Emergent Conversation 19

Edited by Deniz Yonucu and Caroline Mary Parker

Memorial made of concrete for the victims of racism and police violence at Oranienplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Text: “In memory of the victims of racism and police violence”. It was probably erected on 26.09.2020. (Gedenkstele aus Beton für die Opfer von Rassismus und Polizeigewalt am Oranienplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Text: “In Gedenken an die Opfer von Rassismus und Polizeigewalt. Errichtet wurde sie wahrscheinlich am 26.09.2020.) Photo by Singlespeedfahrer. CC 1.0 Public Domain Dedication.

In this Emergent Conversation, we initiate a discussion on racism and policing in places beyond North America. Part of our motivation for doing so stems from a common experience we share—as antiracist educators and as anthropologists of policing and the carceral state—in our classrooms and even among our peers. This is the misplaced notion that police racism is somehow a uniquely “American” problem that does not afflict other world regions, including our own countries of origin (the United Kingdom and Turkey). Though this viewpoint gains less and less academic traction today, conceptual frameworks for comprehending policing and racism and their various entanglements beyond North America are still in their infancy. This is especially true of places where nation-states that do not routinely statistically enumerate the ethnoracial make-up of their populations (e.g., in France and Germany, see this series), regions where ideologies of admixture that code everyone as “mixed” prevail (e.g., in Latin America, this issue), and places where racism is tethered to (and conceptually subsumed by) cognate forms of discrimination such as caste or xenophobia (e.g., China and Pakistan, this series).

Essays from the May 2023 print Directions section of PoLAR appear here with additional essays commissioned by the editors, as well as a video roundtable discussion.