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In most discussions on racism -whether these concentrate on definitions, on the origins or history of racism, its association with capitalism, im-migrant labour, nationalism or even with right wing politics-there is very little mention of the complex relation between racism and sexism. The ex-ceptions in Australia are in a few sociological writings (~ollins, 1984) and within the feminist literature (Curthoys, 1975; Gordon, 1975; Saunders, 1982; Aveling, 1985). Gordon's comments provide an example; The oppression of women is closely interwoven with notions of race. In Australia ... the desire for a high birthrate and the maintenance of racial strength and purity have long been national priorities ... Con-comitant with the cry 'to populate or perish', the decimation and con-tainment of Aborigines and the exclusion and restriction of non-white immigrants, has been the confinement of women to their reproductive functions. White women in Australia have been viewed primarily as breeders of the Anglo-Saxon strain ... (Gordon, 1975:40). There is plenty of evidence to support Gordon's claim althongh man) women have resisted these patriarchal ccmands.

In the wake of the 'Blainey debate' which erupted in Australia in 1984, academics in various disciplines have been preoccupied with both con-tinuities and discontinuities in our thinking about race over the last two centuries. Another topic of more popular public concern is the forthcom-ing bicentenary of white settlement in Australia which, to Aboriginal peo-ple, is hardly cause for celebration at all, given their experience of con-quest and racism since 1788. These were some of the reasons why the Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture held a conference on The Cultural Construction of Race in August 1985. This collection offers some of the papers to a wider readership. Although the immediate interests of contributors range over topics as diverse as eighteenth century voyages in the Pacific to Hitler's Mein Kampf, there are common threads linking their concerns; these include the implications for western culture of con-structing the 'imagined communities' of race and nation, and the conse-quences for non-western others of these historical constructions of the body and the body politic.