It is a common misconception that, in the contemporary world, racism has been somehow defeated, pushed to the boundaries of acceptable social behaviour. In fact, racism has taken on a subtler guise in the ways it is expressed. This ambiguity has made racism more insidious than it once was. Interrogating Race and Racism examines the subject of racism with a view to uncovering the many ways in which it exists today.

As a subject with so many permutations, racism is necessarily examined from a multidisciplinary perspective in this collection, featuring authors from a variety of backgrounds. Among the specific topics discussed are border politics and the search for asylum, exclusionary policies, and the struggle for substantive citizenship. The collection also features extended discussion of racism in the workplace, an illuminating and important sequence that reveals the institutionalization of racist hiring procedures despite legislation to curb such practices.

With the heightening of tensions in the post 9/11 period and a resurgence of racist attitudes taking place, Interrogating Race and Racism is a timely analysis of cultural alienation and the ways in which it impacts upon our lives.

Vijay Agnew immigrated from India in 1970 and studied at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto. A professor of social science, she has taught at York University in Toronto since 1976, and is director of the Centre for Feminist Research. She is author of Resisting Discrimination: Women from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and the Women’s Movement in Canada, which won the Gustavus Myers Award in 1997 as “an outstanding book on the subject of human rights in North America.” Her other books are In Search of a Safe Place: Abused Women and Culturally Sensitive Services and Elite Women in Indian Politics.

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