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Skinfolk, but Not Kinfolk? Paradoxical Representation Among Ethnic Minority Conservative Political Elites in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2024

Neema Begum Open the ORCID record for Neema Begum [Opens in a new window] ,
Michael Bankole ,
Shardia Briscoe-Palmer Open the ORCID record for Shardia Briscoe-Palmer [Opens in a new window] ,
Dan Godshaw Open the ORCID record for Dan Godshaw [Opens in a new window]  and
Rima Saini Open the ORCID record for Rima Saini [Opens in a new window]
Neema Begum*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Michael Bankole
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, UK
Shardia Briscoe-Palmer
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Dan Godshaw
Affiliation:
School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Rima Saini
Affiliation:
Department of Criminology and Sociology, Middlesex University, London, UK
*
Corresponding author: Neema Begum; Email: [email protected]
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Extract

As the number of ethnic minority politicians increase across countries like the United Kingdom and the United States, so too have instances in which these officeholders act against the communities they descriptively represent. In this contribution, we introduce the concept of paradoxical representation which we argue functions through neoliberal, post-racial scripts of color-blindness and meritocracy. Similar to research on gender representation which calls into question assumptions that substantive representation will follow unproblematically from women’s descriptive representation (Celis and Childs 2012), we argue that ethnic minority representatives can act as “post-racial gatekeepers.” This means paradoxically working against rather than for marginalized ethnic minority groups (Saini, Bankole, and Begum 2023). Through political discourse and policymaking, these representatives construct and “gatekeep” hegemonic ideas around race, racism, gender, and migration.

Type
Critical Perspectives Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , September 2024 , pp. 745 - 750
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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