Abstract
This thesis set out to explore constructions of Blackness in UK citizens of African Caribbean descent. It also explored the perceived incompatibility between being both Black and British and considered the ways in which the past was a factor in both these issues. The thesis investigates these research questions through three qualitative studies: a media analysis, a focus group study and two interviews structured around a sorting task. The main findings of the research were that the category Black was influenced by the principles of opposition and reaction which gave primacy to the relationship with the White majority. The thesis argues that social psychological assumptions about social groups do not necessarily apply in the same way to racial groups. For example, contrary to other social psychological research, there was no indication that the participants accepted the mainstream negative evaluation and, therefore, no resulting devaluation in collective or personal self-perceptions. The way in which the White majority were perceived to have established Britishness and Englishness as intrinsically associated with Whiteness over a long period was seen to be a fundamental barrier to identification as both Black and British. In terms of both the way in which Blackness was constructed and the relationship between Blackness and Britishness, the past assumed a pre-eminent position. The past was viewed through the lens of racial group membership and then used to interpret the present and provided a theme of negative continuity. Options for identifying as both Black and British were constrained by the past as much as the present.