Anamik Saha

'Beards, scarves, halal meat, terrorists, forced marriage’: television industries and the production of ‘race’

This article considers the persistence of stereotypical representations of ‘race’ that appear in television in the West. According to a particular policy discourse, improving the on-screen representation of non-white groups is a matter of increasing the number of black and Asian folk working in the broadcasting industries – particularly at the senior management level. However, this article argues that the constant production of hegemonic images of ‘race’ cannot be tackled via recruitment measures alone. Adopting a ‘cultural industries’ approach to television production, the article uses an ethnographic study of British Asians working in the UK broadcasting industry to examine the conditions of production through which minority representations are created. By paying closer attention to the experience of cultural work, the article reveals how it is the increasingly commercialized cultures of production in television, constituted by the industry’s shift towards deregulation and neoliberal market models, that steers the work of Asian filmmakers and executives themselves into producing problematic, reductive representations of ‘race’.

Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Production

This article seeks to develop an approach to cultural production which takes racism seriously. We suggest that there has been a lack of attention to race and ethnicity in the booming research field of cultural production studies, and that the few good studies of race, ethnicity, and cultural production have been somewhat marginalized. Following a section that outlines our understandings of “race” and ethnicity, we outline the development of research on cultural production, differentiating various approaches according to the degree of attention that they afford to questions of power, inequality, and social justice. We then survey the main themes that have emerged from cultural production studies regarding race and ethnicity, and outline some of the problems associated with such research. We argue that a theory of cultural production that adequately integrates race and ethnicity needs to combine analysis of micro and macro factors, structure and agency, and change and continuity.

Locating MIA: ‘Race’, commodification and the politics of production

MIA (real name: Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam) is one of the few British South Asian music artists who have crossed into the mainstream of western pop. The way in which she has attained this while foregrounding an explicit anti-racist and anti-imperialist message in her songs can be seen as a significant musical-political intervention, although the particular contestation of her work that has followed also highlights the challenges that Asian artists continue to face in gaining recognition within western popular culture. However, what is truly significant about MIA’s career is how she has managed to express a disavowed Asian identity without becoming trapped in the marginal space through which Asian culture is excluded. This has been the outcome of particular industry practice that has harnessed successfully the enabling features of commodification. In this way MIA represents an effective cultural politics of difference, the success of which is absolutely contingent upon an equally effective politics of production.

‘Curry Tales’: The production of ‘race’ and ethnicity in the cultural industries

Within popular culture in the West, stereotypical representations of ‘race’ still persist. This is particularly troubling when we find that it is racialized minorities themselves behind such representations. The aim of this article is to explore how the conditions of the cultural industries steer the work of minority cultural producers in directions that can undermine the radical potential of the counter-narratives of difference. The article begins with a discussion on the politics of representation where I argue for integrating a sociological approach into cultural studies of diasporic popular culture that pays closer attention to the process of symbol creation. The remainder of the article uses a study of a British South Asian theatre company to show how the increasingly commercialized cultures of production that characterize the sector had a troubling impact on the way a play exploring postcolonial feminisms was marketed and presented to the public.

Production Research: Continuity and Transformation

At the heart of this book is the question: how well do we understand the institutions which create our media, our information, and our culture? Rather than seeking to reveal the substantially hidden world of cultural production (as many works cited in this introductory chapter do well), this anthology explores many of the contemporary challenges to understanding the nature of cultural production—considering the research process, rather than research findings. By doing so, we hope to encourage researchers to push the boundaries of production research beyond the traditional (but still very necessary) ‘newsroom observation’ in order to expand production research across boundaries of genre and medium, to liberally borrow theory and method across previously rigid disciplinary borders, and to confront new challenges which threaten to insulate the creation of media and culture from rigorous independent examination.

Making diaspora in a global city: South Asian youth cultures in London

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2006. “From Bi-racial to Tri-racial: Towards a New System of Racial Stratification in the USA.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 27 (6): 931–950. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2014. Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism & Racial Inequality in Contemporary America. (4th ed). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Du Bois, W. E. B. 1900. “The Present Outlook for the Darker Races of Mankind.” In The Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois Reader, edited by E. J. Sundquist, 47–54. New York: Oxford University Press. Feagin, Joe R. 2006. Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression. New York: Routledge. Hughey, Matthew W. 2010. “The (Dis)similarities of White Racial Identities: The Conceptual Framework of ‘Hegemonic Whiteness’.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33 (8): 1289–1309. Hughey, Matthew W. 2012.White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meanings of Race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. 2014. Racial Formation in the United States. (3rd ed). New York: Routledge.

Changing Ambivalences Exploring Corporate Sponsorship in the New Culturally Diverse Artistic Practices

This article explores the commodification of difference in relation to the corporate sponsorship of the photography exhibition, Changing Faces. At first the article considers how the exhibitions collection of images of British Asian youth challenged stereotypical representations of Asian youth cultures, but then argues that this counter–hegemonic potential was undermined by the corporate sponsorship of telecommunications company 02. Yet that is not to say that the ethics of such explicit commerciality are immediately guaranteed; instead, there is the suggestion that the epistemological outcomes were much more complex. Indeed, the article adopts a cultural economy approach that shifts from dialectical political economy models of the culture industry and stresses the elaborate and entangled relations through which the production of culture is mediated. This article argues that it is only when these micro–processes are identified and then situated within the wider logic of global capitalism that the ethical implications of the corporate intervention in the culturally diverse arts can be more effectively ascertained.

The Politics of Race in Cultural Distribution: Addressing Inequalities in British Asian Theatre:

This article has two aims. Firstly, it challenges the assumption in both policy and media studies of race that increasing the number of minorities in the media will automatically lead to more diverse content. Secondly, it highlights how cultural distribution is a critical, yet under-researched, moment for racialised minorities working in the arts. Using a case study on ‘British Asian theatre’, the article problematises a particular cultural policy approach that emphasises the need to attract ‘new audiences’. While the emphasis on bringing marginalised audiences to the arts is welcome, this article argues that attempts to address racial inequalities in production and consumption in this way, reinforce rather than dismantle them.

Citizen Smith more than Citizen Kane? Genres-in-progress and the cultural politics of difference

As the first British situation comedy about a Muslim family, Citizen Khan received mostly negative reviews from the press. Reviews could be split into two tropes: Citizen Khan was offensive to Muslims, or just offensively bad. It was the comedys use of crude caricatures, compounded by its foundation in a rather archaic form of humour that seemingly rubbed up both white and Asian critics alike. However, this paper argues that much of this criticism failed to adequately contextualise Citizen Khan within the form of comedy that it is working within. Using Georgina Borns notion of ‘genre-in-progress’, the paper argues that it is only by situating Citizen Khan within its genre of British family sitcom that we can properly ascertain its cultural political value, where we find in fact something much more potentially subversive than the reviews give it credit for.

Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11, by Evelyn Alsultany

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