Race and racism in critical security studies

Abstract

Abstract

en In the current moment, we are witnessing a resurgent political urgency around demands to overthrow the inequities that are entrenched in oppressive structural formations such as racism and colonialism. Debates about race and racism are also unfolding in academia. While there has been a long tradition of speaking plainly about race within international relations (Doty, 1993; Grovogui, 2001), the past decade has seen a re-engagement not just with race as an analytical category but also with racism (Anievas et al., 2015; Muppidi, 2018; Rutazibwa, 2016; Vitalis, 2015), frequently articulated in terms of, or alongside calls for, the decolonization of academia. As editors of a scholarly journal, we believe that our role is to foster academic debate on matters such as these. This special forum is born out of Security Dialogue’s ongoing commitment to the creation of a structured, reflexive space for critical attention to the question of race and racism in critical security studies.