This programme brings together research which delves into both the very consistency of racist social relations, viewed as one of the forms that interethnic social relations can take, and how racism is manifested, in particular through processes of discrimination or segregation. Racism today is partly expressed through inconspicuous processes, at times difficult to percept. Certain discursive forms (such as “veiled racism”) go so far as to counter the anti-racist ideology. For much time now, analyses of power relations based on gender and “race” have highlighted an overall creation/ naturalisation of “differences” in social processes. In parallel, the colonial past has become seen as less “past” than formerly viewed, which has allowed renewed understanding of the construction of contemporary racism in post-colonial situations. A main component of this research programme is the analysis, mainly from a socio-economic perspective, of inequalities and processes of discrimination or segregation, which are viewed as stemming from social relations of “race”, gender and class. In this way, two paths of study are forged, the first of which aims to analyse discrimination objectively through statistics, and the second of which focuses on the subjective experience of discrimination.
