Not just black and white

Culture, Identity and Politics comprises a selection of essays offering an insight into those questions fundamental to our understanding of contemporary studies of ethnicity and race. The book's principal argument is that the black/white dichotomy, which tends to dominate the debate on race relations, must be replaced by a more dynamic and flexible approach that takes into account the complexity of ethnic identity.

Personal experience will have taught most Irish people living in or visiting Britain that racism and discrimination go beyond skin colour. It is therefore highly appropriate that Mary Hickman's essay ``Racism and Identity: Issues for the Irish in Britain'' has been chosen to introduce the first section of the book. She points out that the assimilation from the nineteenth century onwards has rendered them ``invisible'' at the official level.

But this did not mean that they have not been victims of racism and discrimination. They have experienced segregation, i.e., ghettoisation and marginalisation, and their identity as Irish has become the subject of racist jokes and practice. Hickman argues that it as this ``official invisibility'', together with the approach dominating the discourse which affirmed that racism was about colour, that ensured the exclusion of the Irish from debates about racism.

The first section of Culture, Identity and Politics explores the historical context of this ``black/white dichotomy''. Contributors to the second section focus primarily on issues of power and domination. Of particular interest is Susan Benson's argument that the anthropologist must look beyond the typical concerns of the participant observer - that is culture and religion - and explore the relationship between ethnic identity and the wider society.

The final part of the book, concluded by Stuart Hall, comprises a series of case studies, the general thrust of which underlines the argument that ethnic identity cannot be understood only within the black/white paradigm. It is more than this as Claire Alexander's research on black youth in London emphasises. Her work points to the active role of the individual (and group) in manipulating the black stereotype as a mean of self-affirmation.

Much of the debate in Culture, Identity and Politics is theoretical and aimed at academics. However, the case studies in the final section may appeal to a wider audience. Research on African Caribbeans and cricket in Oxford, the impact of the Salman Rushdie affair on the ``Islamic community'', and the influence upon Sikh women in Britain of political events in India provides a refreshing perspective of the politics of identity among Britain's ethnic minorities.

By Aoife Maguire