Publications and work in progress

Publications

Our first project publications are out - with more to come!

• Emile Chabal, 'France's Identity Crisis' in Current History (2024). This essay explores the development of identity politics in France. It discusses some of the difficulties of talking about identity in France, and it provides a historically grounded explanation for why manifestations of identity politics are so controversial in French public life. It also describes some of the ways that identity politics has nevertheless come to France in the form of progressive and conservative social movements, as well as specific public policies.
• Liam Liburd, 'The Lost Pillar of British Political Culture: Black Constructions of British Fascism, 1930s–1970s' in Journal of British Studies (2025). This article explores the history and development of British manifestations of a Black diasporic anti-colonial anti-fascist political tradition that stretches across the twentieth century. It centers the experiences and reflections of Black activists and intellectuals in Britain, exploring their efforts to theorize about fascism as a manifestation of white supremacy. Journeying from interwar anti-colonial Marxist political writing, Black periodicals in the 1950s and 1960s, to the publications of the British Black Power movement, the article ultimately argues that these encounters confront historians of modern Britain with a different and generative way of thinking about British racism and British fascism in relational terms.

Working papers and conference presentations

• Conference. Project team members were involved in a conference on 'Anti-racism and anti-antisemitism' at Birkbeck, University of London in September 2024. Emilie Wiedemann presented a paper entitled 'Jewish advocacy and anti-racism in international politics: a historical perspective' and Liam Liburd presented a paper entitled 'A contextualised history of antisemitism in Britain: immigration, imperialism, and racialisation'.
• Conference. Project team members organised a panel entitled 'Race, Identity and Political Mobilisation in France and Britain, c.1970-Present' at the Council for European Studies conference in Lyon in July 2024. The panel included papers by Rachida Brahim on racial trauma; Emile Chabal, Alex Hensby and Tim Peace on identity politics in social movements; Emile Chabal on race in contemporary France; and Angéline Escafré-Dublet on identity and music in France and Britain. A copy of the programme is available here.
• Academic talk. One of our UK-based researchers, Emilie Wiedemann, gave a talk in May 2024 at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism on Jewish advocacy, anti-racism and the Durban Conference Against Racism. A recording of the livestream is available here.
• Literature review. Our French researcher, Rachida Brahim, completed a literature review on identity politics and immigration in France in April 2024. Follow the link to read it (in French): Migrants et descendants de migrants nord-africains en France : représentations et mobilisations

Public engagement

• Radio broadcast. Our French researcher, Rachida Brahim, recently discussed her research on racist crimes in a 4-part radio documentary on France Culture focused on the 1983 "Marche pour l'égalité et contre le racisme" and broadcast in December 2023.

Bibliography

We have been building an open-access Zotero bibliography of literature related to the history and sociology of identity politics, race, social movements and political culture in France and the UK. It will be regularly updated by members of the project team. You can access the bibliography here. 

FInd out more about the rationale and detailed aims of the project.