Next Thursday 29th of June, Post Ref Racism and The Everyday Bigotry Project will host a panel debate: “A year on from Brexit: How do we tackle hate crime and bigotry?”.
The Topic
A year has passed since the UK voted to leave the European Union, and the political landscape has changed dramatically. A tumultuous snap election has left us with a fragile government; the country has witnessed four terrorist attacks in as many months.
On our streets, hate crime has increased since Brexit, and police forces across the country are reporting spikes since the recent terrorist attacks.
So what should we do?
What measures should policy-makers be considering? How might this change should a minority government collapse? What work should we be doing at the community level? What role should the media be playing? Is the increase in hate crime and bigotry related to the rise of the far-right?
The Speakers
Nesrine Malik – Writer and Columnist for The Guardian.
Dr Aaron Winter – Senior Lecturer in Criminology at University of East London. Expert on organised racism, right-wing extremism and terrorism.
Aaron Winter is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at University of East London. At UEL, he is a member of the Terrorism and Extremism Research Centre (TERC), Centre for Human Rights in Conflict (CHRC) and Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB). Prior to UEL, he taught at Abertay University, the University of Sussex and the University of Brighton. His research is on organised racism, right-wing extremism and terrorism. He is co-editor of Discourses and Practices of Terrorism: Interrogating Terror (Routledge, Critical Terrorism Studies, 2010) and Reflexivity in Criminological Research Experiences with the Powerful and the Powerless (Palgrave, 2014). He is currently part of the ESRC project Racism and Political Mobilisation and London Scholars project Step Up To Stop Hate, and co-editing the Manchester University Press series Racism, Resistance and Social Change (with Satnam Virdee and John Solomos). His latest article (co-authored with Aurelien Mondon) is ‘Articulations of Islamophobia: From the Extreme to the Mainstream’ in Ethnic and Racial Studies. He is also a Trustee of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and on the editorial board of the journal Sociological Research Online.
Liz Feteke – Director of the Institute of Race Relations
Liz Feteke is Director of the Institute of Race Relations and head of its European Research Programme. She has worked at the IRR since 1982. She writes and speaks extensively on aspects of contemporary racism and fascism, refugee rights, EU counter-radicalisation and anti-terrorism policies and Islamophobia across Europe, and is author of A suitable enemy: racism, migration and Islamophobia in Europe published by Pluto Press. Liz was part of the CARF Collective, and an expert witness at the Basso Permanent People’s Tribunal on asylum and the World Tribunal on Iraq. She is currently an associate of the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London, and the Border Crossing Observatory at Monash University, Australia.
Magda Fabianczyk – Visual Artist, and Polish women’s rights activist
Magda Fabianczyk is an artist and member of Dziewuchy Dziewuchom London – a group of Polish activists that formed in April 2016 in response to the Polish government’s plans to introduce a complete ban on abortion in Poland. She is currently teaching at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She incorporates the narrative mediation process into her educational and art projects, which explore notions of conflict and otherness. She recently spoke at WOW Festival at Southbank Centre, where she also curated ‘Five Nation Film’ for the Alchemy Festival in 2015. Her work includes EU funded collaborative projects for Banglanatak NGO in India (2010), self-funded initiatives on the Leopold Estate in London (2011 – 2012), projects developed with the Roma population of Bytom Bobrek (2010) and Chechnyan refugees in Lublin, Poland (2011). Exhibitions include Kochi-Muziris Biennale (India); Colombo Biennale (Sri Lanka);Trafo, Bunkier Sztuki, Silesian Museum and Kronika CCA (Poland); DOCVA Centre for Visual Arts (Italy); Alliance Française (Ghana); VASL – Triangle Arts Trust’s Network (Pakistan); C. Rockefeller CCA (Germany); John Johns and Folkestone Fringe (UK).
Catherine West MP – Member of Parliament for Hornsey and Wood Green
Catherine West is Member of Parliament for Hornsey & Wood Green and a Shadow Foreign Office Minister. Before becoming an MP she was Leader of Islington Council, Chair of London Councils’ Transport & Environment Committee and a member of the LGA Finance Panel. In 2013 she was awarded the ‘Local Authority Leader of the Year’ award by the Local Government Information Unit for her work leading the Islington Fairness Commission. Catherine speaks five languages and holds a degree in Social Science and Languages and a Masters Degree in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies.
