The 2000s saw resurgent assimilationist nationalism displace the optimism of multicultural theorizing.

Evidence

Writing in 2009, in the context of an introduction to her collection of essays discussing Stuart’s contribution to the analysis of race and ethnicity, Claire Alexander noted poignantly that the “relative optimism of the ‘new ethnicities’ moment (had) undoubtedly been superseded in the … climate of fear, religious and ethnic retrenchment and the resurgent assimilationist nationalism of 21st century Britain.” She goes on to quote Stuart’s own disillusionment at that moment, as he had come to feel that the points of reference around which he had organized his political perspective were crumbling, as the balance of social forces now came to be “stacked against hope,” particularly in the wake of the hostile backlash against the Runnymede Trust’s Report on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 156

Categorization

• QUESTION: The hostile backlash against the Parekh report is a specific historical episode worth chasing — it likely set the political conditions for the War on Terror-era Islamophobia discourse that followed.