This book is the culmination of my work over a number of years. One of the pleasures of marking that is the welcome opportunity to acknowledge some of the key people who I have worked with, learnt from and probably leant on at times: Gargi Bhattacharyya, Sara De Jong, Max Farrar, Vicki Harman, Michael Keith, Andrew King, Eugene McLaughlin, Andy Pilkington, Sarah Neal, Steve Pile, John Solomos, Sophie Watson and Kath Woodward.

A part of Chapter Two was presented at a seminar at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin; I am obliged to Sarah Masouz for the invitation and to participants for their comments. A version of Chapter Three was presented at a workshop on Racism and anti-racism in Nordic societies in Stockholm. I am grateful to Suvi Keskinen for inviting me and the participants for their feedback. Chapter Four was part of a conversation around the journal Sociology organised by Nasar Meer and Anoop Nayak, and I thank them for including me in that. Chapter Eight was first drafted for a Leverhulme Trust funded series on Framing Financial Crisis in Europe. I am indebted to Suman Gupta for including me in the seminars and to all the participants, especially Mike Hajimichael and Tao Papaioannou, who made it such a lively event to be part of.

I appreciate the helpful comments and support from the anonymous reviewers of the book proposal and the draft manuscript. I also want to record my thanks to Alison Shaw for raising the idea with me, and to Victoria Pittman and all the staff at Policy Press for helping me through to the end, even when it took a little longer than they expected.