The Invisible Empire White Discourse, Tolerance and Belonging

This book offers a significant and original contribution to critical race theory. Georgie Wemyss offers an anthropological account of the cultural hegemony of the West through investigations of the central and pivotal constituent of the dominant white discourse of Britishness - the Invisible Empire. She demonstrates how the repetitive burying of British Empire histories of violence in the retelling of Britain’s past works to disguise how power operates in the present, showing how other related elements have been substantially reproduced through time to accommodate the challenges of history. The book combines ethnographic and discourse analysis with the study of connected histories to reveal how the dominant discourse maintains its dominance through its flexibility and its strategic alliances with subordinate groups.

Contents: Introduction; Part I: Introduction to Chapters 1 and 2; Terra nullius to the shrouding of Milligan: White histories on the Isle of Dogs; Competing colonial anniversaries in 'postcolonial' Blackwall: White memories, White belonging. Part II: Introduction to Chapters 3 and 4; Subjects of the invisible empire: 'outside extremists', 'White East Enders', 'passive Bengalis'; 'The East End' marketing strategy and the consolidation of the White East End. Part III: Introduction to Chapters 5 and 6; Tolerance, the invisible empire and the hierarchy of belonging; 'Lascars', colonial genealogies and exclusionary categories. Conclusion: exposing the invisible empire: towards commonality and metropolitan belonging; Bibliography; Index.

Georgie Wemyss is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging at the University of East London, U.K.