Topographies of exclusion: refugees, Windrush, and the politics of space in recent British film
Topographies of exclusion: refugees, Windrush, and the politics of space in recent British film
Through an analysis of recent film and moving image work documenting the Hostile Environment, this essay challenges the distinction often drawn between postcolonial migrants and refugees, arguing that Britain's punitive immigration and asylum policy broadens what it means to be made stateless. With particular reference to the Windrush docudrama Sitting in Limbo (2020) and Remi Weekes' asylum horror His House (2020), this essay explores how a series of recent documentaries, docudramas and fiction films have successfully spatialised the hostile environment; that is, how they have exposed the topography of exclusion and containment that determines migrant subjectivities in contemporary Britain. By setting the Windrush Scandal in the larger context of migrant representation, the aim is to expose the continuities between migrant groups in their historical relationship to the nation state. The representational politics of space in recent film work offers a keen insight into these entangled histories.
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Woolley, Agnes
fbb69867-9f5e-4ea5-9155-653c1ba223b8
Woolley, Agnes
fbb69867-9f5e-4ea5-9155-653c1ba223b8
Woolley, Agnes
(2023)
Topographies of exclusion: refugees, Windrush, and the politics of space in recent British film.
Wasafiri, 38 (2), .
(doi:10.1080/02690055.2023.2170579).
Abstract
Through an analysis of recent film and moving image work documenting the Hostile Environment, this essay challenges the distinction often drawn between postcolonial migrants and refugees, arguing that Britain's punitive immigration and asylum policy broadens what it means to be made stateless. With particular reference to the Windrush docudrama Sitting in Limbo (2020) and Remi Weekes' asylum horror His House (2020), this essay explores how a series of recent documentaries, docudramas and fiction films have successfully spatialised the hostile environment; that is, how they have exposed the topography of exclusion and containment that determines migrant subjectivities in contemporary Britain. By setting the Windrush Scandal in the larger context of migrant representation, the aim is to expose the continuities between migrant groups in their historical relationship to the nation state. The representational politics of space in recent film work offers a keen insight into these entangled histories.
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Topographies of Exclusion Refugees Windrush and the Politics of Space in Recent British Film
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e-pub ahead of print date: 24 May 2023
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Local EPrints ID: 490335
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/490335
ISSN: 0269-0055
PURE UUID: a08f1a8e-742f-4737-ad27-1d519c3e59c4
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Date deposited: 23 May 2024 16:57
Last modified: 28 May 2024 02:07
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Agnes Woolley
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