Liz Fekete
Liz Fekete is Director of the Institute of Race Relations and an Advisory Editor of Race & Class. She is the author of A Suitable Enemy: racism, migration and Islamophobia in Europe (Pluto press, 2009) and Europe’s Fault Lines: racism and the rise of the Right (Verso, 2018) which won the Bread and Roses award for Radical Publishing 2019 . Liz was part of the CARF Collective, and an expert witness at the Basso Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) on asylum and the World Tribunal on Iraq. She has over forty years experience working with organisations, in the UK and across Europe, campaigning for police accountability, recently researching the IRR study, Paramilitary Policing Against the People: Colonial Continuities and the Struggle from Below. To contact Liz please complete the form and mark FAO Liz.
Riz Hussain
Deputy Director. Riz has administrative and engagement roles at IRR, helping to coordinate the organisation and leading on fundraising. He was previously Anti-Racism officer at the TUC, where he led on the Anti-Racism Task Force and organised the annual Black Workers Conference. Riz, who in 2011 set up the anti-Islamophobia charity Jawaab, has a wealth of experience within the voluntary sector, and a long track record of work with BME communities, trades unions and social movements. At IRR, he continues to engage on issues of the far Right, Islamophobia, anti-racism, employment and labour rights. To contact please complete the form and mark FAO Riz.
Sophia Siddiqui
Joint Editor of Race & Class. As a leading voice on anti-racist feminism, Sophia writes and lectures widely on race, gender and migration in the UK and Europe and has assisted trade unions, feminist organisations and universities in developing an intersectional approach. Her article on ‘Reproductive Racism’ was published in Race & Class and she has contributed a chapter to Anti-racism in Modern Britain (Manchester University Press, forthcoming) and is one of fourteen progressive feminists to be interviewed in Left Feminisms: conversations on the personal and political (Lawrence Wishart, 2023). Sophia is on the expert advisory panel of APPEAL’s research project on non-unanimous jury verdicts and racial justice. To contact please complete the form and mark FAO Sophia.
Jessica Perera
Researcher on the UK programme. Jessica works part time at IRR, researching issues related to poverty and inequality in multiracial working-class communities, while undertaking a DPhil at the University of Oxford. Jessica is the author of two IRR reports The London Clearances: Race, Housing and Policing and How Black Working-class Youth are Criminalised and Excluded in the English School System. She works closely with Black Learning Achievement and Mental Health (BLAM UK). To contact please complete the form and mark FAO Jessica Perera.
Kaiisha Kukendra
Communications Coordinator. Kaiisha supports the Institute’s work across communications and its Race & Class journal. She has worked within the charity sector in communications and advocacy for grassroots organisations such as NSUN (National Survivor User Network), Hackney Migrant Centre, and in the past volunteered and contributed to IRR News. Kaiisha is interested in highlighting the impact of racial and gendered state violence and surveillance on marginalised communities and finding alternatives for care and support in transformative justice and mutual aid. To contact please complete the form and mark FAO Kaiisha.
Antoinette Maito
Finance Operations (part time). Antoinette works part time at IRR primarily on IRR’s finance but also providing vital support in the administration and general running of the organisation. She brings to her new role in the charitable sector, many years’ experience of working in finance for various government organisations. She has a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in International Accounting and Finance. Though her passion is to pursue a career in finance, Antoniette has a strong interest in research and journals on race and class. To contact please complete the form and mark FAO Antoinette.