Publications list
books and articles (by date)
Versions of most publications can be located or downloaded by clicking on the associated links.
Pitcher, B. (2023) 'Decolonization, Indigeneity, and the Cultural Politics of Race', Norwegian Archaeological Review.
An invited response to Ellott and Warren's 'Colonialism and the European Mesolithic'
Pitcher, B. (2023) 'The Popular Culture of Extinction and the Racialisation of Survival', New Formations, 107-8: 84-100.
An article that explores the theme of species extinction in contemporary popular culture. A pre-print version can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2022) Back to the Stone Age: race and prehistory in contemporary culture. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
This book explores how environmental and ecological crisis makes us reflect on the origins of humanity, and how these reflections are tangled up with our understandings of race.
Pitcher, B. (2020) 'The Touch of Iconoclasm', European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23 (3): 454-73.
An article about iconoclasm, museums, and the cultural politics of touch that uses prehistory as a resource of postcolonial critique. A pre-print version can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2020) 'Racism and Brexit: notes towards an antiracist populism', in Sivamohan Valluvan and Virinder S. Kalra (eds) Racial Nationalisms: Borders, Refugees and the Cultural Politics of Belonging. London: Routledge.
A chapter which aims to show how right-wing populists have managed to associate antiracism with establishment elites, and which tries to make the case for antiracism as a popular political project.
Pitcher, B. (2019) 'Racism and Brexit: notes towards an antiracist populism', Ethnic and Racial Studies. 42 (14): 2490-2509.
An article which aims to show how right-wing populists have managed to associate antiracism with establishment elites, and which tries to make the case for antiracism as a popular political project.
Pitcher, B. (2018) 'Race, Nationalism and Landscape Belonging: Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice', in Ben Stringer (ed.) Ruality Re-Imagined: Villagers, Farmers, Wanderers, Wild Things. Oro Editions: Novato, CA.
A book chapter about neolithic culture in Brexit Britain, with pictures. A pre-print version can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2016) 'Race, Debt and the Welfare State', New Formations, 87: 47-63.
An article on on the potential appeal of indebtedness as describing an alternative to racially exclusive forms of belonging to the social-democratic welfare state. A pre-print version can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2016) 'Belonging to a different landscape: repurposing nationalist affects', Sociological Research Online 21(1).
An open access article exploring how we might unravel nationalist attachments through alternative practices of landscape belonging. This article was shortlisted for the SAGE prize for Innovation/Excellence (2017)
Pitcher, B. (2015) The Politics of Multiculturalism: Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain (second edition).
The second edition - freely available in PDF format - of my book that considers what happens when nobody wants to be a racist anymore, focusing on the racial politics of the British state under New Labour.
Pitcher, B. (2014) Consuming Race. London: Routledge.
A book that examines the racialization of popular culture and everyday life, where race is not something we 'have' but something we 'do'. You can download the introduction here
Pitcher, B. ( 2013) 'The cultural politics of being a knob', in P. Bennett and J. Mcdougall (eds) Barthes' Mythologies Today: Readings in Contemporary Culture. London: Routledge.
A short chapter that suggests the phallus survives in our contemporary culture by masquerading as a knob. You can download a draft here.
Bramall, R. and Pitcher B. (2013) 'Policing the Crisis, or, why we love The Wire', International Journal of Cultural Studies. 16 (1): 85-98.
An article that uses Cedric Daniels to think about Stuart Hall (and vice versa). A pre-print version can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2012) 'Race and capitalism redux', Patterns of Prejudice 46 (1): 1-15.
An article that deals with a recent revival of interest in the relationship between race and capitalism, and in particular arguments that conceive of anti-racism as an agent of neoliberal capitalism. A pre-print version of this article can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2011) ‘Radical subjects after hegemony’, Subjectivity, 4 (1): 87-102.
An article that considers the theoretical blind-spot whereby the proponents of 'radical' political projects cannot account for the ways in which these projects have moved from the margins to the mainstream of contemporary culture. A pre-print version of this article can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2011) 'Race and Racism After Anti-Racism', Kritikos, 8 (Jan-Feb).
A short and accessible online summary of some of my writing on anti-racism.
Pitcher, B. (2011) 'Developing transnational race theory: a place for CRT?', in K. Hylton, A. Pilkington, P. Warmington and S. Housee (eds) Atlantic Crossings: International Dialogues on Critical Race Theory. Birmingham: CSAP.
A chapter that approaches what gets called 'critical race theory' from the direction of cultural studies.
Pitcher, B. (2010) ‘Obama and the Politics of Blackness: anti-racism in the “post-black” conjuncture’, Souls 12 (4): 313-22.
Pitcher, B. (2010) 'White no longer' Souls 12 (4): 354-7.
The lead article of a special edition commissioned by Manning Marable on 'post-racial politics and its discontents', with responses from US race theorists and activists Bill Fletcher Jr., Gerald Horne, Paula Ioanide, James Jennings, Rickey Hill and Mark Sawyer. The second article is a short response from me. A pre-print version of the lead article can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2009) 'The Global Politics of Multiculturalism', Development 52 (4): 456-9.
A short and accessible summary of some of my writing on multiculturalism.
Pitcher, B. (2009) The Politics of Multiculturalism: Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
A book that considers what happens when nobody wants to be a racist anymore, focusing on the racial politics of the British state under New Labour. The second edition of this book can be freely downloaded here.
Gunkel, H. and Pitcher, B. (2008) 'Editorial: Racism in the Closet - Interrogating Postcolonial Sexuality' in Racism in the Closet: Interrogating Postcolonial Sexuality, darkmatter (3).
Puar, J., Pitcher, B. and Gunkel, H. (2008) 'Q&A with Jasbir Puar' in Racism in the Closet: Interrogating Postcolonial Sexuality, darkmatter (3).
The introductory article and interview from an open access online journal issue I edited with Henriette Gunkel on the ways in which gay rights have become articulated to the nation and used as markers of European, Western or ‘civilizational’ superiority.
Pitcher, B. (2008) 'The Materiality of Race Theory' in Race/Matter: Materialism and the Politics of Racialization, darkmatter (2).
An open access online journal article thinking about the historical contexts of theoretical production.
Pitcher, B. (2006) ‘“Are You Thinking What We’re Thinking?” Immigration, Multiculturalism and the Disavowal of Racism in the Run-up to the 2005 British General Election’, Social Semiotics 16(4): 535-51.
An article about racial innuendo in British party political campaigning. A pre-print version can be downloaded here.
reviews
Pitcher, B. (2019) Review of Wiltshire Before Christ by Jeremy Deller for The Quietus
Pitcher, B. (2017) Review of How the Workers Became Muslims by Ferruh Yilmaz, for Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.
Pitcher, B. (2014) Review of Your Face in Mine by Joss Row for The Conversation.
Pitcher, B. (2013) 'Understanding "Race" and Ethnicity', review for Journal of Social Policy 42(2): 423-4. A pdf of this review can be downloaded here.
Pitcher, B. (2011) 'Walled States, Waning Sovereignty', review of Wendy Brown's book for darkmatter.
Pitcher, B. (2010) 'Darker than Blue', review of Paul Gilroy's book for darkmatter.
Pitcher, B. (2009) 'The Problem with White Trash’, Cultural Studies 23(3): 446-9. A version of this review of M. Wray's Not Quite White can be read here.
other writing
I used to write shorter articles on an occasional basis for darkmatter, which are collected here.
A copy of my PhD, ‘Multicultural Nationalism: New Labour and the Politics of Race and State’, can be downloaded here.