Hall's Gramscian analysis of race and ethnicity

From MarxWiki

Hall’s analysis of Gramsci’s theories with regard to the study of race and ethnicity

Emphasis on Historical Specificity

While Hall acknowledges that there exist certain general features to racism, even more significant are they ways that these general features are modified by the historical context and environment that they’re in. Just because racism is everywhere a deeply anti-human and anti-social practice dose not mean that it is the same everywhere.

Emphasis on National Characteristics and Regional Unevenness

Since there is no homogenous law of development which impacts all aspects of society simultaneously, racism and racist formations frequently occur in some but not all sectors of society and their impact is penetrative but uneven. It’s important to recognize these realities because the very unevenness may help to deepen and exacerbate racist antagonisms.

Non-Reductive approach to inter-relationship between class and race

Gramsci’s non reductive approach to questions of class when combined with his emphasis on the historical shaping of any social formation points the way towards a non reductionist approach to the race/class question. Hall emphasizes the culturally specific quality of class formation in any historically specific society. While Gramsci does not specifically articulate a conceptualization of race and class, he forces us to think about how the power of capital can function through difference (different races, different countries, different genders) rather than through similarity though the lens of historically different forms of labor.

Non-homogenous character of the class subject

Moving away from the perspective that privileges the class (as opposed to the racial, or other) structuring of the working classes, Gramsci’s approach problematizes notions of simple unity of the working class based on the common mode of exploitation vis a vis capital. Important here is the fact that the hegemonic moment is a process of unification never totally achieved founded on strategic alliances between different sectors, not on their pre-given identity. The fact that identity is constructed and not pre-given both explains how hegemony is achieved under the leadership of groups whose interests are diametrically opposed to the vast majority of other groups in the “alliance”…cough*therepublicanparty*coughcough…while underscoring the possibility of resistance because of the constant need to re-legitimate hegemony. This reality also underscores the necessity of understanding how classes do act versus how they should act according to their economic composition.