Speaker: Prof. Gurminder Bhambra (Sussex)

The concepts we use in political debates matter. The shape of those concepts – that is, the ways in which they are configured in relation to the highlighting of particular histories and the silencing of others – matter. They matter because, in the process of shaping, people become bodies in, or out, of place and their movements facilitated (as citizens) or constrained (as migrants) as a consequence. This paper is prompted by the fall out of the British vote to leave the European Union. The referendum was less a debate on the pros and cons of membership than a proxy for discussions about race and migration; specifically, who belonged and had rights (or should have rights) and who didn't (and shouldn't). One of the key slogans of those arguing for exit from the EU was: ‘we want our country back.’ The racialized discourses at work here were not only present explicitly in the politics of the event; they are implicit in much social scientific analysis. Populist political claims are mirrored by an equivalent social scientific ‘presentism’ that elides proper historical context. In this paper, I discuss the importance of understanding Brexit in the context of an historical sociological understanding that would enable us to make better sense of the politics of the present.