Mixed Race Studies

Mixed heritage models set to face off

Mancunian Matters
Manchester, England
2010-10-29

Natasha Carter

Models will take to the catwalk in the UKs first mixed-race model contest held by a Manchester-based social enterprise tomorrow.

Twenty finalists, all of mixed heritage, will go head to head on October 30th for the title of the Face of Mix-d 2010 and a 12 month modeling contract with Boss Model Management.

Mix-d:, formed in 2006, is a social enterprise aiming to help people explore contemporary mixed-race identity.

Bradley Lincoln, founder of Mix-d:, said: “The fashion industry will admit that they tend to go for people who are single heritage. With mixed-race people being the fastest growing ethnic minority group, at some point we’ve got to have some form of competition to show that this proportion of society needs representing on the catwalk…

He added: “It’s quite pioneering, the first mixed-race competition in the UK, in history actually, and I want Manchester to be proud that we were the first city to host this idea.

“It’s not about separating people, it’s about showing them they actually share more in common than people realise.”…

…“All the time I get ‘You’re black! You’re white! You’re confused!’, I always have to correct people and say ‘No! I’m mixed-race!’” said finalist Zachary Watson.

“Taking part in the next mixed-race face of the UK is a fantastic opportunity to give people that understanding that we’re more than the stereotypes they label us with!”…

Read the entire article here.

Representing Mixed Race in Jamaica and England from the Abolition Era to the Present

Routledge: Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures
2010-10-21
204 pages
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-415-39808-4

Sarah Salih, Professor of English
University of Toronto

This study considers cultural representations of “brown” people in Jamaica and England alongside the determinations of race by statute from the Abolition era onwards. Through close readings of contemporary fictions and “histories,” Salih probes the extent to which colonial ideologies may have been underpinned by what might be called subject-constituting statutes, along with the potential for force and violence which necessarily undergird the law. The author explores the role legal and non-legal discourse plays in disciplining the brown body in pre- and post-Abolition colonial contexts, as well as how are other bodies and identities – e.g. black, white are discursively disciplined. Salih examines whether or not it’s possible to say that non-legal texts such as prose fictions are engaged in this kind of discursive disciplining, and more broadly, looks at what contemporary formulations of “mixed” identity owe to these legal or non-legal discursive formations. This study demonstrates the striking connections between historical and contemporary discourses of race and brownness and argues for a shift in the ways we think about, represent and discuss “mixed race” people.

Table of Contents

• 1: Introduction: The Mulatto in Law and Literature
• 2: Pre-Emancipation Stories of Race: Marly and The Woman of Colour
• 3: Legitimacy, Illegitimacy and Citizenship in the Nineteenth Century: Dinah Craik’s Olive [1850] and Richard Hill’s Lights and Shadows
• 4: Mulattos in the Contact Zone: Mary Seacole and Ozias Midwinter Coda: Modern Mulattos: Mona Lisa and The Crying Game
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

A phenomenological study of the experience of biracial identity development in Black and White individuals

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
2007-04-23
101 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3312832

Niccole K. Brusa

Racial identity literature neglects biracial identity development. Given the tremendous increase in interracial partnerships and biracial children in the United States over the past three decades and the impact that racial identity has on fostering a sense of self and belonging, this is an important phenomenon to study.

In this qualitative phenomenological study, the process of biracial identity development was explored by interviewing six self-identified biracial first-generation offspring of one self-identified White biological parent and one self-identified Black biological parent. The semi-structured interview questions were organized around five main areas: memorable experiences regarding race, representation of and communication about race in the family and community, racial appearance, the participants’ beliefs about biracial identity development, and general feedback. Consistent with qualitative data procedures, these interviews were analyzed and coded through content analysis for the purpose of developing interpretive themes.

Fourteen themes emerged through the data analysis. External factors and situations such as inquires from other people brought about awareness of race. Participants also reported differences in how race was represented and addressed in their families and communities. Furthermore, some participants experienced racism and prejudice in their communities whereas other participants had positive experiences in their communities. All participants perceived themselves as looking biracial, yet all participants were also perceived by others as racially ambiguous. Other people also associated negative personality characteristics with the participants’ physical appearance. For the women participants, their hair was a defining feature for them when it came to others’ assumptions about their race. In general, all the participants were satisfied with their racial appearance, yet a common realm in which participant’s felt that their biracial appearance became a problem was during their dating experiences.

