Multi/Race/Less/Ness

It is no longer radical to suggest that 'race' is a social construct; the idea has been prominent in social, political and philosophical discourse for decades. The bold challenge put forward by Jon Ivan Gill is that this idea is just a halfway house - questioning the fixity of race while doing nothing to lessen the trauma caused by its continued presence as a category of human identity. Can we truly end racism before we dissolve the notion of race itself, and if we do then what are we left with? In this book, Jon Ivan Gill puts forward the bold challenge of making the next step, to abolish the very category of race. Exposing the role that the philosophy of religion has played in the reification of race and racial categories, Gill looks to a world after and beyond the legacy of those ideas. With seemingly immutable notions of race still baked into our societies at the level of law and legislation, process philosophy can remind us that being, and how we define it, is dynamic and subject to change. If race as a category is impermanent, then it can be undone. Dispelling this powerful apparition would have deep significance for contemporary society, from cancel culture and reparations to mixed race identity and the suppression of ethnicity and nationality. At once a keen dissection of colonial apparatus and a practical, creative vision for a new way of organizing ourselves, this text is a fluent vision for moving beyond racial categories into a world free from the colonial structures that they reinforce. It is a vital contribution to contemporary discussions of race and racelessness.