All over Europe, asylum-seekers, immigrants and minorities are increasingly finding themselves under violent attack. Who are the perpetrators? What are their motives? To what extent are right-wing or neo-Nazi organizations involved? How do the authorities and the police respond? What are the roles of the media, the public opinion and anti-racist movements? What can be done to stop the violence? These are questions addressed in this volume by some of Europe's leading experts on racism and racist violence.

All over Europe, asylum-seekers, immigrants and minorities are finding themselves increasingly under violent attack. Causing death, injury, destruction and fear, the perpetrators are often applauded by locals while the police stand passively by. At other times, large numbers of ordinary citizens stand up against the violence and racism, and the authorities take firm action. Who are the perpetrators? What are their motives? To what extent are right-wing or neo-Nazi organisations involved? How do the authorities and the police respond, and to what effect? What are the roles of the media, public opinion and anti-racist movements? What can be done to stop the violence? These are questions addressed by some of Europe's leading experts on racism and racist violence. Some of the answers given shatter conventional wisdom about racist violence. This volume is the first to focus specifically on the violent aspects of racism in a European context.

Race in the Shadow of Law offers a critical legal analysis of European responses to institutional racism. It draws connections between contemporary legal knowledge practices and colonial systems of thought, arguing that many people of colour experience the law as a part of a racial problem, rather than a solution, to racial injustice. Based on a critical legal ethnography of anti-racism work in Europe, and with an emphasis on the German context, the book positions Black and anti-racist perspectives at the centre, rather than the margins, of critically thinking through the intersection of race and law. Combining this ethnography with comparative legal analysis, discourse analysis and critical race theory, the book develops a critical discussion of the European legal frameworks aimed at regulating racism, and particularly institutional racism, in policy and policing. In linking this critique to the transformative potential of social movements, however, it goes on to examine the strategic and creative possibility of disrupting conventional modes of engaging, and resisting, law.

Europe has seen a tremendous rise in popularity of new rightist political parties in the last two decades or so, claiming cultural supremacy of the so-called native Europeans over foreign immigrants. In this volume, European scholars from Russian to Britain have come together to examine the media and social and legal policies in an effort to determine the causes of this resurgence of rightist and anti-democratic ideologies. They furthermore suggest actions that might help combat racism more effectively.

Recoge: 1.Background: migrant workers in Europe - 2.The labour market, inquality and discrimination - 3.National policies against racism and discrimination - 4.Obstacles to progress - 5.Conclusions and strategic options - 6.References.