Speaker
Description
Title: Thinking and dwelling in London Afro-Caribbean diaspora in Britain and Black Women’s political reflections on decolonization, immigration and citizenship
Description: The goal of the presentation is to tackle some of the most important political reflections of the Black Women’s Movement in Britain after WWII concerning immigration, work and citizenship.
The migration flows from the Caribbean, which were strongly influenced by the decolonization process, changed the social composition of the British society. London quickly became the center for radical activists coming from the British colonies and their experiences and discrimination based on race, class and gender laid the ground for the development of critical reflections on their own identity and on the immigration and citizenship policies that were trying to define who was British and who was not.
By analyzing the Black British Women’s critique of the nationality and immigration system, the aim of the presentation is to reflect on how the contemporary European immigration policies define who is part of that community and on the multicultural and diverse composition of our society.
Speaker: Luca Di Paola obtained his PhD in International Studies at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” with a thesis in contemporary history titled Black Women in Britain Speak Out: il Movimento delle donne di discendenza africana e asiatica tra migrazioni, anti-imperialismo, lavoro e cittadinanza nell’Inghilterra del secondo dopoguerra (1945-1985). During his PhD, research was done on the oral and written sources at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, where he focused on the political activism of afro Caribbean and Asian women in Britain, and the collections at the National Archives, at the Lambeth Archives, at the Institute of Race Relations and at the George Padmore Institute. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Reading and he participated in several international conferences, such as the Summer School “Black Europe”, held in Amsterdam, and the conference “Gender and Public Space” at the University of Rouen.
His research interests focus on migrations, racism, postcolonialism and black feminism. In 2020 he wrote an essay, titled “Claudia Jones : tra comunismo, femminismo e anti-imperialismo”, which was published in the book “Marx nei margini. Dal marxismo nero al femminismo postcoloniale”, edited by an italian editor, Alegre.
