The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation
Seminar Series 2013: Children and Social Justice, part 2
Wednesday 20 November 2013
4-5.30pm, Harrington Building Room 337
Black Star: Britain’s Asian Youth Movements
Lecture and book launch
Anandi Ramamurthy, Senior Lecturer, School of Journalism and Digital Communication, University of Central Lancashire
Over the last twenty years, the primary identity with which South Asians in Britain have been identified is a religious one. In an attempt to represent different narratives and histories, this research traces the formation of political organisations of young south Asians in the 1970s and ‘80s. The paper will explore the Black political identity with which the youth affiliated and consider the inspiration they drew from Black Power movements as well as anti-imperialist and workers’ struggles across the globe. It will analyse why these young people committed to the idea of a united workers struggle felt compelled to develop their own independent organisations. In analysing their motivations and strategies for action it will consider how being black was part of the process of making Britain home. The paper will also consider why this broad based black identity and these vibrant and independent organisations disintegrated in the late 1980s as Islamaphobia changed the nature of racism and argue why retrieving this history is important for politics in Britain today.
Anandi Ramamurthy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Journalism and Digital Communication. Her research explores questions of ‘race’ and representation in media and culture. She is the founder of the Asian Youth Movement archive (www.tandana.org) and author of Imperial Persuaders: Images of Africa and Asia in British Advertising (MUP 2003). Black Star: Britain’s Asian Youth Movements (Pluto 2013) is her second monograph.
The seminar is free and refreshments are provided. Seminars usually finish by 5.30pm and are followed by an informal meeting of The Centre, at which all are welcome.