Les Back


Les Back is a professor of sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London and an author.

Biography

Les Back was born in Croydon in south London and studied at both undergraduate and postgraduate level at Goldsmiths, University of London. He received a PhD in social anthropology in 1991. He subsequently worked at the Institute of Education, Birkbeck College and the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham before returning to Goldsmiths in 1993.

Key studies

Back is the author of The Art of Listening, Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics and Culture, The Changing Face of Football: Racism, Identity and Multicuture in the English Game with T Crabbe and J. Solomos, New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms and Multiculture in Young Lives, Racism and Society and Race, Politics and Social Change. In addition he has edited three volumes The Auditory Cultures Reader, Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader and Invisible Europeans?: Black people in the ‘New Europe’''.
Back's work focuses on the issues of race, racism, popular culture and belonging, discussed with ethnographic research often based in south London. He also writes journalism contributing regularly to The Guardian, Times Higher Educational Supplement and the New Humanist as well as contributing to on-line magazines including openDemocracy.net and Eurozine.