Confronting whiteness: white Britons, complicity and the white racial identity

Utilising decolonial and Critical Race thought to explore how white Britons relate to and understand whiteness. This project will begin to address a gap in scholarship by understanding racial hierarchy through the lens of whiteness, viz white Britons' understandings of their own whiteness and racial experience. The research will also interrogate whiteness as a far-reaching and deep-rooted social issue.

Through studying a sample of white-British UK political party members, this research will follow a two-phased, mixed-methods approach combining surveys and in-depth interviews to explore how participants interpret and relate to their raced identities. Understanding this is of importance in developing insight into how whiteness is experienced and interpreted at an individual (not solely structural) level. Using a sample drawn from UK political party membership, this research will provide insight into how whiteness is embodied across the political spectrum and will develop understanding around
whether political polarity exists in questions of race and whiteness.