Race, ethnicity and cultural production

This article seeks to develop an approach to cultural production which takes racism seriously. We suggest that there has been a lack of attention to race and ethnicity in the booming research field of cultural production studies, and that the few good studies of race, ethnicity and cultural production have been somewhat marginalized. Following a section that outlines our understandings of ‘race’ and ethnicity, we outline the development of research on cultural production, differentiating various approaches according to the degree of attention that they afford to questions of power, inequality and social justice. We then survey the main themes that have emerged from cultural production studies regarding race and ethnicity, and outline some of the problems associated with such research. We argue that a theory of cultural production that adequately integrates race and ethnicity needs to combine analysis of micro and macro factors, structure and agency, and change and continuity.