Introduction

In the face of significant shifts in ‘race’ equality policies and discourses within social welfare, from those rooted in neo-Marxist critiques of post-colonial Western capitalist societies to ones based on neoliberal market models, this chapter sets out an argument for the need for a new reinvigorated anti-racist social work project. The chapter does not seek to offer a detailed step-by-step ‘how to do guide’, but rather it offers an account of the historical, ideological and political contexts within which ideas associated with anti-racist social work have developed over the past 35 years. It begins by highlighting the emergence of municipal anti-racist social work, which was born out of broader anti-racist social movements of the late 1970s and 1980s. It then goes on show how anti-racist social work morphed into individualised ‘anti-oppressive’ and ‘anti-discriminatory’ practice and ‘diversity awareness’ from the 1990s to the present period. In doing so, the chapter seeks to argue that a series of political and ideological factors have led to a significant weakening of anti-racism within public welfare in general and social work in particular. At the policy level, we have seen a displacing of anti-racism by notions of managing diversity and anti-discriminatory practice. At the community level there has been a fragmentation of old anti-racist collectivities built upon race/class solidarity and, at the same time, an assertion of ethno-religious-communal identity-based politics. At the professional level anti-racist social work has been unable to evolve models to reflect the shifting discourses of ‘race’ and the emergence of new or ‘xeno-racism’ that is not necessarily built on black/white racial binaries (Sivanandan 2006; see also Fekete, Chapter Two, this volume).