Participants attributed their biracial identity development to their backgrounds and lack of pressure to define themselves exclusively as one race. Additionally, participants believed that their identity development makes them place more emphasis on others’ personality characteristics rather than other’s race, more open-minded to multiple viewpoints, and more comfortable in multiple environments. Additional feedback from the participants included the theme of external factors such as other people’s attitudes creating challenges in biracial identity development rather than internal conflicts. In addition, implementing an accurate racial classification system was also addressed. This study supports this criticism of much of the literature on biracial identity development because the participants’ reported many positive experiences and personality traits resulting from their biracial identity.

Purchase the dissertation here.

The Sociological Relevance of the Concept of Half-Caste in British Society

Phylon (1960-)
Volume 36, Number 3 (3rd Quarter, 1975)
pages 309-320

G. Llewellyn Watson, Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of Prince Edward Island

Great Britain has a long tradition of social class distinctions and relations. Indeed, the early British railways of the nineteenth century had as many as four different classes of carriages or compartments for passengers, and these were based on an idea other that simply the ability to pay; they were based on the idea of the different kinds of people who should used them.

Today, of course, the existence in Britain of several thousand blacks from Britain’s lost colonies in the Third World has complicated the traditional world view and theoretical ideas about class relations. One very important aspect of this complication is the phenomenon of Half-Caste.

It is highly significant, from a socio-historical point of view, that in Britain, a class society, the children of mixed (i.e., black and white) sexual unions are characteristically known as Half-Caste. To full understand the socio-historical significance of this key concept and to grasp it in its dynamic perspective, one must necessarily utilize a mode of interpretation which would require that we refer to the cultural unity underlying the various world view of a given society in a given epoch. In this paper I propose to examine how the symbolic meaning of the concept of Half-Caste lies in its ability to typify and delineate the boundaries of inter-ethnic relations in British society…

Black and white sexual pairings, therefore, became a widespread phenomenon that originated from a demographic imbalance, but expanded and developed through a cultural fetishization of women of color. The islands, built upon complex systems of violence and sexual control, promoted and legitimated interracial relationships. Caribbean visitors certainly held this impression. Pierre McCallum emphasized the importance of finding a lover of color in Trinidad: “On the arrival of the European, his first object is, to look out for a mistress, either of the black, yellow, or livid kind.” “As for the native creole,” McCallum continued, “a female companion is provided for him from among the slaves of the family, at an early age, to prevent his going astray to increase the stock of his neighbours.” McCallum’s account indicates the ubiquity of West Indian miscegenation, its role as a measure of status, and its sanction by all members of society, including relatives. Not only did family members support such behavior, but they promoted it within a plantation endogamy to increase further slave holdings – albeit enslaved kin. Such descriptions reveal a West Indian system perfectly at ease with interracial pairings, if not encouraging of them. This sexual tolerance dramatically grew the islands’ population of color…

…The culture of miscegenation that developed in the British West Indies came from demographic conditions, as well as customary promotions of common practice. Although white men grossly outnumbered white women in most Caribbean islands, white families still survived. Indeed, white islanders’ seemingly universal engagement with women of color belied actual gender imbalances within their populations. Cross-racial relations became a part of West Indian culture; married and single men alike had their mistresses of color. For imperial observers, this confirmed long-standing associations between the West Indies and anarchic morality. The mistress of color, so often portrayed in travel accounts and expositions, visibly embodied island vice. British commentary condemned her, her lover, and West Indian society as a whole. The men in these relationships were, after all, not simply colonial “others,” but friends and relatives of Britons back home.

Daniel Alan Livesay, “Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Migration from the West Indies to Britain, 1750-1820” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2010) pages 29-30 .

Children of Uncertain Fortune: Mixed-Race Migration from the West Indies to Britain, 1750-1820

The University of Michigan
2010
481 pages

Daniel Alan Livesay, Assistant Professor of History
Drury University, Springfield, Missouri

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in The University of Michigan 2010

This dissertation shows that the migration of mixed-race individuals from the Caribbean to Britain between 1750 and 1820 helped to harden British attitudes toward those of African descent. The children of wealthy, white fathers and both free and enslaved women of color, many left for Britain in order to escape the deficiencies and bigotry of West Indian society. This study traces the group’s origin in the Caribbean, mainly Jamaica, to its voyage and arrival in Britain. It argues that the perceived threats of these migrants’ financial bounty and potential to marry and reproduce in Britain helped to collapse previous racial distinctions in the metropole which had traditionally differentiated along class and status lines and paved the way for a more monolithic racial viewpoint in the nineteenth century.

This study makes three major contributions to the history of the British Atlantic. First, it provides a thorough examination of the West Indies’ elite population of color, showing its connection to privileged white society in both the Caribbean and Britain. Those who moved to the metropole lend further proof to the agency and influence of such individuals in the Atlantic world. Second, it expands the notion of the British family at the turn of the nineteenth century. Through analyses of wills, inheritance disputes, and correspondence, this project reveals the regularity of British legal and personal interaction with relatives of color across the Atlantic, as well as with those who resettled in the metropole. Third, it allows for a material understanding of Atlantic racial ideologies. By connecting popular discussions in the abolition debate and the sentimental novel to biographical accounts of mixed-race migrants, British notions of racial difference are more strongly linked to social reality. Uncovering an entirely new cohort of British people of color and its members’ lived experiences, this dissertation provides crucial insight into the tightening of British and Atlantic racial attitudes.

INTRODUCTION

In 1840, the Reverend Donald Sage completed his memoirs. Reflecting on the meandering twists and turns of life, he wrote extensively on his education and the different schools he attended as a youth. One of these institutions, where he stayed only briefly between 1801 and 1803, was located in the small seaside town of Dornoch, in the Scottish Highlands. Sage described the village as a “little county town” which had been “considerably on the decrease” by the time his family had arrived. As one would do in such a journal, Sage thought back on his boyhood friends, and noted that while at Dornoch he and his brother became close companions with the Hay family. Like Sage, the three Hay brothers were not originally from the village; they had instead been born in the West Indies. In fact, Sage revealed that they were “the offspring of a negro woman, as their hair, and the tawny colour of their skin, very plainly intimated, [and] [t]heir father was a Scotsman.” Sage became particularly good friends with Fergus, the eldest of the three, of whom he gave a very qualified endorsement: “Notwithstanding the disadvantages of his negro parentage, Fergus was very handsome. He had all the manners of a gentleman, and had first-rate abilities.”

It may seem out of place for three West Indian children, the offspring of an interracial couple, to be living in a small village at Scotland’s northern tip in 1801. Historians tend to think of an Afro-Caribbean presence in Britain as a phenomenon of the last sixty-plus years, and one localized around major urban centers. At the same time, only recently has the topic of inter-racial unions been addressed in the “new” multicultural Britain. The story of the Hay children in Dornoch, however, was not at all unique at the turn of the nineteenth century. Rather, the Hays were members of a regular migration of mixed-race West Indians who arrived in the home country during the period. Facing intense discrimination, few jobs opportunities, and virtually no educational options in the colonies, West Indians of color fled to Britain with their white fathers’ assistance. Once arrived, they encountered myriad responses. While some white relatives accepted them into their homes, others sued to cut them off from the family fortune. Equally, even though a number of fictional and political tracts welcomed their arrival, others condemned their presence and lobbied to ban them from landing on British soil. Regardless of these variable experiences, mixed-race migrants traveled to Britain consistently during the period. The Hay children may have turned heads on the roads of Dornoch, but they would not have been a wholly unfamiliar sight.

This study examines the movement of mixed-race individuals from the Caribbean to Britain at the end of the long eighteenth century. It argues that the frequent and sustained migration of these children of color produced a strong British reaction, at both the personal and popular levels, against their presence, and helped contribute to the simplification and essentialization of British racial ideology in the nineteenth century. A number of personal histories are followed through the various stages of this transplantation, and are compared to published accounts of the phenomenon in general. White patronage and parental ties were vital in the colonies if a mixed-race individual was to leave for Britain. Connected through these kinship and business associations, elite West Indians of color maintained their own Atlantic networks. Once in Britain, they had to monitor their finances vigilantly against rival claimants to Caribbean fortunes. Family attempts at disinheritance were a frequent problem, and demonstrated an increasing British disgust at colonial miscegenation, along with mixed-race resettlement. With the advent of the abolition movement in the 1770s and 1780s, the issue took on greater political importance. Rich heirs of color now in Britain seemed to herald the cataclysmic prophesies of slavery supporters. Certain that abolition would destroy the racial and class barriers between black and white, many Britons recoiled at those of hybrid descent now resident in the metropole. If class distinctions had restrained racial prejudice in the early years of the eighteenth century, they no longer produced the same moderating effects at the century’s close…

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The World They Left Behind: Family Networks and Mixed-Race Children In the West Indies
• Chapter 2: Patterns of Migration: Push and Pull Factors Sending West Indians of Color to Britain
• Chapter 3: Inheritance Disputes and Mixed-Race Individuals in Britain
• Chapter 4: Success and Struggle in Britain
• Chapter 5: West Indians of Color in Britain, and the Abolition Question
• Chapter 6: Depictions of Mixed-Race Migrants in British Literature
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

List of Figures

• Brunias, 1779
• 1.2 “The Barbadoes Mulatto Girl,” by Agostino Brunias, 1779
• 1.3 “Joanna,” by William Blake, 1796
• 1.4 Percentages of Children Born of Mixed Race, and the Percentage of Mixed-Race Children Born in Wedlock, St. Catherine, Jamaica, 1770-1808
• 1.5 Percentage of Mixed-Race Children Born in Wedlock, Kingston, Jamaica, 1809-1820
• 1.6 Percentage of Free, Mixed-Race Children with Interracial Parents, Kingston, Jamaica, 1750-1820
• 1.7 Thomas Hibbert’s House, Kingston, Jamaica, 2008 (erected 1755)
• 2.1 Deficiency Fines Collected (in pounds current), St. Thomas in the Vale Parish, Jamaica, 1789-1801
• 2.2 Percentage of West Indians in Student Body (University of Edinburgh Medical School and King’s College, Aberdeen), 1750-1820
• 2.3 “Johnny New-Come in the Island of Jamaica,” by Abraham James, 1800
• 4.1 “A Scene on the quarter deck of the Lune,” by Robert Johnson from his Journal, April 8, 1808
• 4.2 Cartoon by Robert Johnson from his Journal, April 8, 1808
• 4.3 Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, London
• 4.4 “Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray,” unknown artist (formerly attributed to John Zoffany), c. 1780
• 4.5 “The Morse and Cator Family,” by John Zoffany, c. 1783
• 4.6 “Nathaniel Middleton,” by Tilly Kettle, c. 1773
• 4.7 “William Davidson,” by R. Cooper, c. 1820
• 4.8 “Robert Wedderburn,” 1824..306
• 5.1 “Sir Thomas Picton,” c. 1810
• 5.2 Calderon’s Torture, from The Trial of Governor Picton
• 5.3 Calderon’s Torture, and “Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave,” by William Blake, 1793
• 6.1 “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” by Josiah Wedgwood, 1787

List of Tables

• 1.1 Racial Classification of the Mothers of Mixed-Race Children with White Fathers, by Percentage, 1770-1820
• 1.2 Percentages of Interracial Parents vs. Two Parents of Color Amongst Mixed-Race Children in Jamaica, 1730-1820
• 2.1 Percentage of white men’s wills, proven in Jamaica, with bequests for mixed-race children in Britain (either presently resident, or soon to be sent there), 1773-1815
• 2.2 Percentage of white men’s wills with acknowledged mixed-race children, proven In Jamaica, that include bequests for mixed-race children in Britain (either presently resident, or soon to be sent there), 1773-1815.131
• 2.3 Professions of testators sending mixed-race children to Britain, by percentage, 1773-1815
• 2.4 Destinations of mixed-race Jamaicans, by percentage, 1773-1815

White mother given mixed race sperm in IVF loses compensation claim

British Medical Journal
Volume 341, Number 5806
2010-10-15
DOI: 10.1136/bmj.c5806

Clare Dyer

Two children in Northern Ireland whose white mother was mistakenly impregnated with sperm from South Africa labelled “Caucasian (Cape Coloured)” during in vitro fertilisation have failed in a compensation claim at the High Court in Belfast.

The children’s mother, who brought the case on their behalf, claimed that their quality of life was adversely affected because they looked markedly different from their parents and had quite different skin colour from each other. She said that they were subject to “abusive and derogatory comment and hurtful name calling from other children, causing emotional upset.”…

Read or purchase the article here.

[Note from Steven F. Riley]

Admittedly from a cursory glance, this article is perhaps the kind that belongs on the front page of  a supermarket tabloid.  However, the plaintiff’s claim of “abusive and derogatory comment and hurtful name calling from other children, causing emotional upset.” because of “differently looking” children does seem to merit some kind of thoughtful and intelligent commentary.

Needless to say, millions of families with “differently looking” children by the way of “correctly labeled” sperm and egg rendezvous—or by adoption—face the prospect “abuse and derogatory” comments every day.  Thus a successful claim might have laid down a very, very interesting precedent.

Africans in Yorkshire? The deepest-rooting clade of the Y phylogeny within an English genealogy

European Journal of Human Genetics
Volume 15 (2007)
pages 288–293
DOI: 10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201771

Turi E. King
University of Leicester

Emma J. Parkin
University of Leicester

Geoff Swinfield
Geoff Swinfield Genealogical Services, Mottingham, London

Fulvio Cruciani
Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’

Rosaria Scozzari
Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’

Alexandra Rosa
Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’

Si-Keun Lim
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom

Yali Xue
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom

Chris Tyler-Smith
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom

Mark A. Jobling
University of Leicester

The presence of Africans in Britain has been recorded since Roman times, but has left no apparent genetic trace among modern inhabitants. Y chromosomes belonging to the deepest-rooting clade of the Y phylogeny, haplogroup (hg) A, are regarded as African-specific, and no examples have been reported from Britain or elsewhere in Western Europe. We describe the presence of an hgA1 chromosome in an indigenous British male; comparison with African examples suggests a Western African origin. Seven out of 18 men carrying the same rare east-Yorkshire surname as the original male also carry hgA1 chromosomes, and documentary research resolves them into two genealogies with most-recent-common-ancestors living in Yorkshire in the late 18th century. Analysis using 77 Y-short tandem repeats (STRs) is consistent with coalescence a few generations earlier. Our findings represent the first genetic evidence of Africans among ‘indigenous’ British, and emphasize the complexity of human migration history as well as the pitfalls of assigning geographical origin from Y-chromosomal haplotypes.

Introduction

The population of the UK today is culturally diverse, with 8% of its 54 million inhabitants belonging to ethnic minorities, and over one million classifying themselves as ‘Black or Black British’ in the 2001 census. These people owe their origins to immigration from the Caribbean and Africa beginning in the mid-20th century; before this time, the population has been seen as typically Western European, and its history has been interpreted in terms of more local immigration, including that of the Saxons, Vikings and Normans. However, in reality, Britain has a long history of contact with Africa (reviewed by Fryer). Africans were first recorded in the north 1800 years ago, as Roman soldiers defending Hadrian’s wall –‘a division of Moors’. Some historians suggest that Vikings brought captured North Africans to Britain in the 9th century. After a hiatus of several hundred years, the influence of the Atlantic slave trade began to be felt, with the first group of West Africans being brought to Britain in 1555. African domestic servants, musicians, entertainers and slaves then became common in the Tudor period, prompting an unsuccessful attempt by Elizabeth I to expel them in 1601. By the last third of the 18th century, there were an estimated 10,000 black people in Britain, mostly concentrated in cities such as London.

Has this presence left a genetic trace among people regarded as ‘indigenous’ British? In principle, Y-chromosomal haplotyping offers a means to detect long-established African lineages. Haplotypes of the non-recombining region of the Y, defined by slowly mutating binary markers such as SNPs, can be arranged into a unique phylogeny.  These binary haplotypes, known as haplogroups (hg), show a high degree of geographical differentiation, reflecting the powerful influence of genetic drift on this chromosome. Some clades of the phylogeny are so specific to particular continents or regions that they have been used to assign population-of-origin to individual DNA samples, and in quantifying the origins of the components of admixed populations using simple allele-counting methods.

Studies of British genetic diversity, generally sampling on the criterion of two generations of residence, have found no evidence of African Y-chromosomal lineages, suggesting that they either never became assimilated into the general population or have been lost by drift. However, here, we describe a globally rare and archetypically African sublineage in Britain and show that it has been resident there for at least 250 years, representing the first genetic trace of an appreciable African presence that has existed for several centuries…

Read the entire article here.

Difference and Belonging, Hopes and Fears: Parenting ‘mixed’ children and the implications for career development

International Center for Guidence Studies (iCEGS)
University of Derby
Occasional Paper
2008
16 pages
3 charts; 1 table

Rosalind Edwards, Professor in Social Policy and Director of the Families & Social Capital Research Group
London South Bank University

From the CeGS 10th Annual Lecture held at the University of Derby on 18th December 2007

I am very pleased to give the International Centre for Guidance Studies 10th annual lecture, and to indicate some of the implications of our research on ‘mixed’ families for your field of career development and guidance. I must stress, though, that I am no expert in your field. My interest and experience lies in people’s family lives in general. So, I will do my best in making links between my interest and yours, and I hope that you will be able to fill in any gaps.

