Beyond black: re-thinking the colour/culture divide

Abstract

This article is an exploration of theoretical approaches to 'difference' in relation to black and Asian communities in Britain. It argues that, in the wake of the splintering of 'black' as a politically inclusive term, two opposed versions of difference have emerged to dominate understandings of race and ethnicity, and have been applied differentially to African-Caribbean and Asian identities. Black/African-Caribbean identities have been theorized through the 'politics of difference', whereas Asian groups have been transfixed through attributions of 'cultural difference'. The essay is a challenge to this theoretical dichotomy, and calls for a reworking of notions of difference to fully account for the intersection of culture and structure, and the application of theory to empirical accounts of identity creation.