Das verhängnisvolle Dreieck

Message in a bottle to the future! In this posthumously published book on the fateful triangle of race, ethnicity, and nation, the great sociologist and founder of cultural studies, Stuart Hall, traces how old hierarchies in our societies were broken down and oppressed minorities began to assert new forms of representation of cultural identity. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, the term "race" served to portray social differences based on skin color as natural and immutable. For Hall, however, the redefinitions enforced in the 20th century by the black civil rights movement and by immigrants in Western societies demonstrate how identities and prejudices can be transformed in the medium of language. They give reason to hope that in the migrant diaspora again and again.