Landscape, Race and Memory

Within contemporary theorizations, memory is not often explored through the experience of geographically mobile, racialized populations. Also, whilst the relationships between the political value of landscape and national memory have previously been written through and explored, there has been little mention of postcolonial, 'diasporic' racialized citizens. Using both visual and material culture at the heart of its approach, this book examines the value of 'landscape and memory' for postcolonial migrants living in Britain. It takes memory as a means to examine the ways in which postcolonial citizenship in Britain is experienced - through remembered citizenships of 'other' geographies abroad. By reflecting on the cultural landscapes of British Asian women, the book reveals cultures of memory and social-historical narratives about migration, citizenship and belonging. It challenges notions of 'cultural memory' and 'Englishness' embedded in formal spaces in the cities and museums. New spaces of memory are presented as mobile and as politically charged with meaning as the more formal spaces of memorialization. In doing so, it offers a conceptualization of landscape politics and refiguring of race memory as being critical to English heritage and postcolonial politics and makes an important contribution to the writings on memory, race and landscape.