Mixed Race Studies

Being Mixed Race

Women of the World Festival 2015
Blue Bar at Royal Festival Hall
Southbank Center
Belvedere Road, London
Saturday, 2015-03-07, 13:30-15:00Z

Building on the findings of the Being Mixed Race panel discussions during WOW 2013 and WOW 2014, this workshop expands on issues identified during the previous conversations and focuses specifically on issues of terminology, colourism, hair and parenting. Led by visual sociologist Emma Dabiri.

Emma Dabiri is researching a PhD in visual sociology at Goldsmiths, and works as a teaching fellow in the Africa Department at SOAS, University of London. As a commentator she is frequently invited to contribute to discussions relating to Africa and the African Diaspora on topics including futures, gender, feminism, identities, literature, film and the politics of beauty. She has published in a number of academic journals, as well as in the national press and is one of the BBC’s Expert Voices.

For more information, click here.

Being Mixed Race

Women of the World Festival 2014
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road, London
Blue Room, Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall
Saturday, 2014-03-08, 13:30-15:00Z

What is being ‘mixed race’? Is there such a thing as a mixed-race identity? In the 2011 census, over a million people in the UK ticked the ‘mixed race’ box—double the number who did so in 2001 when the box was first introduced. This multi-generational panel continues one of WOW 2013’s most moving and insightful conversations. Is the term mixed race useful to anyone but statisticians? Can today’s increasingly fluid racial identities ever really be squeezed into a one-size- fits-all box? Speakers include Irish Nigerian visual sociologist Emma Dabiri, artist Phoebe Collings-James and teacher, writer and feminist Lola Okolosie. The session includes a workshop led by Emma Dabiri and we hear from consultant Sally Kneeshaw.

For more information, click here.

Being Mixed Race: What are the identity politics of the million-strong ‘Jessica Ennis generation’?

Women of the World Festival
Southbank Centre
2013-03-06 through 2013-03-10

Sunday, 2013-03-10, 12:00-13:00Z
Level 5 Function Room
Royal Festival Hall

Panelists:

Emma Dabiri, Teaching Fellow
Africa Department, School of African and Oriental Studies, London
Visual Sociology Ph.D. Researcher, Goldsmiths University of London

Reya El-Salahi, Radio broadcaster, television presenter, writer and journalist

Kay Montano, Make-up Artist

Chair:

Emine Saner, Feature Writer
The Guardian

In the 2011 census over a million people in the UK classed themselves as ‘mixed race’—but for some, the label is meaningless.

So what are the identity politics of the ‘Jessica Ennis generation’?

Join broadcaster Reya El-Salahi, celebrity make-up artist Kay Montano, and Irish-Nigerian visual sociologist Emma Dabiri as they discuss the joys and challenges of being a dual heritage woman in modern-day Britain.

For more information, click here. Listen to the panel here.

Mixed Race in Britain

Kneeshaw Consulting
2013-03-11

In the 2011 census over a million people in the UK classed themselves as ‘mixed race’ – but for some, the label is unhelpful. The identity politics of the ‘Jessica Ennis generation’ was the subject of a workshop at the Women of the World Festival yesterday at London’s Southbank Centre. The latest data shows that 2.2% of the population are mixed race compared to 1.2% in 2001. Mixed-race is the fastest-growing minority in the UK. With this in mind four young British women of dual heritage talked about their experiences and debated whether having the box of ‘mixed race’ to tick offered them a sense of power or a meaningless classification, no better than ticking the ‘other’ box. Emma Dabiri, an Irish-Nigerian visual sociologist and writer, argued that race does not provide a stable or static concept of identity, but is a social construct. She talked about historical racialisation of identity, and stressed that race mixing does not eliminate racism. She gave examples of the media using images of mixed race people to promote an idea of a hip, cool generation, when in fact the experience of mixed race people, in the wider context of race relations in modern Britain, is complex and brings many challenges…

Read the entire article here.