De terugkeer van Alledaags Racisme. Een gesprek met Philomena Essed over alledaags racisme, wetenschap en activisme

In recent societal debates on racism in the Netherlands, cultural anthropologist Philomena Essed has become one of the key faces of Dutch research on racism. Over three decades ago, Essed published a monograph entitled Alledaags Racisme (Everyday Racism), which gave rise to substantial debate within and beyond academia on the existence of racism – especially of a more implicit, everyday variation – in the Netherlands. For the first time since 1984, Alledaags Racisme is granted a new edition and has arguably only gained in relevance in a time when issues regarding race-ethnicity are increasingly politicized (e.g. the ‘Black Pete’ debate; ethno-racial profiling by police forces). Discussing – but also going beyond – this debate, this article reports a conversation between Julian Schaap and Essed on contemporary everyday racism, the sociology of race-ethnicity, and the epistemology and methodology of research that is distinctly political.