Theorizing Anti-Racism: Linkages in Marxist and Critical Race Theories Toronto by Abigail Bakan and Enakshi Dua eds.
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702016661179 |
| Author | K. E. Barber |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
The authors speculate about a possible future global civil society with something
analogous to a global civil religion. In this sense, the ‘‘square’’ referred to in the
title takes on a double or triple meaning. Throughout the book, the public square,
whether Tahrir Square in Cairo, Independence Square in Kiev, or any of the other
squares mentioned, becomes not only a literal geographic location but a metaphor
for the public arena of conflict and cooperation and of debate and dialogue in a
given part of the world. Beyond that, it is also a metaphor for the public arena of a
potential global society in which persons and groups representing a variety of faiths
or no faith come together in a world in which, no matter where one lives, one
cannot avoid being confronted on the evening television news with the challenges
faced elsewhere. Even in the awareness of the world at large enjoyed by past gen-
erations in the West, the churches anticipated today’s emerging global society, as
missionaries gave accounts of conditions in other parts of the world.
Should religion be viewed as a progressive or regressive force in world politics?
Is it more likely to conduce to the spread of violence or to peacemaking? God in the
Tumult of the Global Square frames the questions in a manner that is intelligent and
thought provoking. It is concise and accessible, avoiding a highly technical vocabu-
lary, and will be of interest to an audience extending well beyond scholars and
specialists. Answering these challenges will require further work.
Abigail Bakan and Enakshi Dua eds.
Theorizing Anti-Racism: Linkages in Marxist and Critical Race Theories
Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2015. 407pp. $36.05 CDN (paper)
ISBN: 978-1-4426-4935-4
Reviewed by: K.E. Barber, York University, Toronto, Canada
How should we theorize anti-racism? Theorizing Anti-Racism: Linkages in Marxism
and Critical Race Theories provides a response to this question by engaging with
the historic ‘‘theoretical divide’’ (5) between Marxist and postcolonial/critical race
studies, each of which has played a prominent role in the theorization of racism.
The editors of this volume, Bakan and Dua, conceptualize the divide as a prob-
lematic gulf between two polarities: Marxists reduce race to an epi-phenomenon of
the economic, ignoring the influence of culture; critical race scholars reduce race to
purely cultural phenomena, ignoring materiality and the influence of capitalism. In
order to address racism, we must be able to understand the ‘‘complex processes
that generate race and racism’’ (6) – complex processes that cannot be addressed if
we allow the theoretical divide to persist.
Bakan and Dua argue that the divide leads to a mis-match between theory and
the social and political praxis that informs anti-racist action. As a result, their goal
is to present an integrated analyses of Marxist and postcolonial/critical race the-
ories that unite ‘‘culture, modernity, and whiteness’’ (6) with ‘‘a dynamic capitalist
mode of production and global processes of imperialist war and conquest’’ (6).
510 International Journal 71(3)
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