ABSTRACT
In recent years doubts have been expressed on the degree to which ‘race relations’ can be developed as an intellectual sub-discipline of sociology. Some observers have noted the general failure of ‘race relations’ sociology to develop any distinctly sharp or novel theoretical insights, while even some of its practitioners have confessed to the area’s general academic marginality (Cohen 1972, Fenton 1980, Phillips 1983). This weakness within the ‘race relations’ paradigm can be perhaps partly explained by its general peripheralization from public policy-making since the split in the Institute of Race Relations in the early 1970s. However, a more crucial intellectual shortcoming has been the disconnection of ‘race relations’ studies from the historical analysis of racism and racial thought. The study of ‘race relations’ sociology indeed has all too often been pursued in an historical vacuum in which vast generalizations have been developed with little or no detailed scholarly historical evidence. This disdain for history is itself, though, a legacy of the colonial origins of ‘race relations’, suggesting the need for major theoretical innovations in the subdiscipline if it is to survive.
