Gilroy

 

Paul Gilroy - blog tasks

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 170: Gilroy – Ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or you can access it online here using your Greenford Google login.

Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) How does Gilroy suggest racial identities are constructed?

Gilroy argues that racial identities are not inherent or natural categories, but are constructed through historical, political, economic, and ideological processes

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

Gilroy situates racism’s roots in the imperial project, the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and the ongoing systems of power that emerged from them. He suggests that racism was developed to rationalize and sustain exploitation, and that the cultural, ideological and institutional structures that arose from those histories continue to produce racial divisions.

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

Ethnic absolutism is the idea that ethnic or racial identities are fixed, immutable, pure, and internally homogeneous — that you can neatly “belong” to one group with clear boundaries, traditions, and essence. Gilroy opposes ethnic absolutism because he believes it reifies race (treats it as permanent, essential) and closes off possibilities for hybridity, change, mixing, and cross-cultural interaction. He sees it as a limiting framework that reproduces division rather than challenging it.

4) How does Gilroy view diasporic identity?

Gilroy emphasizes the transnational, hybrid, route-based nature of diasporic identity. Diaspora is not a longing to “return” to an original homeland so much as a lived condition of displacement, mixing, and cultural exchange across borders.

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

Gilroy argued that black Britons were commonly portrayed as “external and estranged from the imagined community that is the nation” — as outsiders, excluded, marginal, not part of the national identity.

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

Exclusion and marginalization: because diasporic identities don’t fully align with dominant national narratives, diasporic individuals may be treated as outsiders, “not fully British” or “not fully at home.”


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.

Social media groups / pages: diaspora members use Facebook groups, WhatsApp groups, Instagram pages dedicated to their country of origin (e.g. “Caribbean diaspora UK” or “Nigerians abroad”) to share news, culture, recipes, language, events.

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

Slavery is central because it was the foundational rupture that displaced millions across continents, severing people from their homelands, reshaping histories, cultures, identities, and affected collective memory. It created the conditions for diaspora.


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

Double consciousness is the sense of looking at oneself through the eyes of a dominant culture, having an internal divide between one’s own identity and how one is perceived externally. representing black people as outsiders, problems, or exotic others rather than integral to the national story reinforces the sense of not fully belonging. 

10) Finally, complete the second activity on page 3: Watch the trailer for Hidden Figures and discuss how the film attempts to challenge ‘double consciousness’ and the stereotypical representation of black American women.

Hidden Figures challenges double consciousness by showing Black American women as intelligent, capable NASA scientists who play a vital role in national achievements. It rejects stereotypes by giving them visibility, agency, and recognition within a space they were historically excluded from.