Paper short abstract:

This paper responds to recent discussions regarding the contemporary relevance of the concept of "global apartheid". It reviews some of these discussions and seeks to open up an analysis of the nature, role and function of racism within contemporary global discourses of security and development.

Paper long abstract:

This paper responds to recent discussions regarding the contemporary relevance of the concept of "global apartheid". It begins by reviewing some of these discussions and situating them within the context of longer-term attempts to draw attention to the centrality of race/racism to global inequality. The paper then departs from some of the more empirically focussed attempts to map shifting global divides between populations or "races" across the world system (eg Dunaway and Clelland, 2017) by focussing on the role of racism within contemporary global rationalities and technologies of security and development.