Digitally Mapping Caribbean London: Urban Strolls in the 1950S BBC Radio Archive

Abstract

This article uses Geographic Information System (GIS) tools to digitally map depictions of urban London by Caribbean writers, including George Lamming, Andrew Salkey, and Carlisle Chang. Through extensive archival work, including the examination of numerous heretofore unexplored BBC scripts of the 1940s and 1950s, this article identifies a genre of ‘urban stroll’ narratives written and broadcast by Caribbean writers of the period. By mapping these texts, this article revises critical stereotypes about the ways that Caribbean immigrants inhabited and represented London, rejecting the focus on the precarious urban narrative. This article also suggests ways that digital mapping can facilitate new reading practices that take into account metropolitan spatial relations and their attendant power dynamics.