Strained Solidarities: Black Power and the British Left, 1960-80

紧张的团结：黑人权力和英国左派，1960-80

• 批准号: 2726696
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2726696
• 关键词: Strained; Solidarities; Black; Power; British

This study examines the Black Power movement in Britain during the 1960s-70s and how it interacted with the wider radical left, with a regional focus on the Midlands area. The study investigates two unexplored aspects of British Black Power, where it intersected with 'traditional' socialist politics: its role in the post-war resurgence of industrial militancy, and in the anti-fascist movement against the National Front. The PhD dislodges the 'methodological whiteness' (Bhambra, 2017) of prevailing accounts of the extra-parliamentary left in Britain, by charting the responses of Black radicals to racialised issues of state repression, workplace exploitation and right-wing extremism. Interrogating the tensions between Black Power groups and the established 'white' left will highlight antagonistic visions of liberation in a neocolonial world, complicating Virdee (2014)'s influential thesis that the 1970s witnessed a novel convergence of class-based and anti-racist struggles.While British Black Power is often assumed to be a primarily American import, the study examines how the movement was shaped by distinctive patterns of anti-colonialism developed within the imperial metropole. The PhD foregrounds how Black radicals in post-war Britain challenged the Eurocentrism of the left-wing mainstream, by reviving the 'subaltern cosmopolitanism' (Featherstone, 2012) of earlier metropolitan anti-imperialists like Claudia Jones and Shapurji Saklatvala. In the Midlands area particularly, Black Power organisations contained many South Asian activists, and the regional focus of the study will contribute to an understanding of 'political Blackness' as an expansive coalitional identity among immigrant radicals. In contrast to flattened textual readings of political Blackness (Modood, 1994), the PhD recovers the dynamic history of political Blackness as an insurgent counter-racialisation from below.The PhD encompasses new research into Midlands-based groups including the Black People's Freedom Movement and the Birmingham Black Sisters. The written sources used will include Black radical periodicals, trade union archives and ephemera produced by far-left groups. These materials are found in local archives including the Sivanandan Collection, Modern Records Centre, Wolfson Centre for Archival Research, and Cadbury Research Library. Documents held in the London-based Institute of Race Relations and Black Cultural Archives will facilitate regional comparisons. As many activists involved in the British Black Power movement are still alive, use of primary written documents will be supplemented by oral interviews.The study has clear significance beyond academia, particularly in light of the transnational Movement for Black Lives. The PhD's investigation of Black political strategies within white-dominated social movements is notably of interest to racial justice-oriented think tanks such as the Institute of Race Relations and Runnymede Trust, as well as policy debates addressing racism within trade unions (Ashe, 2019).

本研究考察了20世纪60年代至70年代英国的黑人权力运动，以及它如何与更广泛的激进左翼相互作用，并以中部地区为区域重点。这项研究调查了英国黑人权力与“传统”社会主义政治交叉的两个未被探索的方面：它在战后工业战斗的复苏中的作用，以及在反对国民阵线的反法西斯运动中的作用。博士通过绘制黑人激进分子对国家镇压、工作场所剥削和右翼极端主义等种族化问题的反应图表，推翻了英国议会外左翼的流行说法“方法论上的白人化”（Bhambra, 2017）。探究黑人权力团体和老牌“白人”左派之间的紧张关系，将突显出新殖民主义世界中对解放的对立愿景，使Virdee（2014）颇具影响力的论点复杂化，即20世纪70年代见证了阶级斗争和反种族主义斗争的新融合。虽然英国的黑人权力通常被认为主要是美国的舶来品，但这项研究考察了这场运动是如何被帝国大都会内部发展起来的独特的反殖民主义模式所塑造的。博士展望了战后英国的黑人激进分子如何挑战左翼主流的欧洲中心主义，通过复兴克劳迪娅·琼斯和沙普吉·萨克拉特瓦拉等早期大都市反帝国主义者的“次等世界主义”（Featherstone, 2012）。特别是在中部地区，黑人权力组织包含许多南亚活动家，研究的区域焦点将有助于理解“政治黑人”作为移民激进分子中广泛的联盟身份。与对政治黑人的平面化文本阅读（Modood, 1994）相反，博士恢复了政治黑人作为自下而上的反种族化叛乱的动态历史。博士学位涵盖了对中部地区团体的新研究，包括黑人自由运动和伯明翰黑人姐妹。所使用的书面资料将包括黑人激进期刊、工会档案和极左团体制作的临时资料。这些材料可以在当地档案馆找到，包括Sivanandan Collection， Modern Records Centre， Wolfson Centre for archives Research和Cadbury Research Library。保存在伦敦种族关系研究所和黑人文化档案馆的文件将促进地区比较。由于参与英国黑人权力运动的许多积极分子仍然健在，因此使用原始书面文件将辅以口头采访。这项研究显然具有超越学术界的意义，特别是考虑到黑人生命的跨国运动。博士对白人主导的社会运动中黑人政治策略的调查对种族正义导向的智库（如种族关系研究所和Runnymede Trust）以及工会内部解决种族主义问题的政策辩论特别感兴趣（Ashe, 2019）。