Critical race and whiteness studies: What has been, what might be (Editorial)

Abstract

After a hiatus of several years, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Journal is reemerging. We do so in recognition of the exceptional scholarship the Journal has produced in the past with writers like Nicoll, Moreton-Robinson, Randell-Moon, Riggs, Watson, Ahmed, Heiss, and countless others providing incisive renderings of the social cartographies, discursive and non-discursive manifestations of race, which have parsed new ground. We acknowledge the important impact the Journal and its contributors have made to social practice and debate worldwide, and the ‘large shoes’ consequently sitting before us. The Journal, then, is returning to engage in debate and efforts that have aimed to ameliorate the effects of racism and interrupt the reproduction of race and racialised hierarchies. Yet the passing of time not only serves to remind us that there remains much to do if this is to be achieved. Within the contemporary geopolitical environment, these concerns loom somewhat larger and more pressing than they did only a few years ago. The Journal is returning in the midst of the ‘post-truth’ turn, with the politics and contestations of knowledge production often being imbued with covert – if not overt – racialised underpinnings.