This essay, which introduces the dossier “Enslaved bodies, enslaved languages”, addresses the discursive practices and political debate which characterized the celebrations for the Bicentenary of the British Abolition of the Slave Trade in 2007. Building on a rich crop of newspaper articles, speeches by politicians, museum exhibitions, commemorative pamphlets and websites, it attempts to open a window onto current understandings of the impact of the Slave Trade on the last two centuries of British history, and its legacy of discrimination and disadvantage, against the backcloth of today’s still problematic multicultural consensus. In this light, the government’s choice to project the moment of the Abolition as a historic divide underlining the humanitarian primacy of Wilberforce and Britain has been interpreted also as a process of collective amnesia which seems to be in line with Paul Gilroy’s idea of postcolonial melancholia.
Catene di memoria : per non dimenticare la schiavitù e la tratta / L.A. De Michelis - In: Schiavitù dei corpi, schiavitù dei linguaggi / L. De Michelis, M. Phillips, I. Vivan, J. Walvin, M. Maffi, F.R. Paci, M. Sioli, A. Visconti, I. Bajini, D. Dolcini, J. Guardi, C. Gualtieri, A. Falcinelli, G. Fiordaliso, L. Goletiani, F.M. Imparato, G. Riboni, M. Bignami, R. Capoferro, R. Piangatelli, S. Riva, M. Angelillo, N. Brazzelli, M. Di Rocchi, F. Maioli, M.C. Paganoni, R. Pedretti, M.C. Bordonaba Zabalza, E. Monegato ; [a cura di] L.A. De Michelis. - 1. - Melegnano : Montedit, 2010. - ISBN 978-88-6587-0112. - pp. 11-28
Catene di memoria : per non dimenticare la schiavitù e la tratta
L.A. De MichelisPrimo
2010
Abstract
This essay, which introduces the dossier “Enslaved bodies, enslaved languages”, addresses the discursive practices and political debate which characterized the celebrations for the Bicentenary of the British Abolition of the Slave Trade in 2007. Building on a rich crop of newspaper articles, speeches by politicians, museum exhibitions, commemorative pamphlets and websites, it attempts to open a window onto current understandings of the impact of the Slave Trade on the last two centuries of British history, and its legacy of discrimination and disadvantage, against the backcloth of today’s still problematic multicultural consensus. In this light, the government’s choice to project the moment of the Abolition as a historic divide underlining the humanitarian primacy of Wilberforce and Britain has been interpreted also as a process of collective amnesia which seems to be in line with Paul Gilroy’s idea of postcolonial melancholia.
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