Review of Culture and Tactics: Gramsci, Race, and the Politics of Practice by Robert F. Carley (State University of New York Press)

Abstract

In Culture and Tactics: Gramsci, Race, and the Politics of Practice, Robert Carley brings a wide array of theoretical and empirical study to make the claim that Antonio Gramsci was a critical race theorist, that Stuart Hall’s important theoretical contributions like articulation are necessarily Marxist to bring structure and agency, long "opposite ends" of the sociological spectrum together in dialectical terms, for one to build a foundation for his original theories. He does so too when uses Gramsci’s and his own work on race and ethnicity in early twentieth century Italy to bring light to the ideological aspects of today’s social movements of race and class. In doing so through his various methodologies, he introduces his theory of ideological contention to explain who social movement organizations organize their tactics and how those tactics influence how groups organize, or practice ideology. His theory of aporetic governmentality, built of the foundations of Michael Foucault and Eduardo Bonilla Silva elucidate the process of institutional racism and how is manifests at the cultural and individual level, bringing a much needed Marxist lens to the issues of race, class, and social movement theory. Carley succeeds in achieving an interdisciplinary work that encompasses the areas of research needed for scholarly work that not only analyze, but create innovate theories that add to the multiple fields of research.