Paul Gilroy - Diasporic Identity

Paul Gilroy - blog task

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and openFactsheet 170: Gilroy – Ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets
Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) How does Gilroy suggest racial identities are constructed?

He suggests that as a result of historical events identities are made for example colonial times.

2) What does Gilroy suggest regarding the causes and history of racism?

He says that many events have occured in the past in Europe which were very racist and Europeans seemed to believed that their race was the best and every other race was inferior to them.

3) What is ethnic absolutism and why is Gilroy opposed to it?

This theory suggests that race is the thing that makes all humans different to eachother however Paul Gilroy is against this as it also go against his argument seeing as he believes the division of race causes racism but this argues that racism is the reason for race.

4) How does Gilroy view diasporic identity?

Gilroy sees diasporic identity as a movement. People will leave the place they are originally from and they will eventually feel like they do not belong or have a "sense of place"

5) What did Gilroy suggest was the dominant representation of black Britons in the 1980s (when the Voice newspaper was first launched)?

The dominant representation was that they did not belong here and they were not supposed to be a part of the community.

6) Gilroy argues diaspora challenges national ideologies. What are some of the negative effects of this?

Some of the negative effects are that some ideologies may be negative and take some people backwards instead of forward or may exclude some people.

7) Complete the first activity on page 3: How might diasporic communities use the media to stay connected to their cultural identity? E.g. digital media - offer specific examples.

Through media people are able to communicate with other people who they feel they can relate to and are also going through a phase of diasporic identity, places such as Facebook or Instagram let people get into contact with each other.

8) Why does Gilroy suggest slavery is important in diasporic identity?

He implies that slavery had such a large impact on the whole race that the differences between the black race and every other have been slightly indoctrinated in or society so diasporic identity will always be occurring because this race difference ha become a normal thing.

9) How might representations in the media reinforce the idea of ‘double consciousness’ for black people in the UK or US?

The media often use black actors and make it seem like black people have negative traits, for example, murderers or drug dealers and as a result of this people in society have been led to think that this is what black people are really like.