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Beyond Kenmure Street: lifecycles of antiracism amongst activists in Glasgow

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Joel White, Professor Peter HopkinsORCiD

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Abstract

This paper examines antiracist activism in Glasgow, Scotland, through the anchor of the 2021 ‘Battle of Kenmure Street,’ when residents and activists stopped a Home Office immigration raid. Drawing on twenty interviews and long-term activist–scholar engagement with groups connected to this mobilisation, the paper explores how participants make sense of both the euphoric high of such events and the longer-term organisational and personal challenges that undergird them. Drawing on participants’ own usage and critique of language from ‘movement lifecycle’ models, we build a careful critique of how this rubric can flatten activist experience, obscuring the gendered, racialised, and classed dimensions of antiracist struggle. Here, activists draw upon ideas of hope, grief, purpose, and care to offer alternative ways of understanding how movements are sustained or falter. Ultimately, we argue for grounding antiracist theory in everyday organizing while critically historicizing the strategies employed. Through this, we can build antiracist theory that emerges from and (crucially) contributes to antiracist struggle.

Publication metadata

Author(s): White J, Hopkins P

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Ethnic and Racial Studies

Year: 2026

Pages: Epub ahead of print

Online publication date: 16/01/2026

Acceptance date: 16/12/2025

Date deposited: 04/06/2026

ISSN (print): 0141-9870

ISSN (electronic): 1466-4356

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2025.2607842

DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2025.2607842

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