CoDE

On 25 March we screened Khartoum, a mesmerising meditation on belonging, memory, and ruin. The film’s landscapes, both urban and elemental, seem alive, whispering that the earth and mountains made its people. Khartoum unfolds through five interwoven lives, tracing a song of land, memory, and survival. Khadballah comes from a place where “the earth and trees sing,” a world of rhythm and resilience that pulses beneath the chaos of the city, beehive of routines and corners. Wilson and Lokain prowl like lions of their own realm, guardians of a fragile kingdom. Little boys speak of jets, wars, and the folly of adults, asking the simplest and most devastating question: “Why did you start all this?” Their words expose the greed and power that corrupts, epic, Shakespearean. Majdi, with his shisha and pigeons, flies in dreams over Khartoum, imagining a city untouched by war. His joy before conflict was weekends, socials, shared laughter, now a haunting echo of what was lost. The film paints kingdoms and cultures, diverse, interwoven by struggle and hope. It invites us to stand tall amid devastation, to feel the pulse of the land and the longing of its people, their defiance, their grace, their inheritance of song. Big thank you to my brilliant colleagues in the University and Museum for co-organising the film screening of Khartoum. Privileged to hear insights from the chairperson of The Society for Study of the Sudans UK, Aziz el Nur. In all the time I've organised events you rarely get a full house for a free event. All 90 seats were taken for our event. Please watch Khartoum to learn about Sudan. The stories, the people, the shooting and editing, the resistance, the pain and joy...makes it a riveting watch, encourages you to research the war, as well as Sudanese histories, identities and films. This event was a collaboration between Voices and Visions of Sudan, the Manchester Institute of Education Anti-Racism Network, and the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity. Voices and Visions of Sudan – A Cinematic Reflection by Sudanese film curator Talal Afifi and presented by Almas Art Foundation, Aya and Maona Art. Sponsored by the BFI.

📘 Book launch: Interrogating the Global Social Challenges 📅 Wed 8 April 2026, 6.45–8.45pm 📍 International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester 🎟️ Free – register via Eventbrite (link in bio) 🥂 Drinks and light refreshments 📚 Attendees receive an exclusive 50% discount on the book. All welcome to celebrate the launch of our new book which brings together the work of over 15 colleagues from our department, alongside expert collaborators, addressing some of the most urgent global social challenges facing us today: from decolonisation and inequality to climate, migration, gender and social change. #BookLaunch #Sociology #GlobalChallenges #PublicSociology #ManchesterEvents #AcademicBooks @uomsocialsciences @uomhums @bridget.byrne.397 @meghanetinsley @uom.bass

In case you missed it! You can now catch a recording of this event on the @georgepadmoreinstitute ’s YouTube page: “An online talk on 19 February 2026 which explored the materials and histories of black activist publishing in the UK from the 1970s. Organized by the George Padmore Institute and Arielle Lawson of People’s Papers (@peoplespapers ) and co-sponsored by the Institute of Race Relations (@instituteracerelations ) and the Centre for the Dynamics of Ethnicity (@codemcr ), this event focused on the archival legacy and continued significance of the black radical press — as made up of grassroots newspapers, political journals and other activist print publications — in 1970s Britain and what we can still learn from these materials today. The Speakers: Leila Hassan Howe is a British editor, writer and anti-racism activist. A founding member of the Brixton-based Race Today Collective, Leila edited the Race Today magazine from 1985. The publication played a pivotal role in highlighting the issues faced by black communities in the UK as well as race relations across the world from 1973 until its closure in 1988. Nigel de Noronha is a researcher at the Centre for the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) at the University of Manchester. His main research focus is on housing, race and migration, and he uses archival methods to explore the historical context of the persistent housing inequalities experienced by racialised minorities. Sophia Siddiqui works at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), an anti-racist charity working to inform the struggle for racial justice. She is the joint editor of the IRR’s international journal Race & Class, and she writes on issues related to the far right and community resistance. George Padmore Institute The GPI is an archive preserving the stories of black, Caribbean, African and Asian activist communities. To learn more about our work and sign up to our newsletter, please visit ”

Please join us for the next @codemcr seminar: 🗣️'Sexual Violence in Racial Capitalism' - Alison Phipps (York St John University) 📅1-2.30pm, Thurs 23 April 2026 📌Hybrid (Manchester and online) 🎟️ See Events link in bio for more details and to register Abstract What are the relationships between sexual violence, sexual fear, social control, and surplus value? What is the role of sexual violence as racial capitalist systems corral, mould, use, and discard the workers they require? Sexual violence is key to the enclosure of bodies, and to the extraction of productive and socially reproductive labour. Sexual violence is a technique by which resources are expropriated, and communities and peoples terrorised and dispossessed. Sexual violence is also a pretext for the disposal of unwanted populations through criminal punishment, militarised border regimes, neo-colonial wars, and genocide. This talk is based on the forthcoming book Sexual Violence in Racial Capitalism (Manchester University Press) which brings together assorted case studies including the Early Modern witch hunts, reproductive accumulation in transatlantic slavery, sexual harassment in drop-shipping warehouses and sweatshops, far-right Islamophobia and ‘anti-gender’ activism, the manosphere, and the Gaza genocide. It describes the coloniality of sexual violence, situating both acts of sexual violence and ideas of sexual threat within an analysis of racial capitalist property relations and the split colonial/modern psyche. It also argues that violence is necessary because power is incomplete: from bodily to planetary scales, resistance persists.

