| The dissertation is a critique of the representation of Postcolonial, AfroAsian cultures in the West through the analysis of Black British theatre and film. I examine the problematic notions of 'ethnicity' and 'identity' of immigrants of African, Caribbean, and Asian descent in Britain. Through the terrain of cultural theory and a reading of dramatic and film texts, I reveal some of the ways in which Black British theatre and film move beyond merely representing and renegotiating mainstream British projections of Afro-Asian cultures from the perspectives of postcolonial subjectivities. I argue that a migratory aesthetics of plurality and rupture has problematized the representations of Afro-Asian cultures through theatre and film. Consequently, issues of gender, nationalism and 'race' in these Black British cultural texts challenge and decenter received monolithic constructions of such social and cultural formations. These dialogues, in turn, extend beyond the borders of Britain, forging transatlantic and transnational linkages with other cultures (such as those of the U.S., Europe, Latin America, China, the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia) and history (of slavery, migration, imperialism and decolonization). |
