Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail

Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Sociology, Urban, Anthropology
Cover of the book Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail by Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Princeton University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jacqueline Nassy Brown ISBN: 9781400826414
Publisher: Princeton University Press Publication: January 10, 2009
Imprint: Princeton University Press Language: English
Author: Jacqueline Nassy Brown
ISBN: 9781400826414
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication: January 10, 2009
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Language: English

The port city of Liverpool, England, is home to one of the oldest Black communities in Britain. Its members proudly date their history back at least as far as the nineteenth century, with the global wanderings and eventual settlement of colonial African seamen. Jacqueline Nassy Brown analyzes how this worldly origin story supports an avowedly local Black politic and identity--a theme that becomes a window onto British politics of race, place, and nation, and Liverpool's own contentious origin story as a gloriously cosmopolitan port of world-historical import that was nonetheless central to British slave trading and imperialism.

This ethnography also examines the rise and consequent dilemmas of Black identity. It captures the contradictions of diaspora in postcolonial Liverpool, where African and Afro-Caribbean heritages and transnational linkages with Black America both contribute to and compete with the local as a basis for authentic racial identity. Crisscrossing historical periods, rhetorical modes, and academic genres, the book focuses singularly on "place," enabling its most radical move: its analysis of Black racial politics as enactments of English cultural premises. The insistent focus on English culture implies a further twist. Just as Blacks are racialized through appeals to their assumed Afro-Caribbean and African cultures, so too has Liverpool--an Irish, working-class city whose expansive port faces the world beyond Britain--long been beyond the pale of dominant notions of authentic Englishness. Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail studies "race" through clashing constructions of "Liverpool."

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The port city of Liverpool, England, is home to one of the oldest Black communities in Britain. Its members proudly date their history back at least as far as the nineteenth century, with the global wanderings and eventual settlement of colonial African seamen. Jacqueline Nassy Brown analyzes how this worldly origin story supports an avowedly local Black politic and identity--a theme that becomes a window onto British politics of race, place, and nation, and Liverpool's own contentious origin story as a gloriously cosmopolitan port of world-historical import that was nonetheless central to British slave trading and imperialism.

This ethnography also examines the rise and consequent dilemmas of Black identity. It captures the contradictions of diaspora in postcolonial Liverpool, where African and Afro-Caribbean heritages and transnational linkages with Black America both contribute to and compete with the local as a basis for authentic racial identity. Crisscrossing historical periods, rhetorical modes, and academic genres, the book focuses singularly on "place," enabling its most radical move: its analysis of Black racial politics as enactments of English cultural premises. The insistent focus on English culture implies a further twist. Just as Blacks are racialized through appeals to their assumed Afro-Caribbean and African cultures, so too has Liverpool--an Irish, working-class city whose expansive port faces the world beyond Britain--long been beyond the pale of dominant notions of authentic Englishness. Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail studies "race" through clashing constructions of "Liverpool."

More books from Princeton University Press

Cover of the book Disarmed by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book The Roots of Romanticism by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book The Complete Works of Aristotle by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Science and Polity in France by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Why Nationalism by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book All the News That's Fit to Sell by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Small-Town America by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Answer to Job by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book The Terrorist's Dilemma by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Google's PageRank and Beyond by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book The Book of Exodus by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Discoverers of the Universe by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Jihad in Islamic History by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book Nation, Language, and the Ethics of Translation by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
Cover of the book From Communists to Foreign Capitalists by Jacqueline Nassy Brown
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy