ABSTRACT
Why have questions about race and ethnicity become such key themes in contemporary political debates? What impact have mobilisations based on racialised identities had on the development of policies and programmes to deal with forms of racial inequality and discrimination? These and other questions reflect the increasing concern in many societies regarding the role of ideas about race and ethnicity in political life. This issue was a relatively neglected topic until the 1980s, but since then it has been a growing concern of scholars and political activists (Solomos, 1993; Miles, 1993). Whether we look at contemporary Europe, the United States or South Africa the role of racism in shaping political life is the subject of both research and increasingly volatile public political debate. Yet it is also clear that if we are to understand fully how the construction of racialised politics has come about we need more detailed accounts of the processes that have led to the growing politicisation of debates about race in specific sociopolitical contexts.
