Culture, Diaspora, Ethnicity

Birkbeck is a global centre for research and teaching on ‘race’ and racism. We are home to multidisciplinary communities of scholars and students, academic programmes and research centres committed to the study of this subject area.

This innovative interdisciplinary course that stretches across the arts and humanities and social sciences consistently achieves outstanding levels of student satisfaction. It offers the opportunity to explore:

- histories of ‘race’ and racism

- transcontinental histories of colonisation and postcolonial cartographies of state and corporate negligence and violence

- how local and global political communities, social identities, cultures and inequalities are shaped by the global geopolitics of the twenty-first century.

The course examines connections between intertwined colonial histories and our ordinary, local everyday life. We focus on a broad range of subjects such as modern colonial statecraft and histories of ‘race’ and other systems of categorisation; colonial cultures and nationalisms; histories of anticolonial, antifascist and antiracist resistance, criminalisation and policing; theorising community and postcolonial belonging; contemporary racial nationalisms and religious authoritarian movements and race, gender and sexuality.

We offer this course as a Master's, Postgraduate Diploma and Postgraduate Certificate. For the Diploma and Certificate you study fewer modules and do not complete a dissertation.

Highlights

- This interdisciplinary postgraduate course will introduce you to important historical and political debates and theoretical frameworks and bodies of work in the broad area of 'race', racism and postcoloniality. It reconnects scholarship on histories and legacies of colonisation to contemporary public discussions on recognition and reconciliation, justice and freedom and the responsibilities of public institutions such as universities. MA students can undertake an empirical or theoretical dissertation or a practice-based dissertation such as a film or an exhibition.

- You will become part of a vibrant, stimulating and highly diverse intellectual environment. Birkbeck is the first higher education institution in London to receive the title University of Sanctuary. You will have access to the Race Forum at Birkbeck, research centres including the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Centre for Law and the Humanities and there are specialist student reading groups that focus on particular subject areas such as medicine, ‘race’ and empire and psychoanalysis and colonialism.

- This course consistently achieves very high levels of satisfaction from Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey respondents. In 2019 and 2020, the student satisfaction rate was 100%; in 2021 the rate was 95%; in 2022 it was 85%; and in 2023 it was 100%.

- If you are taking this course part-time, you may be eligible for a Bonnart Trust Master’s Studentship which will cover the cost of your tuition fees. You must have received an offer of a place on the course by 31 May 2025 to apply. You may also be eligible for a Birkbeck Access to Postgraduate Study Scholarship.

Careers and employability

Graduates have pursued careers as:

- filmmakers, journalists, teachers, curators, architects, novelists, poets, musicians and activists

- lecturers and researchers in the subject areas of history, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, urban studies, psychosocial studies and sociology

- psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychiatrists; barristers and solicitors.

Graduates have also pursued career paths in organisations and charities concerned with:

- criminalisation and policing

- domestic violence

- refugees and asylum

- human rights

- homelessness

- imprisonment

- addiction

- youth and community work.