Shifting ideologies, social transformations: Black women's grass -roots organization, Thatcherism, and the flattening of the Left in Londo

This dissertation project is concerned with black women's grass-roots organizing in England from the 1960s until the present; specifically the political transformations of these organizations that occurred in the context of Britain's political economy. The project has two components. First, I review particular historical moments in Britain that have played a critical role in including and excluding individuals, nation-state formation, colonialism, and the patriarchal structure of the state, in order to understand the constructions of race, gender, class, and nation in the subsequent centuries. I also explore the importance of belonging, immigration and citizenship, in light of migration flows to and from the United Kingdom. This part of the dissertation enables us to better understand contemporary issues, movements, and processes outlined in the second half of the project.;In the second part of the dissertation I focus on the period between the 1960s to the present---years marked by radical political Left thought and activism at the level of the grass-roots and local government, as well as conservative retrenchment, Right-wing policy and the devolution of state welfare. I revisit the themes of race, nation, and identity and ask: how are these themes negotiated after the Second World War? What is the relationship between grass-roots activism and the state in the post-War era? How do conservative constructions of the nation affect black women's grass-roots activism? Specifically, how are black women's grass-roots organizations responding to the restructuring of the welfare state, and of the Labour government?;It is here that I document three overlapping phases of grass-roots activism and changing state policy. Phase one examines the period following World War II, one of mass migration from Britain's Commonwealth countries. Phase two, beginning in the late 1970s, covers the period known as Thatcherism. Phase three takes up the final period of activism during the post-Thatcher era.;All told, the dissertation addresses three simultaneous processes: (1) how women negotiate the complexities of race, class, gender, and identity; (2) the political transformations of black women's grass-roots organizations; and (3) shifts in Britain's political economy.