COMPARING BRITISH AND CARIBBEAN NATIONHOOD IN THE LONELY LONDONERS

Year 2019, , 414 - 424, 15.09.2019

Cengiz Karagöz

https://doi.org/10.30520/tjsosci.553133

Abstract

Concepts of nation and nationalism have been among mainly debated points
in the fields of social sciences since the spread of nation-states in Europe
which goes back to especially the last decades of the nineteenth century and
the first decades of the twentieth century. However, these concepts have been
discussed not only among the European nations but also among the Third World
countries which gained their independence and which were left by their native
citizens who wished to immigrate to the European metropolises because of a
variety of reasons and attractions. As a member of such immigrants from the
Caribbean islands who floated into London after the Second World War, Sam
Selvon touches upon the perceptions of nation and nationalism in The Lonely Londoners by reflecting these
concepts from the viewpoint of the British nation and the Caribbean nation in
the light of the Caribbean immigrants in Britain through different norms which
play the basic role in defining a nation. Selvon can be thought to assert that
while the British society bases its principles in defining a nation on
discrimination and racial characteristics, particularly its superiority over
the black immigrants and nations, the Caribbean immigrants identify these norms
by emphasizing their common cultural elements and their potentials rather than
racial and ethnic divisions and by adapting themselves to their collectively
generated and fused values over time.

Keywords

Selvon, Nation, Race, Britain, Caribbean, Immigrants, London

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