Jackson, Joseph Horgan (2011) Devolving black British theory : race and contemporary Scottish literature. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The ‘black British movement’ is a consolidation of a diverse range of political, social and cultural priorities into a collective. Some of the more salient priorities include the opposition to British racism and imperialism, a challenge to hegemonic power and the invisibility of white ethnicity, and the eventual annihilation of the race concept itself. To ‘devolve’ this movement is to acknowledge some vital shortcomings in its critical practice. Firstly, an interrogation is needed of the assumptions that underpin the term ‘British’, specifically within a critique of racism and its derivatives. Secondly, the movement currently fails to thoroughly spatialise black British critique beyond the urban ‘metropole’ of London, and to a lesser extent, Birmingham; for instance, to the ‘margins’ of Scotland’s political, cultural and social milieu. Here, Scottish devolution provokes questions of how black Britishness might have become co-opted into a broader legitimation of ‘British’ culture. Literature has been a key site of contestation for black British cultural theory. Contemporary Scottish literature ‘writes back’ to the British management of difference through state-led multiculturalism and nationalism. Equally, the ‘Scottish Myth’ of egalitarianism, racelessness and a laissez-faire expectation of civic nationalism in Scotland are challenged by texts which foreground Scottish racism, whiteness and ethnocultural nationalism. In short, the texts featured herein expose and renegotiate the political practices of race, racism and culturalism in the context of two discourses of nation: Britain and Scotland.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Scottish literature, Racism in literature, Race in literature, Ethnology -- Scotland, Decentralization in government -- Scotland
Official Date:	September 2011
Dates:	Date Event September 2011 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Gardiner, Michael, 1970- ; Dabydeen, David
Sponsors:	Arts & Humanities Research Council (Great Britain) (AHRC)
Extent:	iv, 326 leaves
Language:	eng

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