ABSTRACT
The presence of Asians and other blacks in this country has added a new dimension to discussions about ‘culture’, ‘politics’ and ‘identity’. However, before proceeding to examine the specific issues highlighted by the arrival of Britain’s ex-colonial subjects, it is worth having a brief look at concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘identity’. This may be done by raising some basic questions. For instance, what do we mean by these terms? What aspects of our social reality do we refer to when we invoke these terms? Within the same society, do all groups have the same ‘culture’? What does the phrase ‘clash of cultures’ signify? What is meant when ‘identity’ is foregrounded in these discussions? I begin by considering some of these questions with a view to contexualising the shifting debates surrounding culture and identity at the beginning of the 1980s. This chapter is an attempt to identify how, and in what ways, the various debates acquired saliency during the different phases of black settlement in Britain after World War II. It examines how ‘the Asian’ was constructed in different discourses, policies, and practices; and how these constructions were appropriated or contested by the political agency of Asian subjects. Inter alia, I am also concerned in this chapter to map the general parameters of inter-and intra-generational continuity and change.
