Censoring Race in ‘Post-colonial’ Anthropology

Abstract

This article is about an intellectual practice – the rejection of the analysis of race as an operative principle in the social world in favour of a focus on hybrid forms and flexible categories. While grounded in a worthy fear of reinforcing racial categories, there is a squeamishness here that reveals a fear of the body, and of what dealing with actual bodies might expose. Despite some intellectual labour to the contrary, this deeply embedded characteristic of liberal scholarship has restricted attention to the ubiquitous power of race and all its euphemisms as it is lived out in today’s world. I illustrate the omnipresence of race and racism and then show how the analysis of racial processes is censored. Finally I will argue for a positive evaluation of racialized bodies.