European Diasporas and the Politics of Integration ― Ex-colonial British and French Citizens and Cultural Expressions

This book explores the question of how Britain and France - nations with differing colonial and postcolonial histories, ideologies and institutional practices, and heirs to contrasting philosophies of diasporic ’integration’ - have, with announcements of the failure of both British ’multiculturalism’ and French Republicanism, failed to integrate their diasporic citizens,. Departing from the post-9/11 context and traversing the political and cultural histories of the British and French ex-colonial diasporas, it examines the cultural expressions of the comparative diasporas, With particular focus on the cinematic and literary works of British Asians and Franco-Maghrebians. the author reveals that, whether with regard to the racialisation of their religious heritages or the manner in which their ’race’ and ’culture’ have been considered impediments to ’integration’, diasporic citizens have never been seen as ’unproblematic’. Identifying the era of decolonisation as central to untangling the historical and continuing failures of Britain and France to integrate their diasporic citizens, European Diasporas and the Politics of Integration sheds light on the ways in which both countries have struggled to come to terms with the loss of empire, and have erased the unresolved colonial legacies and ongoing racism that mark the lives of their diasporic citizens. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and cultural studies with interests in migration and diaspora, colonialism and postcolonialism, and race and ethnicity.

Chloe A. Gill-Khan is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of South Australia.