OSP: Paul Gilroy - Diasporic identity

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Paul Gilroy - blog task


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 states that racial difference and racial identities are the product of racial oppression. Racial identities are caused by historical conflicts that have brought different groups into opposition.

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

that racism isn’t caused by race, racism causes race. Racism is not caused by the clash of two or more races – racism is not a natural phenomenon.

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

Ethnic absolutism is a line of thinking which sees humans are part of different ethnic compartments, with race as the basis of human differentiation. Gilroy is opposed to ethnic absolutism as it is counter to his argument that racism causes race.

4) How does Gilroy view diasporic identity?

Gilroy does not see diaspora as limited to national contexts in this way. He considers a transatlantic diasporic identity, where groups across the Atlantic share cultural practices – a “single, complex unit” of black cultural practitioners as a result of a shared history of oppression and slavery.

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

Gilroy wrote of the dominant representation of black Britons at that time as “external and estranged from the imagined community that is the nation”.

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

Gilroy suggests diaspora challenges national ideologies and creates “cultural tension”. This tension helps to create the diasporic identity but often comes with negative experiences such as exclusion and marginalisation. 

More succinctly, Gilroy sums this up as the white racist’s question to BAME people: “Why don’t you just go 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.

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

Gilroy also argues the importance of slavery to modernity and capitalism. The modern world was built upon a normalised view of slavery, particularly plantation slavery. Slavery was only rejected when it was revealed as incompatible with enlightened rationality and capitalist production. Gilroy argues that the figure of the black slave of ‘the Negro’ provided enlightened thinkers and philosophers an insight into concepts of property rights, consciousness and art.

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

Gilroy extends this concept of double consciousness to the whole African diaspora which he argues is simultaneously outside and inside the modern world. Black people are outside modernity as they have been deigned freedom and full citizenship; it was ‘proved’ by supposedly rational race scientists that black people were less evolutionally developed than Europeans (obviously this was not true!). Black people are also inside modernity as a result of the various and many contributions to science, literature, politics and society that has made the modern world (although these contributions have not always been acknowledged).

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.




  • Historically, black women have been treated as less-than-human in many contexts, including the sciences, popular culture, law, and everyday life. Moreover, black female marginality is produced and reproduced through invisibility: they are less likely to hold elected office positions, high-profile jobs, and are among the missing in many popular cultural images. 

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