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This article attempts to assess some of Herb Gans’s influential contributions, not only in his important paper on symbolic ethnicity, but also his wider discussion of the changing role of race, ethnicity, and religion in American society. In a period spanning more than half a century, he has helped to raise key questions and to suggest avenues of research that have stimulated debates and the re-evaluation of a complex, controversial, and highly dynamic field of social science research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Banton and Rex's differences in their analysis of race and ethnic relations rest not so much on the contrast between ‘prophet’ and ‘scientist’, but rather on two quite different perspectives on the nature of sociology itself. Each in their own way has much to offer the field, which explains their continuing relevance to this area of study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At the end of April 2004, the first author of this article gave a talk entitled Racial Conflict Revisited, as the Inaugural Public Lecture of the Racist Futures programme based in the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies at the University of Leeds. In early July 2005, three young men caught a train from Leeds to London, where they were joined by a collaborator, and rapidly became the prime suspects in the 7/7 suicide bombings of the London underground and bus system. What, if anything, does the latter event tell us about the evolving pattern of conflict in the twenty-first century? In this analysis we seek to explore the complexities of ethnic and racial divisions in the contemporary global environment, looking backwards to the forces unleashed by the end of the Cold War, and forward to the probable challenges of the next two decades, that will undoubtedly be linked to the so-called "War on Terror". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banton's critique of race and ethnic relations highlights differences between the U.K. and the U.S.A. The interplay between ethnic politics and the teaching of the subject in the universities reflects differing reactions to the demise of Marxism, the impact of globalization and the growth of transnationalism. In America, anthropology, economics, cultural studies and conflict resolution have had a mixed impact on the field, but an examination of textbooks over the past thirty years — as well as Banton's prolific scholarship — suggests that most of the core problems remain the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks back over the first twenty volumes of Ethnic and Racial Studies to consider the extent to which the field has changed during the last two decades and how this has been reflected in the diverse contributions to the journal. The original aim of the venture was to establish a scholarly publication for interdisciplinary and comparative studies of race and ethnic relations, viewed as a global phenomenon and open to the broadest range of intellectual traditions and perspectives. After documenting the major shifts in topics and theories from the 1970's to the 1990's, as seen in a selected sample of some of the more than five hundred articles and other contributions published over this period, attention is focused on an assessment of postmodernism as one of the most influential paradigms in contemporary social science. It is argued that the deficiencies of postmodernism are clearly exposed in any serious attempt to explain contemporary race and ethnic relations, and that 'bringing power back in' is the most promising strategy for both advancing intellectual understanding and promoting constructive public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty Four" was the most celebrated fictional attempt to predict the shape of things to come to written in the English language in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Less well known, but similarly prescient, was the history of South Africa written by author Arthur Keppel-Jones covering the years from 1952 until the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century which was first published in 1947. The title of the book "When Smut Goes," symbolized the end of an era and anticipated the demise of the United Party and the final triumph of the militant wing of Afrikaner nationalism. The political, social and economic consequences of this victory were set out with chilling realism. However, just as it is true that not every aspect of Orwell's nightmare vision has come to pass, so, too, several important features of Keppel-Jones' future of South Africa have proved to be incorrect. Nevertheless, these errors and omissions, almost as much as the uncanny anticipation of so many events that did actually take place, provide some instructive lessons for anyone trying to repeat Keppel-Jones' flight of the sociological imagination some forty years later. The paper outlines the course of events set out in "When Smut Goes." It reassess the accuracy of its basic predictions now that the half-way mark in Keppel-Jones' history have been reached. The paper considers what factors are likely to prove to be the most important in determining the future path of South African society as it moves towards the next century.

Presents an introduction to the July 1979 issue of the periodical "Ethnic and Racial Studies."

The article focuses on two books related to Black-White relations in the 1980s. As a result of the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s, liberals in the race relations field have tended to be defensive, being abused or contemptuously ignored by the ethnic activists, separatists and neo-Marxists, and equally dismissed by conservatives and reactionaries. Although the establishment of a national, policy-orientated organization specializing in race-relations research would clearly be one means of combating the ignorance and false information on the topic found in political and media debates, the history of the Institute of Race Relations in London, England gives little grounds for optimism. It also tackle some of the most controversial aspects of current debates like the rival merits of integration and segregation, the complex problems surrounding affirmative action and quotas, the relative emphasis that should be placed on busing as opposed to improving the general quality of education and the vital area of occupational discrimination and minority unemployment.

Presents an introduction to articles on ethnicity and racism that are published in the July 1986 issue of the journal "Ethnic and Racial Studies."