The Denial of Difference: refraining anti‐racist praxis

Abstract This article makes a case for the ‘strategic essentialism’ of anti‐racist practice. It reconceptualises anti‐racism by examining the intersections of race and social difference. The article begins with an interrogation of the processes and/or strategies of denying of race in academic discourses and public social practices, and the resistant politics that affirm race and difference. It discusses how in the context of racialised experience(s) (e.g. denial of race and racial difference), anti‐racist knowledge is/can be located. In making race visible the article also points to ensuing theoretical contradictions. A particular focus is on the interface of ‘science’ and the production of race knowledge. Lastly, how to understand social oppressions more broadly while still keeping race at the centre of anti‐racism politics is a key question in reframing integrative anti‐racist practice.