Ambalavaner Sivanandan, Tech and Anti-Racism – by John Narayan

What does tech have to do with anti-racism? Why do we dismiss complex economics at our peril? And how do global struggles for justice connect to those at the local level? John Narayan  – Chair of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations, and a lecturer in European and International Studies at King’s College London – introduces us to Ambalavaner Sivandanan, or “Siva”, a giant of anti-racism who showed us how to truly understand discrimination, and how we can best confront it, together – not just at the interpersonal level or the level of language alone, but through communities of resistance, with an eye firmly focussed on capitalism, colonialism and technology. Here, John celebrates and unpacks the ideas within Siva’s 1989 essay “New Circuits of Imperialism”, which saw him address racism, capitalism and tech at a globalscale, and relate thisback to state racism at the national level.

Siva, John says, shows us the scope for a truly anti-racist sociology, teaching us that the struggles of “Indian farmers for land rights, those of indigenous Amazonians, and those of Grenfell Tower fire survivors” are ultimately connected – united by “a story of people harmed and marginalised by the market state; and confronting it”.

Find out more at thesociologicalreview.org

Episode Readings

• Communities of Resistance: writings on Black Struggles for Socialism – by Ambalavaner Sivandanan (originally published: 1990)
• From Resistance to Rebellion: Asian and Afro-Caribbean Struggles in Britain – by Ambalavaner Sivandanan (1982)
• New Circuits of Imperialism – by Ambalavaner Sivandanan (Race & Class, 1989)
• The Institute of Race Relations and the journal Race & Class
• More about the history of the journal “Race & Class”
• A collection of essays in memory of Ambalavaner Sivanandan – by the Sociological Review Foundation (2018)
• Obituary of Ambalavaner Sivanandan – by Gary Younge (The Guardian, 2018)
• Black Bodies, Broken Worlds – by Vijay Prashad (CounterPunch, 2014)
• More about the background of the “The Pentonville Five” story (Modern Records Centre, The University of Warwick)

Episode Credits

• Author: John Narayan
• Producer: Alice Bloch
• Sound: Emma Houlton
• Music: Joe Gardner
• Artwork: Kieran Cairns-Lowe

Production Note: This episode was recorded in 2024.