Hostname: page-component-669899f699-ggqkh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T10:19:29.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Skinfolk, but Not Kinfolk? Paradoxical Representation Among Ethnic Minority Conservative Political Elites in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2024

Neema Begum Open the ORCID record for Neema Begum [Opens in a new window] ,
Michael Bankole ,
Shardia Briscoe-Palmer Open the ORCID record for Shardia Briscoe-Palmer [Opens in a new window] ,
Dan Godshaw Open the ORCID record for Dan Godshaw [Opens in a new window]  and
Rima Saini Open the ORCID record for Rima Saini [Opens in a new window]
Neema Begum*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Michael Bankole
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, UK
Shardia Briscoe-Palmer
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Dan Godshaw
Affiliation:
School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Rima Saini
Affiliation:
Department of Criminology and Sociology, Middlesex University, London, UK
*
Corresponding author: Neema Begum; Email: neema.begum@nottingham.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As the number of ethnic minority politicians increase across countries like the United Kingdom and the United States, so too have instances in which these officeholders act against the communities they descriptively represent. In this contribution, we introduce the concept of paradoxical representation which we argue functions through neoliberal, post-racial scripts of color-blindness and meritocracy. Similar to research on gender representation which calls into question assumptions that substantive representation will follow unproblematically from women’s descriptive representation (Celis and Childs 2012), we argue that ethnic minority representatives can act as “post-racial gatekeepers.” This means paradoxically working against rather than for marginalized ethnic minority groups (Saini, Bankole, and Begum 2023). Through political discourse and policymaking, these representatives construct and “gatekeep” hegemonic ideas around race, racism, gender, and migration.

Type
Critical Perspectives Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 2024 , pp. 745 - 750
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

BBC News. 2023. “What Is Windrush and Who Are the Windrush Generation?” BBC News. July 27, 2023. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43782241.Google Scholar
Bhattacharyya, Gargi. 2008. Dangerous Brown Men: Exploiting Sex, Violence and Feminism in the “War on Terror .” Location: Bloomsbury Publishing, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Celis, Karen, and Childs, Sarah. 2012. “The Substantive Representation of Women: What to Do With Conservative Claims?” Political Studies 60 (1): 213–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00904.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coddington, Kate. 2021. “Incompatible With Life: Embodied Borders, Migrant Fertility, and the UK’s ‘Hostile Environment’.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 39 (8): 1711–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420968112Google Scholar
Dovi, Suzanne. 2002. “Preferable Descriptive Representatives: Will Just Any Woman, Black, or Latino Do?” American Political Science Review 96 (4): 729–43. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055402000412CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duckworth, Caroline, Kapur, Devesh, and Vaishnav, Milan. 2021. “Britain’s New Swing Voters? A Survey of British Indian Attitudes.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. November 18, 2021. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2021/11/britains-new-swing-voters-a-survey-of-british-indian-attitudes?lang=en.Google Scholar
Essed, Philomena. 1991. Understanding Everyday Racism: An Interdisciplinary Theory. Sage, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farris, Sara R. 2017. In the Nname of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism : Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentleman, Amelia. 2023. “UK’s Hostile Environment Policies ‘Disproportionately Impact’ People of Colour.” The Guardian, February 9, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/09/uks-hostile-environment-policies-disproportionately-impact-people-of-colour#:~:text=An%20Institute%20for%20Public%20Policy,reputation%20of%20the%20Home%20Office%E2%80%9D.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Melanie. 2017. “Foreign, Criminal: A Doubly Damned Modern British Folk-Devil.” Citizenship Studies 21 (5): 527–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2017.1328486CrossRefGoogle Scholar
House of Commons. 2021. “Channel Crossings in Small Boats: Volume 704: Debated on Monday 22 November 2021.” November 22, 2021. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-11-22/debates/69973F3C-2383-4C12-AB0D-6BA1EBEDB7F8/ChannelCrossingsInSmallBoats.Google Scholar
Mayhew, David. 1974. Congress: The Electoral Connection (1974). New Haven: Yale University.Google Scholar
Saini, Rima, Bankole, Michael, and Begum, Neema. 2023. “The 2022 Conservative Leadership Campaign and Post-Racial Gatekeeping.” Race & Class 65 (2): 55–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968231164599CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patrick, H. 2022. ‘Watch the moment Rishi Sunak boasts about taking money from deprived urban areas’ to help wealthy towns. Independent. 26 October [Online] Available at https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/rishi-sunak-tunbridge-wells-deprived-b2139008.html [Accessed 8th July 2023].Google Scholar
Women for Refugee Women. 2023. “Take Action: Stop the Cruel ‘Illegal’ Migration Bill!” https://www.refugeewomen.co.uk/illegal-migration-bill/CrossRefGoogle Scholar