MSc Race, Ethnicity and Post Colonial Studies

About the MSc programme

This programme is a multi-disciplinary initiative which gives students the opportunity to study a range of different topics within this broad academic area which is addressed in various ways both inside the Department and beyond it by others elsewhere in the School.

This degree is unusual for placing the issue of post-colonial analysis squarely in the context of social science and using that focus to frame considerations of race, racism and ethnicity. It offers an overview of key theoretical and historical issues in these fields and uses them as a platform for sociological discussion. Post-colonial social relations will be examined inside and outside formerly colonial territories.

The programme extends the curriculum in number of other directions for example, into an explicit encounter with new scholarly debates over multiculture and diversity, genomics and human rights as well as over the morality and legality of the contemporary ambition to revive colonial power.

While it remains strongly sociological in focus, the programme is also enriched by the introduction of scholarly discussions from neighbouring disciplines. We regard this multi-disciplinary character as a strength and an asset that helps to define the uniqueness of this degree.

Core staff with specialist interests in this area are Dr Suki Ali, Dr Claire Alexander and Professor Paul Gilroy. These and other LSE staff are working actively on research projects that address race and ethnicity in relation to human rights, refugee and asylum studies, hate speech and freedom of expression, ethnicity, urban sociology, globalisation and global government. Teaching on the programme is closely linked to the research currently being undertaken.

This programme is aimed at students with a good upper second or first class honours degree (or equivalent) in the social sciences. We will also consider applicants with a good first degree in any discipline who can show that they have either a well-developed interest in this area or a significant measure of relevant practical experience.

Aims:

• To provide an overview of theories of race, ethnicity and postcolonial society.
• To engage critically with different historical and theoretical paradigms and perspectives on 'race', ethnicity and post-colonial social relations.
• To explore current theoretical debates around multiculturalism, citizenship and post-colonial theory.
• To consider comparatively the changing historical, political and social patterns of racialised politics in Britain.
• To examine the understanding of contemporary key issues in Britain and Europe, in relation to key issues such as 'mixed race', Muslim identities, asylum-seekers and refugees, the re-emergence of racist movements and the novel context created by a governmental emphasis upon security.
• To provide students with a means to connect work on race with work on genomics and human rights.

This is a full year programme. Students will take courses equivalent to the value of four full units as shown. These must include the compulsory core course Topics in Race, Ethnicity and Post-colonial Studies (full unit) and the writing and researching of a 10,000 word dissertation which is assessed as the equivalent of a whole course.

You can choose any subject that interests you after consultation with an appropriate supervisor. The dissertation topic is approved at the end of the second term.

Compulsory courses

• Topics in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
• Dissertation

Options

(* half unit)

Choose a total of two full units from:

• Anthropology of South Africa*
• Anthropology and Human Rights*
• Globalising Sexualities*
• Globalisation, Gender and Development* 
• Nationalism
• Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Citizenship*
• Empire, Colonialism and Globalisation
• Cultural Encounters from the Renaissance to the Modern World
• Race, Violence and Colonial Rule in Africa  
• Introduction to International Political Theory*
• The International Political Theory of Human Intervention*
• The Politics of International Law*
• Inter-cultural Relations and Racism* 
• Globalisation: Economy, Politics and Power*
• Cultural Constructions of the Body* 
• Race, Ethnicity and Migration in Britain (post 1945)*
• Political Reconciliation*
• Gender and Societies* 
• Racial Formations of Modernity*
• Race and Biopolitics*
• International Migration and Migrant Integration*