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The Rise of the ‘Liminal Briton’: Literary and Artistic Productions of black and Asian Women in the Midlands by Sumana Ray A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English and Comparative Literary Studies University of Warwick, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, April 2011 Table of Contents Illustrations 3 Acknowledgements 4 Declaration 5 Abstract 6 Abbreviations 8 Introduction: Locating the Midlands 9 Chapter One: Fictionalising the Midlands 63 Chapter Two: Anthologising the Midlands 157 Chapter Three: The Other Arts of the Midlands 230 Conclusion 315 Bibliography 323 2 Illustrations Image: Jayaben Desai proclaiming defiance during the strike at the Grunwick film processing plant in Willesden, north-west London in 1977. Photograph: Graham Wood/Getty Images Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/20/asian-women-trade- union-grunwick?INTCMP=SRCH Illustration: Chapter I: Fictionalising the Midlands, p63 3 Acknowledgements I would like to express my most sincere thanks to my supervisor Dr. Rashmi Varma for her invaluable guidance, thought-provoking advice and continual support. I am also deeply indebted to Dr. Graeme Macdonald for his insightful contribution to my work at a critical time. I would also like to thank Prof. Jeremy Treglown and Prof. Catherine Bates for their support and encouragement. This project was first conceived during an informal conversation with Alan Mahar, the Publishing Director of Tindal Street Press. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Alan for his stimulating discussions, motivation and advice. I would also like to express my gratefulness to Piali Ray OBE, Director of Sampad and Yvonne Brissett for their inspiration and contribution to this work. Finally, my deepest indebtedness lies with my family, friends and colleagues: my late father Saroj K. Banerjee who has been the greatest inspiration behind this project; my mother Jayanti, husband Pijush and son Nilesh for their immense patience, unwavering support and unconditional love; and my friends and colleagues Sorcha Gunne, Sarah O’Donoghue and Jill James without whose encouragement and assistance this project would not have been possible. 4 Declaration This work has not previously been submitted for any other degree and is not being concurrently submitted for candidature in any degree. Signed: _______________________________________ (Candidate) Date: 28th April 2011 5 Abstract Black and Asians occupy an increasingly prominent position within British society today and London is considered central to the multicultural imagination of Britain. This thesis leans away from the established London- centric discourses and shifts spotlight specifically to the Midlands, which occupies an equivalent, if differently significant status, in terms of its multicultural status. Hegemonic notions of the dominant status of London are thus contested through the peripheral focus. The project analyses some of the regional expressions of ‘Britishness’ by women in this region as articulated in literature, film and performing arts. Interdisciplinarity is at the core of this project as it not only engages in a fusion of various disciplines within the Arts, but also invokes disciplinary boundary crossing by forging links with the Social Sciences, Anthropology in particular. In the thesis, I have introduced the concept of the ‘Liminal Briton’, using the anthropological concept of ‘liminality’ to characterise the positioning of new generation multi-ethnic Britons in contemporary British society. I argue that the postcolonial critic Homi Bhabha’s much celebrated notion of ‘hybridity’ is not adequate in capturing the heterogeneity of new generation multi-ethnic Britons. I therefore propose a perspectival shift to ‘liminality’ as a more encompassing term to define the condition of these new generation black and Asian individuals, specifically women writers and artists in the Midlands. Informed by a discussion of migration into the Midlands and analysis of some of the dominant critical discourses in post 1980s Britain in the Introduction, each of the three main chapters focus on a specific genre. Chapter 1 explores how Asian women’s agency has been represented in literature and construction of the British Asian subject is manifested in the novels of Ravinder Randhawa and Meera Syal. The ‘liminal’ spectrum has been used to identify the multiple positioning of the women protagonists in the chosen novels. The focus of Chapter 2 is the genre of short stories where a selection of short stories are analysed from the anthologies Whispers in the Walls and Her Majesty. All of these stories are literary expressions of new generation black and Asian women in the Midlands and the landscape of the region features strongly in the