This article investigates why Gramsci's theories and concepts have a discrete relevance to the study of race and ethnicity in contemporary contexts. Two theoretical points emerge from the investigation. First, through Gramsci's work, Hall's approach to the structural/cultural theory problem provides an important mediation for theoretical approaches to race. Hall is then able to demonstrate that the racialization of labor and the coercion of workers in colonial and neocolonial contexts, with regard to the “global south” was the rule and not the exception. Second, through an historical and discursive approach, I demonstrate how Gramsci's analysis of politics and political strategies took race into account. I contend that Gramsci's perspective on race facilitated Hall's ability to deploy Gramsci's theoretical framework and concepts.

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This paper suggests that AK Thompson’s text be viewed through the twin lenses of what I describe as “open referentiality” and “reconfigured temporalities” in order to broadly understand the pedagogical and epistemological contributions of his work. I argue that Thompson’s work, at the pedagogical level, provides several reference points through which readers are invited to consider how theories, concepts, and the traditions that they are embedded in can be reinterpreted in the context of contemporary forms of social struggle, protest, demonstrations, and direct action. I connect the pedagogical aspects of Thompson’s work to their epistemological underpinnings arguing that Thompson’s work produces a phenomenology of thought and action that, taken in consort with his pedagogical invitation to reconsider aspects of radical and critical traditions, provides a riot in the epistemological frameworks that settle or partition (radical and critical) traditions of thought. I explore this idea by discussing how Black Bloc White Riot provided a means for me to rethink the contributions of Antonio Gramsci to contemporary social movement studies. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2021 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.] KEYWORDS: AK Thompson, Black Bloc White Riot, Critical Theory, Radical Theory, Direct Action, Antonio Gramsci.

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