From the Politics of Representation to the Politics of Production; Teaching Race and the Cultural Industries

• In Event: Creating Critical Media Workers: Labor and Pedagogy

Abstract

The obstacles brought about by structures of inequality in the cultural industries are particularly pronounced for racial minorities. How then to best prepare students of colour who desire to work in the media? Drawing from my experience setting up a new MA programme in Race, Media and Social Justice, I will reflect upon the design of a module specifically dealing with race in the context of cultural industries and production. Wanting to avoid a deafest account of racism and the media, the talk unpacks how the module was organised specifically around engaging students with a politics of production. Thus rather than merely shedding light upon the challenges facing people of colour in the media, the module’s focus is on empowering and equipping students with strategies that will help them negotiate the cultural industries’ institutional whiteness, and resist the constraints that will invariably be placed upon their creative practice.


Bio: Anamik Saha is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the convenor of the new MA in Race, Media and Social Justice. He has published widely in both media/cultural studies, and critical race journals. He is currently finishing a book entitled Race and the Cultural Industries for Polity Press.

Author

• Anamik Saha