stories. The chapter also involves a discussion of the crucial role played by regional presses with particular emphasis on Tindal Street Press, an independent regional publisher based in the Midlands. Chapter 3 entails an exploration of artistic expressions of women, focusing on film and performing arts. In this chapter I trace the development of black British film-making in the post 1980s before moving on to a 6 discussion of Gurinder Chadha’s film Bhaji on the Beach where ‘liminal’ Britons recognize their ‘liminality’. The ‘liminal’ space of the theatre is also examined in this chapter along with the development black and Asian women’s theatre movements in Britain. The politics of regional artistic productions is investigated through the role of regional playhouses along with the debate on the furore surrounding the staging of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play Behzti. The important and enduring outcome of this regional production is highlighted in this section. The final section of this thesis is the Conclusion which draws together and reinforces the key arguments. 7 Abbreviations AWOW A Wicked Old Woman, Ravinder Randhawa A&M Anita and Me, Meera Syal Life Life isn’t all ha ha hee hee, Meera Syal WITW Whispers in the Walls, edited by Yvonne Brissett & Leone Ross HM Her Majesty, edited by Emma Hargrave Bhaji Bhaji on the Beach, Gurinder Chadha 8 Introduction: Locating the Midlands You have to live in London. If you come from the sticks, the colonial sticks, where you really want to live is right on Eros Statue in Piccadilly Circus. You don’t want to go and live in someone else’s metropolitan sticks. You want to go right to the centre of the hub of the world. You might as well. You have been hearing about that ever since you were one month old. (Hall, 1991:24) at some point, on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite bank, the split between the two mortal combatants somewhat healed so that we are on both shores at once, and at once see through the serpent and the eagle eyes. (Anzaldύa, 1987) The quotations above encapsulate the key ideas of this project. Stuart Hall’s assertion testifies to the hegemonic notion among diasporic subjects that London is the epicentre ‘of the world’ and life would remain incomplete in any other metropolitan location. Focus on this particular geographical location reflects the dominant status of London in both postcolonial and black British discourse. What it also points to is the conflation of a ‘London’ experience with an ‘English’ or ‘British’ experience. In this sense London is a synecdoche for Britain, perceived as the acme of empire, global capitalism and world culture. The purpose of this project is to challenge such dominant notions and slippages and explore how the Midlands is an alternative location in Britain which is equally but also differently significant in terms of its multicultural status and articulations of British experience by black and Asian communities.1 A focus on the peripheral regions enables a critical 1 I would like to point to the complexity of the usage of the term ‘black’ at the very outset of this project and its changing significance and usage in relation to the history of Britain. I will be elaborating on the transformations incurred by the terms ‘black’ and ‘Asian’ later in the Introduction and the following chapters. However, I would like to highlight that on this occasion, I have used the terms according to their generalised usage, signifying black British and British Asian in contemporary Britain. 9 assessment of some of the significant claims of multiculturalism in Britain in the post-1980s era. The much - celebrated quotation from Gloria Anzaldύa postulates a new consciousness among women who occupy multiple positions, straddling two cultures and possessing a plurality of vision. My argument in this project is predicated on the fact that new generation women from multi-ethnic communities in Britain have a similar consciousness and multiplicity but one that can be better defined through the anthropological concept of ‘liminality’, thereby reading against the grain of popular notions in feminist cultural theory. The project also contests Homi Bhabha’s concept of ‘hybridity’ that has gained immense prominence among postcolonial critics in recent years for describing the condition of black and Asian population in Britain. Instead this thesis advocates the use of ‘liminality’ as a more comprehensive notion to capture the heterogeneity of such individuals. Black and Asians occupy an increasingly prominent position within British society today and London is considered central to the multicultural imagination of Britain. It is the nucleus from which articulations of black and Asian women’s experiences of life in Britain has emanated in the form of literary and artistic productions.