Gilroy’s conviviality concept is contested by critics who doubt race can be transcended.

Evidence

Yet, perhaps as a result of its popularity – having become, per Wise and Noble “one of the latest groovy things” within academia (Wise and Noble 2016, 423) – conviviality is hotly contested, widely misunderstood and has been “thinned out theoretically” (de Noronha 2022, 166), often stripped of its radical and political potential as part of the so-called “convivial turn” (Neal et al. 2013). Some of this contestation surrounds Gilroy’s arguments against race (2000) as he suggests that “conviviality” and “convivial culture” can lead to racial and ethnic differences becoming “unremarkable”, “insignificant” and “banal” (Gilroy 2005, 105). Critics such as Saldanha (see also Carter and Virdee 2008) have subsequently accused Gilroy of believing “too easily in the possibility” of race’s “transcendence” (Saldanha 2006, 9). — Amit Singh, “Carnal conviviality” and the end of…, 15

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies what the ‘convivial turn’ means and the specific scholarly dispute over Gilroy’s version of conviviality — that racial difference can become ‘unremarkable’ and ‘banal’.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the specific mechanism by which conviviality is claimed to make difference ‘banal’ rather than transcended — what exactly do critics like Saldanha argue conviviality misses about power?
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Amit Singh, “Carnal conviviality” and the end of…, 15
• XREF: connects to: Gilroy’s conviviality means ease with diversity without reasserting fixed ethnic identities. — Sivamohan Valluvan, Conviviality and Multiculture: A…, 8

Related

• Gilroy’s conviviality means ease with diversity without reasserting fixed ethnic identities. (similarity 0.88)
• The convivial turn emerged against the pessimism of both policy debates and ethnicity scholarship. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Gilroy’s conviviality means ease with diversity without reasserting fixed ethnic identities. #expands (0.90) — Sivamohan Valluvan, Conviviality and Multiculture, 8