Gendered perceptions of urban space in Asian and Black British writing

Although black and Asian minorities arrived in Britain as slaves initially, the Second World War (1939-1945) marked the influx of ethnic minorities as indentured labourers into Britain as a result of the labour deficiency at the end of the war. The power movements these groups established among themselves to form solidarity resulted in the emergence and proliferation of black and Asian British writers who decided to make their voices heard and create a space for themselves in the "Mother Country". In literary works written by the contemporary black and Asian British writers, especially London is regarded as a site of influx and ongoing movement. This study examines the evolution of the urban space of London and transformation of subjugated women as a result of their interaction with the metropolis in the novels of contemporary black and Asian British writers; namely Monica Ali's Brick Lane (2003), Preethi Nair's One Hundred Shades of White (2003), Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000), and Atima Srivastava's Looking for Maya (1999). It can be observed in these novels that when individuals are in interaction with the city space, both space and the individual are reciprocally influenced and transformed. Through this mutual transformation, the fluid nature of space and identity is emphasized. Spaces are social constructs and each of them is experienced differently depending on gender and generation. In order to analyze the identity negotiations of the first and second generation black and Asian minorities in the urban space of London in the above mentioned novels, concepts of flânerie and psychogeography are discussed with the purpose of demonstrating the influence of geography on human psychology. Upon applying the concepts of flânerie and psychogeography to the protagonists of the novels, this study discusses the possibility of having a flâneuse, a female wanderer in urban spaces, who is not restricted by the pressure of patriarchy and diasporic life.