Devolving Black British

Abstract

This paper was part of a talk given to A-level students at Hammersmith and Fulham College, London in conjunction with the Black History Month of October 2003. The talk aimed to introduce students to a handful of key black and British Asian writers, texts and films across the postwar period using the notion of ‘devolution’. Spiralling outwards through three key symbolic locations – central London, the inner city and the suburbs – it hints at how imagined communities like ‘black’, ‘British’ and ‘black British’ have both evolved and devolved over the past fifty years.