Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism

Three activists. Their ideas, their work, their lasting importance.

In this special short series of audio essays from the Sociological Review Foundation, three expert guests introduce us to key figures in the story of UK anti-racism, illuminating how they show us what that term really means – and what it takes – but also how their work and ideas speak to sociology, too, and deserve to be better known.

Starting the series, John Narayan – Chair of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations – explains Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s take on global technology, exploitation and anti-racist resistance. In the second episode, A.S. Francis celebrates Gerlin Bean as the “mother of the Black women’s movement” in the UK, whose life of committed activism exemplified theory in action – and whose story leads us to ask how we represent individual activists who so passionately valued the collective. And in the third episode, Hannah Ishmael – former archivist at Black Cultural Archives – describes the importance of the determined archivist and educational activist Len Garrison, whose work raises crucial questions about history and identity, self-esteem and self-recognition.

Guests

Guest

A.S. Francis

A.S. Francis (she/they) is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Chichester. Their research focuses on women’s involvement in Britain’s Black radical organisations during the 1960s–1980s and the development of a Black women’s movement. Their book Gerlin Bean: Mother of the Movement (Lawrence & Wishart, 2023), charts the longstanding and far-reaching activism of community activist and pioneering Black feminist Gerlin Bean. She also works in production at Tate Modern and is a consultant to the Young Historians Project, a member of the History Matters collective and co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the History Matters Journal.

Guest

Hannah Ishmael

Hannah Ishmael (she/her) is Lecturer in Digital Culture and Race at King's College London and formerly Collections and Research Manager at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, London. She is a qualified archivist with expertise in the preservation and dissemination of Black British history. Her research interests lie in the intersection of archives, digital culture and social justice, with a particular focus on the role of Black-led archives in shaping narratives of Black communities.

Guest

John Narayan

John Narayan (he/him) is Senior Lecturer in European and International Studies at King’s College London and an anti-racist scholar of globalisation and inequality. His current research centres on the political economy of the influential anti-racist scholar A. Sivanandan. He is Chair of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations and a member of the Race & Class Editorial Working Committee.