Race, racism, and empire: reflections on Canada.

• Author: Dua, Enakshi

THIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE SEEKS TO INSPIRE CROSS-BORDER DIALOGUES between academics and activists on the ways "race," racism, and empire are being theorized and experienced on the ground. In particular, we would like to focus attention on the unique manner in which race, racism, and empire are articulated in the Canadian context. Canada provides an interesting site for investigations on race, racism, and empire. On the one hand, it has a long history of indigenous colonization, white settlement policies, settlement of people of color through racialized immigration polices, participation in free-trade regimes, and in British and U.S. imperialist agendas. On the other hand, Canada is located in a peripheral location within Western hegemony and is characterized in national mythology as a nation innocent of racism. In the postwar period, state policies of multiculturalism have represented Canada as a welcoming haven for immigrants and refugees, while in reality these policies worked to create structures that kept new Canadians of color in a marginal social, political, cultural, and economic relationship to Canada. Internationally, Canada is often constructed as a "peacekeeping nation" that is outside larger imperialist agendas. Such national mythologies erase the history of colonization, slavery, and discriminatory immigration legislation.

In the past decade, many critical race scholars have argued that local and national articulations of "race" and racism are tied to larger transnational projects of colonialism, Imperialism, and empire (see, for example, Stoler, 1995; McClinctock, 1995; Grewal and Caplan, 2002). In this special issue, we have asked scholars to examine how Canadian analyses of race and racism have been, and continue to be, located in national and transnational discourses of "race" and racism. In particular, we have turned our attention to three salient themes in Canadian critical race scholarship: theorizing the relationship between race, racism, antiracism and empire; exploring transnational processes in the construction of "race" and racism; and reflecting on the re-articulation of "race" and racism in Canada in the post-September 11 period as it has been shaped by local and transnational forces.

Theorizing "Race," Racism, Anti-Racism, and Empire

In the past decade, several new perspectives for analyzing "race" and racism have emerged. Often labeled critical theories of "race" and racism, these perspectives issued from a critique of Marxist approaches to race and racism (see, for example, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1982). In a seminal article, Stuart Hall (1980) illustrated how Marxist writers, such as Raymond Williams, naturalized the idea of "race," and thereby contributed to the articulation of racism. In addition, Hall argued that contemporary articulations of "race" and racism could not be explained merely through references to capitalism, class differentiation, or false ideology, but also needed to be located in the cultural, political, and social realms.

In searching for an alternative epistemological site, some, though not all, critical race scholars have employed Michel Foucault's concepts of discourse, power, and identity to explore the complexities of race and racism (for such studies, see Said, 1978; Hall, 1999; Balibar and Wallerstein, 1991; Stoler, 1995). Deploying Foucault's concept of discourse, critical race scholars have suggested that "race" and racism have been constructed through projects of modernity, colonialism, and slavery, which were premised on knowing the colonized. Following Foucault's emphasis on the social construction of identities, critical race theorists have illustrated the ways in which identities are located in discourses of "race." These writers observe that by knowing the Oriental or colonized subject, Europeans came to understand and articulate Europeanness, whiteness, culture, democracy, and citizenship (see Said, 1978; Goldberg, 1993). Much of this work also implicitly draws on Foucault's notion of power as diffuse and unlocalized--thus implicating white working-class and white feminist identities in projects of colonialism and post-colonialism (see McClintock, 1995; Stoler, 1995; Ware, 1992). However, as contributions in this issue by Himani Bannerji, Bonita Lawrence, and Enakshi Dua suggest, there are important omissions in critical race scholarship.

First, it is critical to consider how capital and capitalism have shaped the idea of "race" and the articulations of racisms. Though Foucault's concepts of power, identity, and discourse have allowed us to understand the location of race and racism in culture, modernity, and whiteness, often such an emphasis has obscured the relationship of race and racism to capitalism. Orientalism, European culture, modernity, and whiteness are constituted, in part, through a dynamic and ever-changing capitalist mode of production; yet critical race theorists often have failed to elaborate on such connections. Obviously, such an omission has important implications for our understanding of "race" and racism. Indeed, as we witness Western states and global capital deploying Orientalist discourses to legitimize the economic and political restructuring of the Middle East, the furthering of our analysis of how "race" and racism and capitalism are mutually constitutive takes on added urgency. In this context, Himani Bannerji's article, drawing on Marx' writings, makes a penetrating examination of the interconnections between "race" and class through the social embodiment of racialized minorities. The article signals ways for thinking through how the discourse of race is colonialist, racist, and capitalist.

Also obscured in critical race scholarship is how the contemporary colonization of indigenous peoples could and should inform an analysis and politics of "race," racism, and empire. The invisibility of the continuing colonization of indigenous peoples throughout North America and their struggles to reclaim their nationhood within settler societies is striking. As we write this introduction, the Canadian national press has been reporting on the lack of safe drinking...