This monograph contains some of the contributions made to a postgraduate (PGR)- and early career researcher (ECR)-oriented conference on ‘Race’ and Socially Engaged Research held at York St John University in September 2023. The call for papers was made in late Spring 2023, and asked those offering papers to draw out, as far as possible, the methodological implications of their work and any reflection they might have on intersectionality. The origins of the conference lay in the continuing failure of social science teaching and research in the academy to adequately address the dimension of ‘race’ in curricula or in research projects. [1]

The conference was organised by a collective of students and staff at the two York Universities, with advisory help from Professor Gary Craig, one-time Visiting Professor at both York Universities who convened the first meeting of the conference committee. Planning started in late 2022 and concluded with what was regarded by all those attending as a very successful day event. The conference ended with a talk by Haddy Njie, chair of Inclusive and Equal Rights, an organisation recently created in York which had persuaded the city council unanimously to agree a resolution committing the city council to work towards becoming an anti-racist city. This made the location of the conference in York particularly appropriate.

Learning from this experience, the working group has decided to make this an annual event. For details of future planning or to become involved in the planning process, or to make a preliminary offer of as paper, please contact the group. A full report of the event is available from the group: contact antiracismworkinggroup@gmail.com.

After the conference, a call was made to those who had offered papers for them to be included in a short monograph to ensure a wider circulation of the papers and this is the result of that call. The first edition of the Working Paper includes four papers, a poem and an infographic.

We hope to provoke a more in-depth and wider debate on this critical issue in the coming years.

Footnotes

[1] See, for example, Where is ‘race’ in teaching and learning in social policy?, B.Cole, G.Craig and N. Ali, Social Policy Association.