why the primary text is important for understanding this intellectual and cultural history, and the global reach of the classical tradition.

Span the World with Friendship

Within the histories of progressive educational movements and youth work, one organisation that rarely gets a mention is the Woodcraft Folk. Founded in 1925, it has been consistently at the forefront of promoting radical social change through education. It played a role in breaking down the barriers between East and West during the Cold War, in promoting a co-educational and cooperative based approach to learning, and in encouraging environmental activism at a time when it was unfashionable.

The Woodcraft Folk’s evolving approach to education for social change is explored in Span the World with Friendship from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including political and social theory, cultural history, anthropology, educational theory and youth work theory. Through investigation of published and primary sources, including letters, meeting records and oral testimonies, contributors bring scholarship to a narrative that has often been uncritical. Beginning with a biography of founder Leslie Paul, chapters study the Folk’s relationship to debates in the labour movement, the extent to which the eugenics movement influenced its ideas and practices, and how the folk songs and dances used within the organisation reflected wider social and cultural trends. Internationalism is a key theme running through this book which concludes with a focus on how the Woodcraft Folk’s progressive nature is moving it increasingly towards being a youth-led movement.