OSP: Paul Gilroy - Postcolonial theory and diasporic identity

Paul Gilroy - blog tasks

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 170: Gilroy – Ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or you can access it online here using your Greenford Google login.

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) How does Gilroy suggest racial identities are constructed?

-Race can be seen as shared biological identities inherited from previous generations. Gilroy would argue that race makes the identity of oppressors and the oppressed seem fixed and uniform; that racial categories are caused by human interactions and as such those categories are subject to change. Around the world structures of political and social life have been constructed under race thinking.

2) What does Gilroy suggest regarding the causes and history of racism?

-As Gilroy sees race as a result of racism, the fact that these aspects of society are based upon race thinking is problematic, and as such there is scope to evaluate the equality of representations and identities created in the media.

3) What is ethnic absolutism and why is Gilroy opposed to it?

-Ethnic absolutism is a line of thinking which sees humans are part of different ethnic compartments, with race as the basis of human differentiation. Gilroy is opposed to ethnic absolutism as it is counter to his argument that racism causes race.

4) How does Gilroy view diasporic identity?

-Gilroy’s work focuses on the concept of the African diaspora. The term diaspora is taken from the Greek ‘dispersion’ meaning ‘scattering of seeds’.Diasporas are considered to comprise of members of

ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious groups who live in countries to which their ancestors migrated. Identities of individuals within a diaspora are formed over time, as a result of the historical, social and cultural relationships within the group and other groups.

5) What did Gilroy suggest was the dominant representation of black Britons in the 1980s (when the Voice newspaper was first launched)?

-In seeing the African diaspora in a wider context, Gilroy was challenging us to consider black culture and Britain – that ‘non-European traditional elements, mediated by Afro-America and the Caribbean, have contributed to new & distinct black culture amidst... Welsh, Irish, Scots and English.’ Gilroy argues that we need to take British slavery into account & consider the influence on history, culture and identity. However, in acknowledging the British slave trade as an essential component to British culture caused political issues in the 1980s.

6) Gilroy argues diaspora challenges national ideologies. What are some of the negative effects of this?

-Diaspora challenges national ideologies, through the commitment and loyalty to the origin nation or place. However, diasporic identities can also become trapped within a national ideology; diasporic cultural ideologies and practices exist within a national ideology based upon its social, economic and cultural integrations and as such there is a cultural difference with the diasporic identities.

7) Complete the first activity on page 3: How might diasporic communities use the media to stay connected to their cultural identity? E.g. digital media - offer specific examples.

-They can use social media to stay connect because they can comment and share their opinions freely about what is happening.

8) Why does Gilroy suggest slavery is important in diasporic identity?

-Gilroy also argues the importance of slavery to modernity and capitalism. The modern world was built upon a normalised view of slavery, particularly plantation slavery. Slavery was only rejected when it was revealed as incompatible with enlightened rationality and capitalist production. Gilroy argues that the figure of the black slave of ‘the Negro’ provided enlightened thinkers and philosophers an insight

into concepts of property rights, consciousness and art.

9) How might representations in the media reinforce the idea of ‘double consciousness’ for black people in the UK or US?

-Double consciousness provides more ways of understanding the world, but it places a great strain on black Americans as they consistently feel they are looking at themselves through the eyes of others; there is a ‘two-ness’ within the identity of the black American which is African diaspora which he argues is simultaneously outside and inside the modern world. Black people are outside modernity as they have been deigned freedom and full citizenship; it was ‘proved’ by supposedly rational race scientists that black people were less evolutionally developed than Europeans unreconciled.

10) Finally, complete the second activity on page 3: Watch the trailer for Hidden Figures and discuss how the film attempts to challenge ‘double consciousness’ and the stereotypical representation of black American women.

-The trailer shows how they are challenging double consciousness because they represent the reality of black American women as the reality it is.