Ian Law

I have been research-active in racism and ethnicity studies since 1978 when I began my PhD on racism and housing in Liverpool. Since then, I have worked in community relations, local government and higher education settings producing theoretically-informed, empirically-based policy-relevant research output. I am the founding director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, a centre established at the University of Leeds in 1998.

My primary research focus is global racism studies, building on the long tradition of critical race theory from W.E.B. Du Bois onwards. This involves the development of a new theory of the racialisation of the planet, polyracism, and associated geo-regional mapping of under-researched contexts. I am currently over half way through my primary research project of writing 10 books in 10 years, which will culminate with a synthesis of this new theory.

I teach racism and ethnicity studies at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I have also developed the MA in Racism and Ethnicity Studies, for which I am responsible.

I have supervised a wide range of PhD students in my field of racism and ethnicity. Topics have included the following, the English Defence League, Zainichi Koreans in Japan, refugees in Finland, Sikh/Muslim conflict, Chinese children, contemporary Black music, Sri Lankans in Britain, Greek diasporic identities, Pakistanis and crime, ethnicity and nationalism in Malaysia and African-Caribbean elders.