This project responds to calls from scholars, people affected by racism and practitioners to draw more scholarly attention to the complexities and issues of contemporary racism. It captures our understanding of racism, racialization, diversity and anti-racism.

This project contributes to debates on socio-spatial and racial hierarchisation and struggles over practices, meanings and subjects of urban space. Based on methodological triangulation using document analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviews, this study examines how urban anti-racist groups and urban governments conceptualize, problematize and counter racism through different grassroots and institutional practices in Zurich by giving insight into the roles, formations, histories and challenges of local racial groups, their different practices and difficulties to evoke change in cities.

Using an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach, this project adds to a deeper understanding of the complexities of racism by analyzing anti-racist and diversity practices to show the challenges to addressing one of society’s most pressing problems. The objective is to contribute knowledge to (1) the different understandings of racism, race, diversity and urban space from the perspectives of local grassroots initiatives and city administrations; (2) the complexities and challenges of discussing race, racism and implementing changes; and (3) the differences between urban anti-racist and diversity practices.

This project is part of a comparative Postdoc.Mobility project titled "Who speaks? Who acts? Who listens? An analysis of anti-racist groups and their understanding of (anti)racism, race and diversity in Zurich, Berlin and Oakland" funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF).