Bolaji Balogun's Book Talk on on "Race and the Colour-Line: Boundaries of Europeannes in Poland"

Balogun sets out the foundational ideas about race and colonialism in Poland and relates them to the global manifestations that influenced them. Focusing on race and colonialism, the talk indicates a shift in global racial discourse – an understanding of the specificity of Polish racism that can transform and add to our understandings of race in the West. In doing so, the talk offers a brief theoretical and historical context of race-making in the so-called ‘peripheral sphere’, whilst outlining the ways in which race and colonialism have been framed specifically in early modern Poland and its empire in the Atlantic world.

 

To do this effectively, Balogun draws on archival resources - manuscripts, documents, and records - from Poland and other parts of Europe to theorize what he identifies as the three key manifestations of race and colonialism in Poland, namely Colonial global economy; Colonization; and Eugenics. These key manifestations allow him to recall discussions on race and colonialism from the margin to the centre in order to redirect them beyond the prevailing accounts of race and colonialism in the West. The talk excavates the veiled racialized and colonial structures within the Polish histories as a way of remapping the politics of race-making in Europe.

 

 

Bolaji Balogun is a Sociologist based in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield. He holds the prestigious Leverhulme Trust ECR Fellowship, and previously held the Leverhulme Trust Fellowship Abroad at Krakow University of Economics in Poland. His research focuses broadly on Colonisation, Race, and Racialisation in Central and Eastern Europe, with a specific focus on Poland. Bolaji’s academic publications have appeared in prestigious journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, The Sociological Review and Ethnic and Migration Studies. He is currently working on a monograph – Race and the Colour-Line: the Boundaries of Europeanness in Poland – that examines an understanding of race in Poland, commissioned by Routledge and funded by The Leverhulme Trust