📝New article Seán Carey’s latest article in Anthropology Today explores how Bangladeshi restaurateurs on Brick Lane navigate their faith and commercial pressures to serve alcohol. Through the idea of ‘pragmatic piety’, the research reveals: 🍽️ How alcohol is negotiated in a halal business context 🕌 How personal piety shifts across the life course 📍 North–south differences in Brick Lane’s food and drinking cultures 🏙️ How gentrification is reshaping the curry economy 🔗 Read more via DOI: 10.1111/1467-8322.70054 @manchestersociology

Announcing our speakers! We’ll be joined by a stellar lineup of participants — Leila Hassan Howe, Nigel de Noronha (@codemcr ) and Sophia Siddiqui (@instituteracerelations ) — who will be speaking about their lived experiences and archival research on the Black Radical Press in 1970s Britain and its continued significance today. Swipe through to learn more about them and don’t forget to sign up to join us online on February 19th at 3pm! Eventbrite link in bio.

📚In the latest issue of Race & Class, Siobhan O’Neill looks at an under-researched aspect of state violence: police pursuits. According to the IOPC, in the last ten years there have been 299 police-related road traffic fatalities in England and Wales. O’Neill's research emerges out of community organising with the #EndPolicePursuits (EPP) campaign and Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) 📎Read the full article via the linktree in our bio.

Join us for the next @codemcr seminar: Denaturalisation and Modernity: Drugs and Racial Capitalism Speaker: Professor Anne Pollock (King’s College London) 🗓 Thurs 19 February 2026 🕐 1:00–2:30 PM 📍 Hybrid – Arthur Lewis Building, University of Manchester and Online From colonial sugarcane to global cocaine markets, psychoactive substances have shaped racial capitalism and modernity. Anne Pollock explores these entanglements and their implications for today’s global order. 🎟️ See our Events page (linktree in bio) for more details and to register.

Updates from a powerful and energising intergenerational dialogue event on South Asian Feminist Activism in Manchester this week. We screened the film ‘Immigration Wives and Fiancé Campaign: Asian Women Speak Out!’ (1986) followed by a discussion from women who were some of founding members of the campaign and their reflections on the continuities of racism, patriarchy and state violence from the 1980s to today. Thank you to the pioneers of the struggle, Nadia Siddiqui, Kinni Kansara and Tandrima Mazumdar who critically linked the discussion to recent migrant women’s organising @womensvoicesmcr @herstorysalford . Thank you also to @codemcr , @nwfilmarchive and @mcrmuseum !

Join us at the second reading of the @faberbooks lecture: Pigeonholed: Creative freedom as an act of resistance - Gary Younge 📅 Thurs 16 Oct 2025, 7pm (doors 6.30pm) 📍Friends’ Meeting House, Manchester 🎫Tickets & more info on Faber website - see EVENTS link in bio ABOUT THE LECTURE ‘Responsible but not beholden; substantial as well as symbolic; sympathetic but not pandering; political but not proscriptive: there’s not an awful lot of wiggle room there but it’s the space in which I feel I need to both operate and expand.’ In this incisive and moving personal lecture, one of the nation’s leading political voices explores what has been termed as the ‘burden of representation’. Younge analyses the pressures exerted upon the relatively small group of people from underrepresented communities who break through into elite spaces and the expectations that may come from above, below, within and outwith, from those with power and those without. These are issues that have framed, frustrated, inspired and inflected his entire working life as a writer. Sharing his experiences, Younge offers reflections on how to navigate representation, power and responsibility whilst keeping your job, your sanity and your freedom both as a human being and as a writer.

SAVE THE DATE for another upcoming film screening! 🎥 October 15th, 2025 @ The Classroom (Top Floor), @mcrmuseum Organised by Sandhya Sharma and Sugandha Agarwal (@sugandhagrawal ) @officialuom , this event will be an in-person screening of the archival film ‘Immigration Wives and Fiancé Campaign: Asian Women Speak Out!’ (1986) that spotlights the Manchester-based South Asian feminist movement of the 1980s, formed in response to state immigration injustices. This event is supported by CoDE (Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity @codemcr ). Following the screening, will be a vital conversation with three Manchester-based South Asian feminists: Nadia Siddiqui, Women’s Voices @womensvoicesmcr Kinni Kansara Tandrima Mazumdar, HerStory @tandrimamazumdar Agenda: 14:30 to 15:30 - welcome, refreshments, opening comments and film screening 15:30 to 17:00 - discussion/Q&A The event will highlight the oft-neglected activism of South Asian feminists in the 1980s and discuss the history of their anti-racist resistance in the UK, bridging it to contemporary struggles and solidarities. We hope to have discussions on how solidarity can be built across ethnicities, generations, and movements. This discussion is particularly urgent in the current anti-migrant political climate and the weaponisation of ‘the violence against women and girls’ narrative by the far right. We recognise that there is an ongoing need to mobilise against racism and examine pathways toward collective action and inter-community connection.

Join us for the next in person meeting of our Early Career Researcher Network: 🗣 Activism & Academia (followed by 'Pigeonholed', Faber lecture by Gary Younge) 📆Thurs 16 Oct 2025, Manchester To register, see EVENTS link in bio. Our early career network meetings aim to create space for early career researchers of 'race' and ethnicity to share experiences and insights, and to create connections. The focus of this meeting will be on engaging in activism from within academia. All participants are invited to stay on after our buffet tea for Gary Younge's Faber lecture 'Pigeonholed'. If needed, we can reimburse UK travel expenses (standard class public transport)and overnight accommodation (up to £100) to allow you to attend.