ABSTRACT
Renato Rosaldo, in his seminal book Culture and truth, argued that it is vital to take issues of recognition seriously in interpretation of cultures. The most telling feature of Chicano reactions to anthro pological writing, he suggests, is that these accounts of Chicano cul ture seem amusing, parodic and unreal to such a degree that they are unrecognizable. Rosaldo’s appeal is to take the narratives of the objects of cultural criticism as seriously as those of the critic or anthropologist (Rosaldo 1989: 147). New ethnicities and urban cul ture attempts to listen to those sceptical young voices and to outline a contingent account of the forms of dialogue that have fed the cultural creativity and expressiveness of young people in Britain’s cities. It is equally concerned to explain and theorize how urban contexts also offer sites where constantly shifting forms of racism can be enunci ated. It my contention that contemporary cultural theory needs to be brought closer to the experience of its youthful censors and in doing so offer an account of a cultural politics that avoids banal optimism while holding on to the possibility of transcendence. I hope this book goes some way to lessening this chasm of mutual mis-recognition.
