Our poor, tired little island just can't cope': race, immigration and 'decline' in the post-war EnglishMidlands, c.1958-1981

受斯图尔特霍尔的观察，“下降的概念是陷入困境的国家身份的问题”的启发，本研究将探讨如何在英国c.1958- 1981年的移民敌意都源于和促成了流行的看法“国家衰落”。这一时期是关键的，包含了联邦移民的高峰（以及限制移民的立法），帝国的终结，经济表现不佳，以及无数其他社会变化，这些变化被合并在“衰落”的概念中。在这些问题上，时间性被忽视了;过去（记忆）和未来的概念是这些年来如何想象移民的核心，也是衰落的想法。例如，以诺鲍威尔在他臭名昭著的“血流成河”演讲中援引了移民带来的世界末日的未来，他将未来坍塌成了现在，通过他的话创造了一种紧迫感，引起了巨大的公众反响。我将通过三个中部城市的案例来研究这些问题，每个城市都有自己的原因：诺丁汉是1958年臭名昭著的“种族骚乱”的发生地，莱斯特以其庞大的亚洲人口和20世纪70年代的国民阵线据点而闻名，而伯明翰和西米德兰兹地区则在1964年的斯梅斯威克发生了臭名昭著的种族主义竞选活动，加上鲍威尔在1968年的演讲它们还经历了不同的人口和经济变化模式。我发现在我的本科论文研究“莱斯特的南亚人，c.1970- 1990”中，移民和衰落之间存在联系，无论是在资源竞争，失业和去工业化方面，还是在“四面楚歌的国家认同”的相关概念方面。通过当地的例子，我们可以复杂化和去中心化的正统帐户写从中心，也跟踪相似性和对比之间的种族关系如何演变在不同的情况下。在我的本科成绩的基础上，我被授予诺丁汉的特兰菲尔德奖学金2019年，支付学费的历史硕士课程。作为M4 C的一员，我很高兴与诺丁汉的政治意识形态研究中心、伯明翰的现代英国研究中心、莱斯特的东米德兰口述历史档案馆和沃里克的现代记录中心合作。我建议的导师让我在这个主题的博士研究中处于非常有利的地位：布莱克本博士是二十世纪英国政治意识形态的专家，谢弗教授在种族思想的制定和传播方面，佩普洛博士在英国黑人政治参与方面。

Inspired by Stuart Hall's observation that 'the notion of decline is caught up with the question of an embattled national identity', this study will examine how hostility to immigration in Britain c.1958-1981both stemmed from and contributed to popular perceptions of 'national decline'. This period is critical, containing the high-point of Commonwealth immigration (and legislation to restrict it), the end of empire, perceived economic underperformance, and myriad other social changes, conflated in the concept of 'decline'. Temporality is overlooked in relation to these issues; conceptions of the past (memory) and future were central to how immigration was imagined in these years, and to ideas of decline. For example, in his invocation of an apocalyptic future resulting from immigration in his infamous 'rivers of blood' speech, Enoch Powell collapsed the future into the present, creating a sense of urgency through his words which prompted a huge popular response. I will examine these questions through the cases of three Midlands cities, each interesting for its own reasons: Nottingham was the location of notorious 'race riots' in 1958, Leicester became well-known for its large Asian population and as a National Front stronghold in the 1970s, while Birmingham and the West Midlands area saw an infamously racist election campaign in Smethwick in 1964, plus Powell's aforementioned speech in 1968. They also experienced different patterns of demographic and economic change. I found connections being drawn between immigration and decline in my undergraduate dissertation research on 'South Asians in Leicester, c.1970-1990', both in terms of competition over resources, unemployment and deindustrialisation, and the linked notion of an 'embattled national identity'. Through local examples, we can complicate and de-centre orthodox accounts written from the centre, and also trace similarities and contrasts between how race relations evolved in different contexts.On the basis of my undergraduate record, I was awarded Nottingham's Tranfield Scholarship for 2019,covering the cost of tuition on the History MA course. I would be pleased as part of M4C to work with Nottingham's Centre for the Study of Political Ideologies, Birmingham's Centre for Modern British Studies, the East Midlands Oral History Archive at Leicester and the Modern Records Centre at Warwick. My proposed supervisors put me in excellent position for doctoral study in this subject: Dr Blackburn is a specialist in twentieth-century British political ideologies, Professor Schaffer in the formulation and dissemination of racial ideas, and Dr Peplow in Black British political participation.