| abstract | The politics of place, or the relationship between culture and spatiality, was an intellectual fascination throughout the
twentieth century. Philosophers, cultural critics, writers, and artists alike explored how an individual's sense of place composed aspects of their personal
identity and their relationship to a national identity. Control over place became a pressing political issue throughout the twentieth century due to the growing
popularity of capitalism, the phenomenon of colonialism, and the advent of new technologies which re-defined how and why space can be owned, controlled, and
exploited. The rise of colonialism and industrial capitalism in the twentieth century led to the immobility of marginalized individuals, particularly the figure
of the migrant. The following research sets twentieth century spatial theory, British legal history, and British migrant literature in conversation to explore
how the political and economic ideologies of colonialism and capitalism were encoded within the British urban environment and rendered the migrant immobile both
on a local and global scale. The spatial theories of Michel de Certeau, Guy Debord and the Situationists, and Doreen Massey provide foundational definitions of
place and space and postulate that walking may be used as a method of recognizing and critiquing the cultural ideologies that shape the urban environment. The
British migrant literary works of Jean Rhys and Samuel Selvon explore the relationship between place and identity, the migrant experience of London, and
question whether the act of walking can be used as a device to critique the politics of place and the immobility of the migrant. Rhys and Selvon provide
the alternative solution of remaining still as a method of democratizing space for the British migrant. Explorations into the politics of place and the
migrant experience of twentieth century London speak to the twenty-first century European migrant crisis and Britain's decision to leave the European Union. |
