RACE.ED is a cross-university network concerned with race, racialization and decolonial studies from a multidisciplinary perspective.

RACE.ED’s Nicola Perugini, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, recently appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed to discuss his new co-authored book Human Shields. A history of People in the Line of Fire.

The ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ protests and the campaign to change the wording on the Melville statue in Edinburgh have highlighted how many symbols of colonialism and imperialism not only remain visible in British cities, but are being contested with a renewed purpose.

Young children are ‘too young’ to understand race, racism and discrimination; you don’t want to ‘put ideas in their heads’; young children ‘do not notice differences, it is not an issue, it is more adult ideas and certainly you can’t say they are racist at such a young age’.

In my chapter, ‘Multicultural Scotland’, I examine evidence concerning the demographic structure and history of Scotland, and the attitudes, identities and experiences of its people. How are these two bodies of evidence related to each other? And how might they inform, and be informed by elite policies and political discourse?