History, agency and the representation of 'race' - an introduction

This article argues that the complex interactions of history, race, agency, memory and trauma are both essential to and negated by contemporary dominant understandings of racism in the US and Europe. The lethal racist policing of black communities in the US and the fanatical policing of national borders by the EU are richly and disturbingly redolent of the violent raced labour practices which have authorised capitalist modernity. Focusing on cultural representations such as The Wire and the United Nations' slavery memorial, The Ark of Return', the authors argue that the history of radical black agency is consistently marginalised in a very particular language of recovery' and healing'. The acknowledgement of historical crimes is mobilised in such a way as to neutralise the past and to negate the connections between that past and present structures which continue to exploit and vilify racialised subjects within the terms of neoliberal globalisation.