In my lecture, I will address some of the debates about how to refer to children and young people who are from a ‘mixed’ racial or ethnic, and maybe also a ‘mixed’ faith, background, and how these relate to the politics of identity. I hope that this will explain to any of you who are perplexed as to why my lecture title refers to ‘mixed’ children. Having done that, I will be moving on to more important issues. I will give you a picture of ‘mixed’ families across Britain, before looking at the ways that parents from different backgrounds attempt to deal with difference and a sense of belonging for their children, how schools may be a resource in this, and their hopes for their children’s future…

Read the entire paper here.

Mixedness and The Arts

Runnymede Thinkpiece
Runnymede Trust
July 2010
18 pages
ISBN: 978-1-906732-63-9 (online)
EAN: 9781906732639 (online)
ISBN: 978-1-906732-64-6 (print)
EAN: 9781906732646 (print)

Chamion Caballero, Senior Research Fellow
Families & Social Capital Research Group
London South Bank University

This think piece explores the presentation of mixed-race identity in the sphere of arts and culture in the UK.

The piece examines some of the assumptions that surround mixed identity, and places them in a historical, political and policy context.

Taking contributions from practitioners in the arts, many of whom have engaged this issue directly, the report lays out the three key topics that arise from reflection on the debates:

Dr. Caballero frames her argument under the subheadings of Recognition of Experience; Negotiation of Complexity; and Politics of Ownership.

The debates identified by this think piece (and hopefully the ones sparked by it) are highly important to our understanding of racial dynamics in British society today.

Table of Contents

Contents
Foreword
Introduction
A note on terminology
1. Background: discussions of ‘mixedness’
2. The recognition of experiences
3. The negotiation of complexity
4. The politics of ownership
5. Summary and concluding thoughts
References

Foreword

The increasing visibility of mixedness and mixed people has led to a great deal of reflection on the nature of ethnic identities and their significance for society at large. In the light of census data predicting ‘mixed race’ becoming the largest ethnic minority group within two decades, there has been widespread debate about what this means for race and race relations in the 21st century. However debates on this subject rarely engage critically with the complexity that discussions of identity, let alone mixed ethnic identities truly deserve. The statistic above has often been accepted at face value with little thought devoted to teasing out exactly what such a ‘fact’ assumes about the nature of race, and whether these assumptions are ones that a modern, multi-ethnic nation is comfortable with.

In order to address this lack of nuance, Runnymede and the Arts Council have commissioned this thinkpiece by Dr Chamion Caballero. The piece examines some of the assumptions that surround mixed identity in Britain today, and places them in a historical, political and policy context. Taking contributions from practioners in the Arts, many of whom have engaged this issue directly; it lays out the three key topics that arise from reflection on the debates. Dr. Caballero argues that the first such issue is Recognition of Experience and whether the recognition of mixed experience is welcome or even necessary. Following on from this is the Negotiation of Complexity; many of the artists who commented stressed that representation of mixed identity must involve recognising the complex nuances inherent in that identity if it is not to become shallow, reductive, or irrelevant. The final issue, and perhaps the most loaded is the Politics of Ownership; who gets to define ‘mixedness’ and who gets to represent it, are sensitive issues that must be borne in mind, and many of the participants were wary of easy answers to these questions.

The debates identified by this think piece (and hopefully the ones sparked by it) are highly important to our understanding of racial dynamics in British society today. Questions of mixedness open up further questions not just about our concepts of race but of the nature of identity and its construction. Debates rage about the apparent failure of the multicultural project and its policy successors, about biological determinism and the role of genetics, about immigration and nationality, and about the role of art in a society facing economic strictures not seen in a generation. Deeper reflections upon concepts like race and identity, art and culture which underpin so many of these discussions could therefore scarcely be more timely. We publish this paper to encourage, rather than close down debate. We believe that it is important that we reflect on these issues and consider how best to ensure that policy and practice delivers for all if we are to become a successful multi-ethnic society.

Dr Rob Berkeley
Director, Runnymede

Read the entire report here.