Living Suspiciously: Contingent Belonging in British South Asian Theater

Ariane De Waal

doi:10.3390/h9030085

Abstract

This article investigates representations of national belonging in British South Asian theater productions after the 2005 London bombings. It identifies a significant yet hitherto underresearched corpus of plays that show the formation of the UK “home front” in the war on terror from the perspective of postcolonial subjects who are deemed threatening rather than worthy of protection. After discussing the construction of British South Asian citizens as suspicious subjects, the article analyzes two plays that offer an extensive consideration of the contingencies of national belonging. It argues that True Brits by Vinay Patel and Harlesden High Street by Abhishek Majumdar dramatize strategies for building, making, or keeping a home in London in spite of the strictures of suspectification and securitization.

Highlights

Citizenship, Contingencies, and British South Asian Theater Since 9/11When “ISIS bride” Shamima Begum encountered The Times journalist Anthony Loyd at a Syrian refugee camp in early 2019, she introduced herself in no uncertain terms: “I am a sister from London.I’m a Bethnal Green girl”
Javid appealed to the British Nationality Act 1981 to argue that Begum’s citizenship could be revoked—citing her parents’ links to Bangladesh, a country that Begum protests she has never visited—legislative and public discourse since 9/11 crucially accelerated the process that turned
7/7 have invited audiences to consider their own investment in the politics of misrecognition and suspicion

Summary

Introduction

Citizenship, Contingencies, and British South Asian Theater Since 9/11When “ISIS bride” Shamima Begum encountered The Times journalist Anthony Loyd at a Syrian refugee camp in early 2019, she introduced herself in no uncertain terms: “I am a sister from London.I’m a Bethnal Green girl” (quoted in Knight 2020). Citizenship, Contingencies, and British South Asian Theater Since 9/11. Even in the face of Begum’s unequivocal claim to her British origins, Home Secretary Sajid Javid reacted to the unexpected discovery of the missing. East London schoolgirl by removing her British citizenship. The removal of Begum’s citizenship is one of the more conspicuous instances shedding light on the precarious status that British citizenship has acquired since the beginning of the US- and UK-led war on terror. Javid appealed to the British Nationality Act 1981 to argue that Begum’s citizenship could be revoked—citing her parents’ links to Bangladesh, a country that Begum protests she has never visited—legislative and public discourse since 9/11 crucially accelerated the process that turned

Objectives

Conclusion