Empire’s Endgame: Racism and the British State

We are in a moment of profound overlapping crises. The landscape of politics and entitlement is being rapidly remade. As movements against colonial legacies and state violence coincide with the rise of authoritarian regimes, it is the lens of racism, and the politics of race, that offers the sharpest focus.

The 'hostile environment' and the fallout from Brexit have, over the last few years, thrown the centrality of race into sharp relief, and yet discussions around racism have too often continued to focus on individual behaviours. Empire’s Endgame foregrounds instead the wider political and economic context, and the authors trace the ways in which the legacies of empire have been reshaped by global capitalism, the digital environment and the instability of the nation-state.

We are joined on the show this month by four of the co-authors of Empire's Endgame - Gargi Bhattacharyya, Sita Balani, Nadine El-Enany and Luke de Noronha.

Our discussion covers the state's deployment of racialised 'folk devils', the persistent allure of nationalism, a collective longing for authoritarian state intervention and the role of gender and sexuality in how the performance and functions of the state.

Find out more about the book:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745342047/empires-endgame/

Listen to the unabridged version of the podcast:

https://www.patreon.com/plutopress