Open-access resources supporting the Black Lives Matter movement

As a team we support the Black Lives Matter movement and are committed to on-going anti-racism efforts and conversations within our work, our department, our discipline, our universities and our various communities around the world.

We’re also committed to open-access education in our project, and more broadly in academia, so we’ve pulled together some relevant (and free) resources on racism, anti-racism, and police brutality:

• Various academic publications about activism and police violence, from case studies in the US to Japan. They’re freely available online until 30^th September 2020.
• A 2005 review of anthropological contributions to the study of racism and anti-racism, which concludes with an agenda for the discipline to: critically confront its own history; engage with affirmative action and encourage diversity; restructure textbooks, bibliographies and pedagogy; conduct long-term research into the reproduction of inequities related to race; work on public engagement to disseminate research.
• The Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) is making a collection of short documentary and ethnographic films freely available until 30th June 2020. This includes ‘Treasured Moments’, a film documenting the film maker’s personal story of growing up mixed-race in the US. Register here to watch the films.
• The RAI will also be making films related to Black Lives Matter freely available on their Facebook page.
• “Why Anthropology has a moral duty to be at the forefront in normalizing racial equality”, a blog from a biological anthropology perspective.
• Transforming Anthropology, Journal of the Association of Black Anthropologists, publishing work that “interrogates the contemporary and historical construction of social inequities based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, nationality and other invidious distinctions”.
• A collection of materials “that can be used to teach the confluence of black and Chinese history in the 20th century” about the history of Black and African American connections with China from Harvard’s Fairbank Centre.
• Follow our UCL colleague Toyin Agbetu’s Pan African education-based organization Ligali. Like, share, subscribe to the YouTube channel and donate if you can to support their work in community education and empowerment.
• A list of 10 ways how non-black academics can value black lives. The list is US-focused but can apply to Universities in Europe and the UK as well.
• An Anti-Racist Reading List from Ibram X Kendi, “for people beginning their anti-racist journey”.

This is just a start – please get in touch if you have resources to add to the list.

-The ASSA Team