CERS BHM Event: 'Anti-colonialism, Abolition and the Nationalist Backlash' with Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper
- Date: Wednesday 16 October 2024, 13:00 – 14:45
- Location: University of Leeds
- Cost: Free; registration with a University of Leeds email address essential - this event is exclusively for University of Leeds students and staff
The Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) is pleased to announce its 2024 Black History Month (BHM) event with special guest speaker Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper.
Location: University of Leeds – exact location will be emailed on registration.
Refreshments: 13:00 – 13:30
BHM Seminar and Q&A: 13:30 – 14:45
RSVP: Places are limited. If you would like to attend, please register. Please note, as this event is open exclusively to University of Leeds students and staff, registration requires a University of Leeds email address.
Title: ‘Anti-colonialism, Abolition and the Nationalist Backlash’
Speaker: Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper is a Lecturer in Social and Public Policy in the School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London. His first monograph Black Resistance to British Policing was published by Manchester University Press in May 2021. He is also co-author of Empire’s Endgame: Racism and the British State (Pluto Press, 2021).
Abstract: While 2020 saw the largest anti-racist protests in British history, 2024 has seen fascism attempt to reclaim the streets. For the anti-racism of the BLM and Palestine Solidarity demonstrators, racialised people are criminalised as criminals, terrorists or illegals. For the far-right, Whites are the victims of a state which is too soft on borders, law and order. This lecture considers how these two contrasting critiques of racial crisis ended up pointing the finger at each other. I intend on doing this by considering how the liberal centrism of the Labour Party and its supporters have attempted to satisfy the left by adopting terms like institutional racism, while also trying to satisfy the right, by continuing to expand police, prison and border power. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this balancing act has satisfied neither party, resulting in a surge in both radical anti-racism at the grassroots, and radical nationalism on the streets. The resolution of these tensions won’t just shape the fate of Britain’s racial landscape, but the terrain upon which the future of politics, economics and the environment, is fought.
The Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies is an interdisciplinary centre for theoretically-informed and policy-relevant research on racism, ethnicity and migration. The original listing for this event can be viewed on the CERS website, where you can also find: details and a recording of CERS’ 2023 Black History Month event with Dr Jean Beaman, ‘Towards a Reading of Black Lives Matter in France: Diasporic Connections and Global Social Movements’; details of CERS’ 2022 Black History Month event with Dr Kennetta Hammond Perry, ‘Black Futures Not Yet Lost: Black Abolitionism and the Politics of History’; and details and a recording of CERS’ 2021 Black History Month event with Professor Matiangai Sirleaf, ‘COVID-19 and the Racial Valuation of Diseases’.