Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation

Note: This article was tagged for deletion on Wikipedia under Criteria for speedy deletion (CSD): No indication of importance (A7).

The Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation (SPRC) is an interdisciplinary research centre at University College London (UCL), located within the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies in London, United Kingdom. Established in 2019, the SPRC promotes research, teaching, and public engagement on the historical and contemporary dynamics of racism, racialisation, and racial inequality.

The Centre is named after the nineteenth-century abolitionist and lecturer Sarah Parker Remond, reflecting a commitment to critical scholarship on race and its histories.

History

The Centre was founded in 2019 following institutional initiatives and student advocacy at UCL calling for deeper engagement with the legacies of empire, colonialism, and structural racism. It was subsequently named in honour of Sarah Parker Remond to recognise her contributions to abolitionism and transatlantic intellectual life.

From its inception, the SPRC has functioned as a hub for interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together scholars from literature, geography, sociology, history, and cultural studies.

Mission and research

The Centre supports research into the social, cultural, political, and epistemological dimensions of race, with an emphasis on historically grounded and theoretically informed approaches to racialisation.

Research themes have included:

  • Race, science, and knowledge production  
  • Colonial and postcolonial histories  
  • Environmental humanities and climate justice  
  • Media, culture, and representation  
  • Health inequalities and structural racism  

The SPRC hosts seminars, workshops, and collaborative research initiatives for academics and early-career researchers.

Teaching

The Centre is closely associated with postgraduate teaching at UCL, particularly through the MA in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies, which examines global histories of race-thinking and their contemporary implications.

It also supports doctoral researchers through interdisciplinary networks, reading groups, and training events.

Organisation

Directors

  • Gargi Bhattacharyya — Director  
  • Paul Gilroy — Founding Director and Emeritus Professor

The Centre includes lecturers, professors, visiting fellows, and research associates drawn from across UCL and partner institutions.

Public engagement

The SPRC organises public lectures, conferences, workshops, and cultural events featuring scholars, artists, and policymakers. These activities aim to connect academic research with public debates on race and social justice in the United Kingdom and internationally.

The Centre has also produced a podcast series and collaborative projects designed to broaden public understanding of racial inequality and its historical roots.

Reception

Since its founding, the Centre has been described as a significant institutional development in the growth of race and postcolonial studies within UK higher education, particularly in relation to interdisciplinary collaboration and postgraduate training.

Publications

Research by Centre affiliates appears in peer-reviewed journals, edited collections, and scholarly monographs across sociology, geography, literary studies, and cultural theory.  

The Centre also disseminates research through working papers, public reports, and recorded lectures.

See also

  • Critical race theory  
  • Postcolonial studies  
  • Decolonisation of the curriculum  
  • Race and ethnicity in the United Kingdom