Social Geographies of Race

In this chapter, we cover the core social identifier of race. We advance a social constructionist perspective on race (e.g. race has no biological basis), but with the realisation that race nonetheless has profound social (and spatial) implications. Social geographers have studied these implications in increasingly sophisticated ways, moving from rather basic accounts of place-based segregation in (American) cities to the growing concerns about negative racialisation using the case of Chinatowns and Whiteness, to connecting inequality to racial capitalism and White settler colonialism, and connecting social injustice to environmental racism. The chapter is capped by a lengthy case study of race and immigration in 21st century UK, bringing up issues of segregation, Whiteness, and racial capitalism.